Monday, September 29, 2008

I GOT MY EFFING DATE!!!

YES! High five! I got my date!! It is Thursday October 2nd and I couldn't be happier! I was nervous when they first called and told me, but as the day has gone on I have been feeling more and more excited. Not so nervous now... YIPPEE!!

I'll write more later...

Friday, September 26, 2008

...Still Waiting...

So...This has been the most tedious and annoying thing that I have had to deal with besides living as a fat person. I had my last pulmonary appointment last week and called Snyder's office on Tuesday to see if they had received any of the results (wishful thinking I guess). I was told no, so I decided to call the pulmonary doctor's office to see if I could give 'em a little nudge... I found out they LOST part of my test results!!! Let's just say I was seeing a little more than red during that conversation. UGH! So after talking myself down from killing everyone within a 3000 mile radius, I realized that it wasn't done on purpose and I would have to wait a bit longer. The hospital called a little later on that day to schedule a "make-up test". They told me that the next available appointment they had was the following day (Wednesday) at 9:30 AM. I took it, because I wanted to get it out of the way as soon as possible (to move things along as fast as I can). I thought it wouldn't be a problem with my job to leave for a couple of hours and just use vacation time. I knew it would be "unexcused" since I didn't give them 24 hours notice (like I give a shit about their stupid "unexcused" crap!!! What am I in elementary school again?!). I went into work the next day and told my boss that I had gone to have a breathing test last Friday and had to make up a test that they had lost the results too(at 6:00 in the morning, so they knew as early as possible) and asked if it would be cool. She started to tell me that it probably wouldn't be since I work 4 10's and am not able to make up and time. I told her that I didn't plan on making it up and just wanted to use vacation time. She told me that she didn't think it would be possible still. I told her that if I had to get a note from the doctor I would (I don't take advantage of calling in sick or coming in late to work EVER, so I didn't get what the problem was! I STILL don't as I am typing this blog!!) She said she would have to talk to our unit manager and see if it would be OK...............Let me repeat myself, she had to ask someone else if it was OK.......AREN'T YOU MY F*CKING BOSS BITCH!? SIGH!!! So, long story short, the unit manager said it was fine and I went to the appointment. It still pisses me off and it is now FRIDAY! Whatever!

So I called the pulmonary doctor to see the results and they said they hadn't received the results yet.....The medical center I had to go to to have the tests done is DOWN THE STREET from my doctor!!!! They knew I was ANNOYED, so they said they could just print them out from the web and if they were normal results would fax it over to Snyder's office today. Unfortunately Dolly isn't in the office today and she is the one that schedules the surgeries. I have to wait until Monday afternoon to actually get it (HOPEFULLY!!). I am calling first thing Monday morning to get my date because I am no longer taking my blood pressure medication, anti-depressant, or birth control pills and in the last week alone have gained 7 POUNDS! Coming off the anti-depressants have made me eat EVERYTHING in sight!!! I swear!!

So...Now back to what I have been doing for 3, almost 4 months.....Waiting.....

Thursday, September 18, 2008

WOW!

My last pulmonary appointment is tomorrow...I can't believe it! This is the last hoop I have to jump through before I am actually given a surgery date. I hope they get all the test back quick, so they can schedule me in quick! I have never been so excited and yet so scared at the same time before! Well, I probably have, but not like this.

I want it to be October 3rd, that is my day off that I have during the week (I work 4x10's now) and I wouldn't have to take any time for that day. I have a really good feeling that it will work out that way for me. :) It is just a gut feeling... I also applied for short term disability so I can take off a total of 2 weeks from work. I only have about 50 hours of vacation time, so after that is burned up, I am pretty much screwed. My work is VERY strict about our time and not very flexible at all with schedule changes or leaving early without prior notice. They also don't like you to take time off unpaid, they pretty much shit a brick last year when I had knee surgery and took 2 weeks (1 week vacation and 1 week unpaid). Whatever, they are douche bags.

I got my POA all hammered out and my living will, so now I just need to have 2 people who know me, but aren't related to me or going to receive anything from me (like an inheritance) legally. I don't know who and the hell will do that, since most people at my work really don't like me. I think because I am shy and keep to myself (that is until I get to know you, then you can't shut me up! Ha-ha!) that I am rude or stuck up. Whatever, I can't worry about that stuff anymore, I have spent so much of my life doing that and look where it has got me. It is time to worry and work on myself.

