So here it is, this was me on Christmas 2017. 290lbs
With that being said I went to my first appointment- The Physical. Getting there I felt comfortable, other than the office being a little hard to find as that hospital is a little complicated. Once I got to the office everyone was so extremely nice.
There were over sized chairs and normal chairs. I can fit into a normal size chair but the arms do go into my thighs a bit. So I sat comfortably and didn't feel embarrassed about it.
I was taken back by nurse who had me get on a scale. This scale you walk up on, it has a ramp so no one has to step up. Now I am an active person. Yes sometimes lazy but I consider myself active so making that step up wouldn't have been a big deal for me but I could see how others may struggle with this depending on their size.
I consider myself to be an active person. In 2014/2015 year I ran 4 half marathons. One in every single season, starting with winter and I trained for them, I can remember the first time I ran 10 miles straight, i thought I might die about half way though but I did it. I also wasn't 290lbs at that point in life either. This picture was right after I had finished running my first 10 miles straight.
So back to the first appointment. I got on the scale and saw the number.. I let it brush off my shoulders and kept moving as I went and sat in a room waiting for the PA to show up. I had one member of my support system with me so that way we could talk about everything after and how i felt about it but my family still didn't know I was contemplating any of this because I was embarrassed about it.
The PA was extremely friendly, she went over all the normal things....
Family history, my health history, asking me a ton of questions like do i have any pain, or any pre-existing conditions, do I smoke or drink.. All things you get asked during a normal physical. They use this to see what kinds of testing you might need leading up to surgery. I feel like that appointment was one of the easiest. Then she gave me more information as well as a check list of all the appointments I would need to follow up with if I was really interested in pursuing this.
Sorry this picture is kind of big so you can see what I had to complete.
(I will break these all down and talk about them all in either this post or another one!!)
Which included; a Primary care referral form, blood tests which included what is under lab tests, an ultrasound of my abdominal area, I needed a form from my neurologist saying that i was clear to have surgery from her point of view, I needed to complete a sleep study, attend a nutrition seminar as well as meet with a dietation at least twice for her to clear me to be ready for surgery. Ohh and not listed is the fact that I had to met with a Psychiatrist to be cleared as well..
On top of all of that I was not allowed to gain any weight throughout the process of any of these appointments.
Needless to say after getting this list I was a little overwhelmed. But the next day I started making phone calls to make appointments, I called the sleep study place first because they said it would take at least a month to get an appointment and that it did.. It took two months. I scheduled my nutrition seminar and my abdominal ultra sound for the same day as they were both at the hospital.
Then it became a waiting game.. Appointments lined up on the calendar now just figure out how to not take all that time off of work but try to flex hours! Luckily I work at a college where I can do that! You'll hear more about my job soon or eventually if you keep reading?
If you have any questions what so ever, or maybe something you want to read about in my process of making these decisions please feel free to comment them or email me at jlpm0822@gmail.com