Well, today Ben and I went up to Minneapolis to Abbott Northwestern Hospital for my meeting with the Nutritionist and for my surgeon consultation.
First off, we were up at 6am and arrived with only 3 minutes to spare. Traffic was somewhat congested on 35W North so it took a little patience. We checked in and then went up to the 3rd floor. The Nutritionist, Liz, was ready for us right away. She went over a lot of different things nutritionally (dur) and vitamins. I will need to go shopping for vitamins this weekend or at least very soon to get a head start on that. I was weighed at 271 pounds which is 9 pounds down from what I weighed at my dietitian appointment back on February 18. My height is 5’ 2 ¼” tall. Haha I’m growing! They actually measured and weighed me twice because it didn’t cross my mind to tell the nurse that I had already been weighed and measured! Oops. They also took some “Pre-Op” photos.
We waited in the consult room for an hour before Dr. Drew made it to the room. It was somewhat boring and I really really wished I had brought a bottle of water. After 60 minutes of waiting he arrived and we went through the horse-and-pony show of questions. I answered ‘no’ to more questions than ‘yes’ and he said that [aside from my morbid obesity] I’m pretty healthy. He did the physical exam and said that I’m a good candidate for laparoscopic RNY. He explained how they used to do the procedure, how they do it now. He was very thorough in explaining risks and complications of the surgery whether it’s laparoscopic or open procedure.
So what is there left to do? I need to get my labs done which I’m doing tomorrow morning – nothing but water after 8:30pm tonight! I also need my therapist to get his psych eval submitted. I called the office and she found out that he’s just waiting to get the test results back from dictation. Hopefully they are submitted this week. I double checked the fax number they had and Eeek they had the wrong fax number! In fact, they had the phone number instead. Whoops!
So hopefully in a week my paperwork can be submitted for insurance approval and then hopefully at least 2 weeks after that I’ll have a date. I’d at least like to have a surgery date scheduled by the end of April. That’s where I’m at right now.