Thinking about getting healthier kind of has awakened a feeling inside me that I am getting excited to have a kid. Probably still not for a few years, but I really haven't felt like this about having my own kids before. I mean, I have pretty much always known I wanted to have a kid/kids, but now I can feel it on the inside, like an emotion sort of. It probably doesn't make sense. Ha-ha! It does to me and that is what matters most.

So, I have to something off of my chest, because it is literally eating me alive on the inside. I have a friend that over the past year or two has become an alcoholic. She too has had WLS, but she had the RNY. She has been pretty successful with her weight loss and has only gained a minuscule amount back. She has been drinking wine like nobodies business and not only does it have empty calories it is also very high in sugar (which if you know how RNY works, would know that eating or drinking sugar can cause what is known as "dumping syndrome" where you basically get VERY sick, feel like complete shit, and throw whatever you ate/drank back up). There is no nutrition value at all in wine and I really want get to be 100% sober. She called me tonight and told me that today was her 3rd day sober and even though her bariatric surgeon recommended she go to AA meetings, she wants to "do it on her own" which to me sounds like the addiction talking and making her think she can "control" her drinking (now lets be honest, if she could control it, she wouldn't be an alcoholic to begin with, but whatever!). She did tell me that she spoke with her husband and he said she could have a drink tomorrow night......Did you just read what I f*cking typed, A DRINK! HELLO!! If it were that easy, there wouldn't be programs like AA, rehab, etc... The thing that worries me most is that her parents are/were alcoholics and they struggled for YEARS with drinking (which coincidentally enough were also wine drinkers) and lived most of their grand kid's lives as drunks. I think that is something that they truly regret, because you never get that time back. Well, I told her I would go with her to an AA meeting, but she said that everyone was saying things that were too depressing and she didn't want to me around that crap. SIGH! I don't know what else to do about it, I know one thing for sure though, I truly hope I don't change my addiction to something else like she did (from food to smoking and drinking). I guess only time will tell.

I'll write more tomorrow and let you know how the appointment goes.

My Final Test...

Hi, so today I had my final pulmonary appointment. It SUCKED!!! It was a breathing test and I had to do it in some sort of a pulmonary chamber, which is basically a box that you sit in and can see out 360 degrees. I am still not sure why I had to sit in there to do the breathing test, but whatever! So the tests sucked!! I had to put a mouthpiece in that was connected to a breathing tube which was also connected to the techs computer. I had to breathe normally with nose plugs on and then she would make this thing close the tube off and I would basically not be able to breathe for 2 seconds. This was done to measure the amount of space and pressure in my lungs. Then I had to empty out my lungs completely (and she made me PUSH!), which was so hard because it felt like I didn't have anymore air. So after pushing everything out, I then had to take a deep breath in and then push it out really fast, again emptying the crap out of my lungs. I had to do that 6 times! Then, they gave me one of the asthma medications and made me do it again 4 more times as well as 2 more tests where I had to hold my breath. This was done to see if the asthma medicine had any affect on my lungs and surprisingly it did! She said I took in more air and I could even notice that I could breathe better too. So I don't know if that means I have asthma or not. I guess I will find out soon enough.

I hope Dr. Snyder's office calls me here very soon to schedule my surgery date. I am just stuck on October 3rd, so I really hope I get that.

Well, I will write more later on.

Saturday, September 13, 2008

Pulmonary Appointment Part I

So, I went to the pulmonology appointment yesterday and had an echo-cardiogram done as well as a bubble test. All the tests were basically to make sure my heart is healthy and could handle surgery. The technician who was performing the tests told me that "unofficially" my heart looked really good. That gave me a lot of relief, especially since I have the high BP thing, that always worries me that I will have a heart attack really young.

Having a heart attack is a scary thought, but at least I am being proactive and trying to do something about it. The last thing I want to worry about when we do have kids is if I am going to survive until their graduation or until they have kids.

I went to a support group meeting today and met a bunch of other people that already have the band. They had some good words of advise for me as well as showed me that having this surgery isn't the end of eating. I hope that by the time the next support group happens I have my surgery date. I have another pulmonary appointment next Friday and this is the last tests I have to do before I can get my surgery date. I am going to call Dr. Snyder's office next week to find out what I have to do after the last appointment.

It's my birthday today so now I am pretty much old. HAHAHAHA!! Ok, I will type more later on when I know more.