Last Friday, Friday the 13th no less, I had my psych exam. I arrived at the office and was escorted into the psychologist waiting room and handed a clipboard with paperwork to fill out. That paperwork was a series of 50 "complete the sentence" questions. The questions ranged from how is my marriage, to self esteem and self image. Once I was done writing my answers I went in and talked with the psychologist. He was a personable man and we chatted about what my expectations were, what my background was and what support I have for this process. All in all it appeared to be a good meeting. I found out that he was also a bariatric surgery patient and had his surgery about 11 years ago. He shared some insight of what to expect and reaffirmed that surgery is not the easy way out. It still takes work but it is a worthwhile tool.
Once the appointment was over I found out that it will take him about a week to get my report done and over to the Dr. group. Hopefully once they have it I will get a surgery date. If I don't hear from them by next Monday or Tuesday I will be calling to follow up and see where we are. I know that at my first appointment the coordinator said it would probably be about 2 months from that day, which puts us into the middle of March. As I've said before, if they say we have an opening for tomorrow I'm there!
Until then I'm starting to alter the way that I eat. I know that I practically inhale food when I eat. I am trying to be mindful to slow down, put my fork down between bites and chew my food completely. I also started sipping my water more. I need to start setting a timer as the goal is to consume about 1oz. of water every 15 minutes throughout the day. The other thing that I started yesterday is not drinking with my meals for at least 30 minutes before and after. That one is a challenge but I am going to continually work at it. One other thing that the psychologist suggested is to start exercising more now. I'm going to make a good effort to do that. Walking more is going to be my next goal.
Also I wanted to thank my wife Heather for her support. I know this isn't an easy process for her emotionally and eventually physically. She has been doing a blog posting every Wednesday with her point of view on the whole process. Her blog can be viewed at http://peanutandchicken.blogspot.com.
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