maureen A.

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Last night I went to my surgeon's weight loss seminar with my friend Karen. Karen is well over 300 pounds and close to 65 years old. She's 15 years older than me but we hang. I love her dearly. If Karen dosent have this she will probably die. I f Karen does have this she might die then I'm directly responsible.

Please my Yams don't try and change my mind on this. I will be responsible. I so feel it. She is the very first person I have actually taken by the hand and lead the way. I am sure that I have referred many I don't even know their names. From the first I have touted this surgery and let my doctors name drop all over the place. ..BUT>

I have never taken anyone to a seminar I have never told anyone else to drink the KoolAid.. ( or in this case the Crystal Light)..

anyway.. I am getting off track. Okay. Besides dealing emotionally with going with my friend. I'm walking in there last night thinking Man I feel good I look good and Karen don't let me cry I have to keep up this whole tough girl persona around all these people.

 

We went in and then they came. The seats started filling up with the morbidly obese. And filling up and filling up... The room that I had been in a year and a half ago and sweated my way through was ice cold. I noticed that 'they'.. the skinny people the doctor and staff must set it cold so that when you get 40 obese people in one room it doesn't smell. The things you notice now... I wanted to cry.

 

I crossed my legs and pulled my jacket tighter. Who am I? I thought.  what a world. Where do belong?..  I wrapped my arm around my friend Karen and waited. We went through 2 and half hours of both surgeries, corny jokes told by a charming guy. It was like taking a refresher course for me. Man..

I sat there with my 'before' pictures out waiting for someone to ask me to see them. This was a shy group. I would have latched on that thin person a year and half ago and asked "did you have the surgery"?.. Maybe They didn't think I was thin enough. Wait this wasn't about me.. Not everything is I reminded myself.  A hard reminder after all this.

Somewhere in to his talk the Doctor looked at me with curious eyes. He new me and he didn't know me. I haven't been much to the support groups. Then he looked right at me and said some of us here are not here for surgery. I blinked and blurted out and some of us already had it with you. Then I guess it hit him.. maybe he recognized Me.. My name? Nah.. that was not gonna happen. He didn't have clue as what My name was...
It's not his fault really I never made it a point after the first 2 or 3 times to attend his groups.. I didn't want to hear about the atrocity's of eating a half a bagel by 50 hungry people. especially when I just ate one. And I didn't want to be hypnotized by his therapist who took too long to make any points with me... I just wanted at the time to go home come in every 6 months or so and work my own program. And that's what I did.

So when I show up a year and half later, 150 pounds lighter should he greet me like a lover lost? Yeah I thought so. I am so self obsessed.

 

After the seminar I guess I corned him. In my mind I still have all my bulk all that fat making me more than I am in a way.. enough to keep a person in a room surely. Almost he was slipping by me before I could make my statement to him.. How was he getting by me? I looked down.. Oh. He just went around me... I think at this point I could have used a Valium. I felt twinkly.. like deejay.

 

I'll just add here that I did speak to him about my quest to find a plastic surgeon who yada yada yada I'm making myself nauseous takes insurance... .. I did my whole spiel.. I will come to every seminar I will come to every support group.. just help me with this... He looked at me like I was from another planet.

Did I mention that during the seminar he mentioned compliancy, I said aloud I have been compliant with everything . He said aloud "you don't even have to say it, they can look at you and see it.." .. to me that was a great compliment.  I sound so attention starved when in reality I'm not at all. .. back to the end we walked outside Doctor and I and he pointed over to a group of people talking in the parking lot. He said" look, isn't it marvelous how they talk to each other afterwards?".. .. Yes it was great. get back to me. get back to me. we walked back inside together.. I followed him into his office.. I was beginning to feel like a stalker when he turned around and said.. "can't you come up with five thousand dollars?" For five thousand Doctor Yakamaka or whatever name he said could "do you". "Just stop shopping and save up". That's what he said. .. that's when I walked out. This is my body. I will figure this out. I think I had enough of this obsession... maybe not. probably not I never learn lessons the first time around... that's my story. For Now. Mo

 

Peace, Love & Mo

Early this morning I dressed with care. Watchful how every crease of my pants fell. I groomed and prepped.. sat at my kitchen table and wrote my list of questions and whatever I thought to discuss with the almighty Dr. Wizman Bariatric genius.. I got to the office a half hour before appointed time. Thought to myself how well this doctor manages to have those of us post-op enough to look fit and trim arrive in time to be seated with those pre-ops who are ever hopeful and full of doubt. And then in I walk as his own personal testament to how wonderful he and this surgery of ours truly is. Oh, and I did my part I showed my before picture around and talked of how I have had no serious or non-serious complications. Of how life is now truly grand... And then they called me in....

Doctor is not in today I was told. Everyone new and old patients are being seen by his associate a new comer to the practice... So I went along in .. what was going to do leave? Reschedule? I figured I had already done my whole act in the waiting room I might as well get something out of this visit... I was prepared.. I was weighed.. labs were gone over.. And low and behold I was the ideal WLS veteran. No shit Doc. But whajagonnadoformenow? Now that I have lost 150 pounds.. And have feel like a sack of skin? Are you going to tell me of a Plastic Surgeon YOU recommend who can make me feel like this whole process has been completed? Can you assist me like I just assisted you in your waiting room for one hour? Can you give me more than "Come to my support group meeting where I can show you to all my Bariatric hopefuls?.. One hand washes the other I told the associate of my doc's and when you speak to him later give him that message from me... That was my visit.

 

Don't get me wrong, I will be forever grateful for his expertise as far as the surgery itself it's the after care the excess skin after treatment that is lacking. And they know it. The minute I mentioned it the lack of Plastic Doctors who will take any kind of insurance they simply nod their collective head. From the girls working behind the desk to this new young associate they have heard it before. Each one of us goes into this surgery so hopeful for a good outcome to lose the weight to feel better about ourselves. But how good can you feel when you have to push your skin into a pair of tight stretchy girdle like things to stop the skin from flapping?.. One stop shopping would be ideal I told them today. Go see your Bariatric surgeon after a year then move on down the hall to the Plastic Surgeons offices who works with patients and takes insurance. Oh, and on the way out stop at the little Protein packed vitamin/food store that also just down the hall... sound's like something out of the future.. but it's coming. It's probably going on in places, at Bariatric enters right now. Just not at mine. When I left today I made sure to let them how I feel. Said I would be back tomorrow with my friend Karen for her first Seminar on Lap Band. ( another referral from me to him).. And I said I would also return for the end of month support group he holds. .. My intention is to go there and bring this subject up again in a room full of post-ops who are a year out and see what reaction I get. Even if the cards play out this way: I never get a abdominoplasty I never get the skin taken care of. for whatever reason. Maybe just maybe I will give these doctors some food for thought and sometime in the future when someone else comes to them and asks them to help with after care pertaining to loose skin there will be an answer and the answer might be "oh! just let me introduce you to my associate down the hall".. yep.. in an ideal world.... mo

 

Peace, Love & Mo