Moving Beyond Mere Talk

After our discussion in bed that night I called a local clinic that specializes in weight loss surgery to figure out exactly what it is that I have to do.  They said I have to attend a seminar held once or twice a month in my area.  I can't say that this thrilled me all that much.  I've wanted to keep my interest in this on the down low and somehow sitting in a room with a bunch of other fat people just didn't sound all that appealing.  I signed up anyway and took my wife with me so I wouldn't be answering a bunch of question when I got home.

The lady presenting the seminar was a nurse who worked at the clinic, but she was also a patient, having had the Lap band surgery approximately 3 years prior.  She'd lost about 80 pounds and looked pretty good.  She gave us info on three separate procedures, two of which I was familiar with and another which is relatively new.  First, she talked about the Lap Band system.   After that, she talked about Gastric Bypass.  Even when I started thinking about doing this I just couldn't bring myself to do the Gastric Bypass.  First of all, it's about five thousand dollars more than the Lap Band.  Secondly, Gastric Bypass means exactly that: not only do they staple shut the large section of your stomach, they also cut apart and reattach a large section of your colon/intestine.  That causes malabsorption of nutrients and makes you lose weight even faster.  That just seemed a little too scary for me.

Finally, she told us about something called a "sleeve gastrectomy."  This procedure is more invasive than the Lap Band but not nearly as radical as the Gastric Bypass.  In a sleeve gastrectomy, they basically cut out the lower "pouch" end of your stomach then sew it up to form a "sleeve" shape.  The woman presenting that night said this was a relatively new procedure and it fell somewhere between the Lap Band and the Gastric Bypass.  She also said that if she had it to do over again, she'd have gotten the sleeve gastrectomy.  It costs only slightly more than the Lap Band but you lose weight faster and you don't have the constant adjustments, etc., that ou get with the Lap Band.  The one draw back is that, unlike the Gastric Bypass and the Lap Band, the sleeve is not reversible. 

I'm not sure when I decided, but sometime a couple of weeks after the seminar, I decided to have the sleeve gastrectomy rather than the Lap Band.  I'm not sure why I've made that decision, but I'm comfortable with it.

One of the interesting things about this process is the very different views my wife and I have of it.  We are both scared, but we are scared by different things.  Frankly, the only thing that really scares me about the whole deal is the money.  This a pricey procedure and I'm self insured, which means I pay this one out of pocket.  We have a decent savings, but this is going to put a real dent in it. 

On the other hand, my wife is really worried about me dying on the table (or shortly thereafter) from some complication or other.  The statics are really against it, but that is her fear.  Of course, her other fear is that I'll drop dead of a heart attack next weeks so in some sense it is six of one, half a dozen of the other.   Strangely enough, I've never worried about the remote possibility of dying.  Perhaps that speaks to the desperation that people who are overweight, and have been overweight all their lives, can feel.  I've known women who were really overweight who secretly prayed to get cancer just so they'd lose weight.  It's hard to imagine that sort of desperation and, yes, self-loathing.  But I suspect that everyone who is morbidly obese really dislikes themselves to some degree or another.  Personally, I've never gotten to the point of wishing cancer on myself, but the fact is that I can understand how it gets to that point. 

Anyway, after attending the seminar, I signed up online for my appointment with the doctor.  They called me a couple of days later and got me set up for an appointment.

I ought to point out that even tough this weight loss clinic advertises their services fairly heavily around the state, the seminar I attend and the subsequent visit with the doctor both made me feel like they were trying to talk me out of it!  They kept going off about all the potential complications and horrible things that could go wrong.  I realize that they are just covering their asses, but it was still a little disheartening.  One thing they kept pointing out is that, even with the surgery, it's still possible to fail.  Apparently, some folks can eat themselves right out of a Gastric Bypass.  My wife said that even Al Roker on the Today Show has regained some weight, though I caught it one morning before work and he looked pretty good to me still. 

At any rate, we've just come upon my biggest "fear" in this whole thing. That I'll be the one to fail even with the surgery.  That I'll be weak and just fail.  I mean, let's face facts here, I'm in this position because in 39 years of living I've haven't shown myself to be particularly adept at self control in this particular area.  Now, they are talking about how I'm going to have to change my whole life around.  I keep telling myself I'm ready to do that, and I think I am.  But at the same time I have to admit that in some quiet moments I get some pretty good size waves of self doubt breaking over me. 

Part of that doubt is fueled by the fear, not of losing food per se, but of the rituals that I've built up around food over the years.  The Superbowl parties with the wings and the nachos.  Going to the Japanese grill with my wife on Friday nights.  The part of me that anticipates and craves food has built up these rituals that go with it, and I'm going to miss those because I think they have to change. 

My wife has mentioned several times over the past couple of months that she thinks I'm going to "replace" food with something.  In other words, food has played a larger roll in my life than merely providing sustenance.  It has provided comfort, and relaxation, and release.  It's even provided a little excitement and anticipation.  I see what see means about replacing that with something else, but I'm not sure how that's done or what I do it with.  However, I told her that she'd better be ready because right now I'm considering replacing it with sex and so I'll need her to be available about 2 to 3 times a day.  I don't think she thought that was funny. I'm not sure I was kidding.

Oh, and the doctor's visit.  I drove up to Salt Lake and immediately got lost and went to the wrong building.  No biggie.  First thing, they put us in another group meeting.  This time, the lady we met with first was  a dietitian.  She was good and very reassuring.  She made sound like it wasn't quite as hard as I thought it might be.  It  was in this meeting that I actually saw how much hope  this procedure can  bring to some people  thought.  Off to my right was a young lady; she had to be in early twenties at most. And quite frankly, she was beautiful.  Long, blond hair, gorgeous face, etc.  Probably she probably weighed about as much as me and probably has for many, many years.  And I could just see on her face how ready she was for that part of her life to be over.  She, like me, was simply tired of it.  She'd just gotten there 20 years sooner than I had. And hey, good for her!

The rest was just meeting with the insurance lady, the psychologist (I guess they only want sane people getting this operation), and the office manger.  At this point, the whole thing started to get very "real" because that's when they started asking me to pay money.  Once you start opening the old wallet, you've kind of locked yourself in.  So, I walked out that day with firm date for my surgery:  January 11, 2010.   I'll be 40 years old.