Informational Meeting

Every bariatric doctor requires that you attend an informational seminar before you can make an appointment with him/her. About 4 years ago AR and I attended one, well sort of. We went to the meeting. We filled out a TON of information and then we went into this room filled with a hundred people. It was so crowded that we could not even sit together. Before the meeting even began, AR signaled to me that he wanted to leave. We left.

He said he was looking around the room and just did not want to be there with all of those people. That night we went online and ordered food from Nutri-system. We did pretty well with that plan too, but it was very expensive to buy the food. It wouldn't have been so bad if we were just buying the Nutri-system food, but we still had to buy all the fruits and veggies that were needed to supplement the NS food. We stopped buying the food. We got fat again.

Fast forward to July 2006. AR wanted to look into weight loss surgery again. He did all of this research to find the best place and the best doctor. He scheduled an informational meeting for August, and he wanted me to go with him. Okay, I figured I would go to support him and to listen to the info that they would tell us about the surgery. I've been thinking about this anyway for the past year. In my mind, I had figured that I would do the lap band surgery. My recollection was that the death rate & complications were less.

The meeting was held in the waiting room of the doctor. You know, it really isn't a good idea to squeeze 30 fat people needing weight loss surgery into a tiny room. There was barely room to breathe. We were packed in pretty tightly. I wanted to sit in the front row so I could get a good look at whatever it was that we were going to see.

This was the first time I saw Dr. Bypass. He is tall and has blondish/gray hair. He wore a crazy pinstripe suit. The lapels were pretty wide and so was the pinstripe. He looked, I don't know, eccentric. He also had an assistant with him. I have seen the assistant on three separate occasions and this kid has never said a word. He just follows Dr. Bypass around holding a cup of coffee, but says nothing. I am not sure of what he actually does. Anyway, his assistant was there.

Dr. Bypass is very passionate about his work. He started explained how both surgeries worked. He explained that the death rate is the same for both. Both are done laproscopically. They both have risk of complications. People who have the lap band do not lose as much weight as those who have the bypass. It is possible to achieve similar weight loss with the lap band, but that requires a deep determination by the patient to work out vigorously.

While Dr. Bypass was drawing how he re-routes the intestines for the bypass, AR leaned over and said he would be back, and left. I figured he had to go to the bathroom. When he came back, his face was pale. I asked if he was okay, and he said yes.

He went on to describe the benefits of the surgery too. Most diabetics leave the hospital no longer needing any medication. You reduce risk factors for contracting various cancers, as well as reducing chance of heart attacks and strokes.

How well you will fare in your weight loss has been tied to how well you follow doctor's instructions and how often you see him for follow up visits. He does not charge a fee for follow up visits. His studies have shown that patients who do not follow through with office visits, gain weight back. A patient has to commit to seeing him One week after surgery, two weeks, after surgery, three weeks, four weeks, once a month for the first year, every three months for the second year and twice a year for the third year. He will tell you at every visit how well you are doing, if you need to change the path you are on to meet your goals, if you need the lap band adjusted etc...People who do not follow up, do not fare well.

Dr. Bypass requires that you have all of this bloodwork done to see what you pre-surgery levels are of everything that you can imagine. The list of things the lab had to test for was so long, it filled two prescription pad pages. Patients also need to see a nutritionist, have a psychological evaluation by a psychiatrist, get an EKG and a chest x-ray, all before you can make an appointment to see him. After the meeting, the receptionist handed out booklets that had all the information for what we needed to do.

While waiting for the elevator to take us down to the garage, AR asked me what I thought. I was pretty excited by everything I heard. I said I wanted to do it. He said that he didn't want to do it! Two completely different reactions to the same information. When AR left the meeting, he went to throw up. He said he was disturbed by the graphic illustration of the surgery. I said not only did I want to do it, but that I wanted the bypass and not the lap band.

It was ironic. I was really only going to this meeting to support AR and then he decided he wasn't going to do it and I decided that I was. AR is frightened at the thought of surgery. He doesn't handle pain too well. He sees how determined I am now and fully supports me. Now he is talking about maybe doing the lap band surgery. As long as I don't croak, I'm pretty sure he'll do it.