Kathy_B.

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I met with the program doctor and he has approved me for surgery.  Yahoo!!  I'm super excited, that's for sure.  He said I'm an excellent candidate given my history coupled with the fact that I don't have heart or kidney diseases.  So my next step is to wait for the pre-op classes to start, which will begin for me on January 20th.  Then, about a month before I'm done with the classes, I will be contacted by the surgeon to start the process of final tests, psych eval, ambulatory test, discussion of surgical options, etc.  Merry Christmas to me!

I am doing my surgery through Kaiser.  Down here where I live, there is a Kaiser clinic we go through for weight management programs called Positive Choice.  The doctor in charge of the clinic will be completing the final step of my evaluation tomorrow with me.  I believe I've passed through the initial stages with all the people I have been dealing with calling me a "bariatric patient".  I even had one of the nurses make a suggestion as to where I can get vitamins specifically designed for bariatric patients.  I think the doctor will be going over all of my test results and then talking to me about which surgical path we will be taking (bypass, sleeve or band).  I'm excited to be moving onward, but also anxious and nervous at the same time.  Hopefully he'll give me the green light to proceed to the next step, which I believe is the six month of pre-op classes.  Those start on January 20th.  I'm horrible with being patient!

I received a message today from Kaiser that my lab work did end up showing a vitamin D deficiency.  I was pretty surprised by that, but I do meet two of the symptoms: darker skin and lactose intolerance.  So I have six days of having to take 50,000 unit vitamin D pills.  That seems like a lot!  I'm sure they're just trying to quickly get me in the normal range.  Then after that, I have to add a vitamin D pill to my daily regimen.  I haven't been feeling the greatest, so maybe this is a contributing factor.  You never really know.

I had some medical tests yesterday - blood work, urine test, stool test and EKG.  These were ordered by the bariatric program.  Things are moving so quickly because I got a call today to schedule an appointment with the doctor.  That is the next step before then moving on to the six months of classes required through my insurance provider (Kaiser).  I'm so grateful that I'm continuing to make progress to the eventual surgery.  

I'm new here, so I thought I'd just jump in.  I do have a blog off-site that I started when I was on Optifast.  I do post my journey on there in more detail but I think checking in here as well will be a great tool for support.  I know this journey will require a lot of support.  I am going through Kaiser to do the surgery.  So far, I have gone to their orientation and a required Lifestyle & Weight Management class.  I have been notified that now I will need to do lab work, so that's on tap for tomorrow morning.  I heard that they take something like 20 vials of blood for the lab work.  Seems extreme so hope that's wrong.  I also have to give a urine sample, stool sample and do an EKG.  Whoever said this was an easy process obviously doesn't know what they're talking about and I've barely got my feet wet.