Lori S.

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Ok, I'd be lying if I didn't say I was getting a little bit nervous!  After all I've never had any kind of surgery before, I have all my original body parts!!  It's almost 10:30pm and I have the alarm set for 3:00am so I should probably try to get some sleep.  I'm tired but only because I haven't had anything but clear liquids today.  Thanks goodness Dr. Kam doesn't require a longer pre operative liquid diet phase!!  I'm off to bed now and the next time I post I will be a banded woman!!

I received a call today from my surgeons office, my surgery is scheduled for 6:00am on Oct 19th.  I'm the first one that day!!  Actually I have to be there at 6:00 am, I'm not really sure what time they will wheel me in the operating room.  Oh well, I'm really hoping that I won't have to stay the night.  It's getting closer but I'm not really nervous yet!

Today was my pre op appointment!  What a long long day.  I had to be at the Clinic at 7:30am which meant that I had to get up at 4:30am and be on the road by 5:30am.  It was a very dark and rainy morning and since I had only been to the clinic once before during the day it was a little harder to find.  But we got there with about 15 minutes to spare.  After  signing and in and giving the receptionist my drivers license and insurance cards I had to wait maybe 10 minutes.  I was then called back for a blood draw.  She took 5 or 6 maybe 7 vials of blood.  I hardly felt the poke and didn't feel the needle being pulled out at all.  Next was a 1 hour nutrition class.  She talked about how to read the nutrition label which I pretty much already knew how to do-- I just don't obviously.  She talked about portion sizes and she gave everyone a book.  There were two other women in the class with me both were having gastric bypass, I was the only lapband.  I didn't acutally get a book I got a notebook.  Inside on the cover sheet was my name and how many grams of protein I need to shoot for each day, how many grams of fat per meal and per day I need and how much water.  I need to read the notebook which I will probably tomorrow night.  After the class I was immediately called back for a chest X-ray and an ultra sound of my gall bladder.  Then the nurse asked me alot of questions on my health history and that of my immediate family, she took my blood pressure, took my temp- which I had a low grade fever and of course I had to get weighed.  By some miracle I hadn't gained any since I was there in August but I hadn't lost any either  A respitory therapist came in and gave me a EKG and then I had to take a deep breathe and force it all out into a tube and I had to keep exhaling until she told me to stop!  I did that I think 3 times.  She then gave me this plastic thing to take home.  6-8 times a day she wants me to put this tube into my mouth and inhale thru my mouth until it reaches 2500 on the monitor- this is not easy to do.  She said to do 15 reps each time!!   This should be really fun at work!  After that I had to talk to a Dr. I don't remember her name and she just listened to my heart and asked me alot of questions most of them where repeats of what the nurse had asked.  She went over all my labs and said everything looks good.  She said that the scheduler would be giving me a call Thursday with a surgery time.  I don't know if that will be this Thursday or next Thursday.  She also said that they try to schedule the LapBands for early in the moring since most of them are released later in the afternoon.  That's what I'm hoping for I'd rather not stay the night if I'm feeling up to leaving.

Since we ended up both driving (that is my husband went down as far as his parents on Saturday the 29th and I followed on Tuesday the 2nd) on our way home today we were about 20 miles from the Mackinac Bridge when I got a call on my cellphone from my husband telling me that he was having truck problems.  So I pulled into a rest stop and he pulled in a few minutes later.  He got out and looked the truck over and got underneath it to see if he could see anything obvious.  He didn't see anything so we decided that I would follow him in case he had anymore problems.  Well, his stupid vehicle is still at the rest stop!  He couldn't get it to move.  He thinks it might be the transmission!  What horrible timing!!!
We stopped at the State Police post in St. Ignace and the officer was nice enough to tell us of a place in Cheybogan who was reliable and fair( I hope that there fair even if your not a cop)  Since it was late, the place was already closed for the day.  Tomorrow my husband is going to have to get up early to take me to work then call this place to see if they can tow it to there shop or reccommend someone( we know absolutely no one there)  I hope and pray that it's not the transmission and if it is that it doesn't cost and arm and a leg.  I guess we'll find out soon enough.

I'm not sure who at Dr. Kam's office called me but I did finally get a call!!  My surgery date is Oct. 19th- the time is to be determined later.  My pre op visit is Oct 3rd!  I'm either going to take off Oct 2nd or only work part of the day since my appointment is at 7:30am!!  My hubby and I will travel as far as my parents- about 4 1/2 hours on the 2nd and then the rest of the way about 1 1/2 hours to the clinic on the 3rd.  I can't hardly wait to be banded!!  The only thing I remember her saying is nothing to eat after midnight on the 2nd and to not take any tylenol, advil, motrin before.  Hopefully, this will be as smooth as everything else so far. 

We'll I finally got a call today from Dr. Kam.  He said that he signed off my chart so now I can be scheduled for surgery!!  We spoke for a few minutes.  He told me that he would be leaving the Barix Clinic on Nov 30 because his wife was offered a job in Traverse City.  He will start his new job( doing WLS ) at Munson in January.   He said that he would not be scheduling any surgery after Nov 15th because he didn't feel like it would be ethical for him to do the surgery and not be around for at least the 2 week post op appointment.  I should be hearing from Tracy tomorrow, Wednesday at the latest with a surgery date.  I mentioned to him that I already have some time off the week of Oct. 14th and he didn't think there would be a problem getting it done then.  My surgery date will either be Oct 16th or 17th!! ( Dr. Kam only does surgery on Tuesdays and Wednesdays)  I hope Tracy calls me tomorrow so I know for sure!!!!!!

It's been a week since the surgeons office called me and told me that I had been approved by my insurance and I still don't have a date!!  I called today to see where they were in the process.  Because my surgeon is leaving the practice in Dec.  he is personally calling each of his upcoming patients before they are given a date to talk to them and explain about his leaving and why and to give them the option to use a different surgeon.  Normally I would think WOW what a nice guy!   But since I already know he is leaving and I don't care to use a different doctor for the surgery, I wish they would just give me a date already!!!  Ok, I'm done venting- I feel better!  The receptionist- who by the way deserves a big fat raise- said that I should hear something tomorrow and if I didn't I could call her back Friday.  So..  I'll call her on Friday unless I hear from the Dr!!

August 10th had my first meeting with Dr. Kam.  He was nice and very straight forward-not quite what I expected but like him all the same.  I feel very confident with my decision to move forward with the LapBand procedure and with Dr. Kam doing the surgery.  I left his office with 4 things that I would need to do prior to getting surgery.  First was the easiest- get an EKG which I did on August 14th.  Second, get a letter and referral paper work filled out by my primary care doctor.  Since I had talked to her before meeting with Dr Kam there really wasn't any problem getting this paper work from her-it just took a little longer than I anticipated.  Last was the psych evaluation.  I called for an appointment on Aug 13th but wasn't able to get a date until Aug 27th.  What I thought would be one visit turned out to be two.  My second appointment was on Aug 31st.  At that time the psych doctor told me that I would be a good candidate for surgery and that he would try to get my letter done that weekend, which just happened to be Labor Day weekend.  Needless to say he didn't get it done then but a week later.  They faxed me a copy of my test results and the letter recommending surgery on Sept 10.  I then faxed my copy to the surgeons office then called them to make sure they got it.  They did!!  It was about 4pm on the 10th and Dr Kam's office said to give it a day or two and then I should be hearing something from them.  Well exactly 2 days later on Sept 12th ( not even full days) I received a call saying that my insurance approved me!!!!!  I am so excited!!!!  There office said to give it another day or two and the scheduler would be contacting me with a surgery date!!!  I should have a date by Friday!!!