Meet with Dr. Woodman

Today I went to my first pre-surgery office visit. First let me give a little background to what is going on. This past summer I signed up for a gastric balloon surgery study. If you haven't figured out I'm overweight. I thought why not I probably won't get chosen. My two best friends also signed up, I mean they can't do something without me I might miss something. . I'm not sure how many people signed up but they were only going to take 24 people for the study, I thought this is a safe bet, I'll never get picked. I guess God had a different plan for me, yes you guessed it I was chosen along with both my friends. Yeah, I think.

My appointment was at 11:00 am and I couldn't eat, drink or take my medicine after midnight. This was somewhat a problem since I'm addicted to Diet Coke and barely can make it without one. When I arrived they gave me a specimen cup to leave, yeah right, like I can pee. Did they forget we hadn't drank since the night before. I went to the bathroom and sat to my surprise it didn't take very long. I returned to the front desk with my specimen cup and in exchange for the cup I got about 200 pages of paperwork to fill out. I sat down and thought how in the world am I going to fill all this out, I haven't had my ADHD medicine. I'm sure all my answers would be different if I filled it out again after my meds. Oh well, it's done. Sometime in the midst of all the paperwork Dr. Woodman came in and spoke to us. First he locked the office door. I thought oh my gosh what have I signed up for. I guess he didn't want to be interrupted. He proceeded to explain this surgery had never been done in the United States, but had been done over 100,000 times overseas. We would be the first to get this in the United States, he assured us we weren't human dummies, but it sure sounded like it. He then told us how the surgery alone wouldn't make us lose weight, that proper diet and exercise is the only thing that will make you lose weight , this was only a tool to make it easier. I sure hope that's true since I've tried every diet known to mankind. We were then called back one by one to be weighed and measured. This is when it got interesting. I weighed in at 232.5 and measured 5'2, the lady figured my BMI on the calculator and it was 42. Big problem, you see to be in the study your BMI has to be between 30-40, so she looked and me and said your not going to like this but take your shoes and pants off and let's weigh again. I said whatever I need to take off is fine with me, you see I had to get within the range. I said a little prayer and away I went to the scales again, this time weighing in at 230.8 which put me right at a 40 BMI. I was then taken to another office where my labs were going to be drawn, and of course this was a ordeal as well. She couldn't find a good vein in the left arm so we moved to the right arm, she thought she found one so in with the needle after a little digging around no blood. Next we moved to the wrist on the left arm, she got a vein but the blood flowed very slow. We filled what seemed like 50 tubes and was done. I thought I did very well since I HATE NEEDLES. Next I was off to meet with the nutritionist. Boy does she have her work cut out with me. She told us we would be on clear liquid diet for the first 3 days and then we move to a full liquid diet for days 4-7. I didn't know there was a difference between clear liquid and full liquid, they both sound horrible. She said we would meet back with her after day seven and she would give us a new diet for the next week. Wow I can't wait. Oh by the way after my blood was drawn I did open a diet coke that was in my purse and down it. I was starting to feel a little better. We were almost done, all I had left was giving my history and I could go eat. When I left the nutritionist office I stepped into the hall to smell some really good food, I said someone is about to get tackled. The nurse just laughed, and then told me by the way your blood clumped up so we have to redraw your blood. We then went into the vein on my right hand and it worked really well. I was then given my next two appointments, one to a psychologist and the other for a upper GI. After about 2 1/2 hrs I was finally walking to my car. The only thing I could think about was what I was going to eat , that might be a sign.