A whole year of preparations

Once I was approved and embarked on the program, I started to undergo the appointments with the specialists to make sure I was progressing reasonably and prepare myself for the surgery day. All in all it took a whole year. It started in spring 2021 (still pandemic situation) and my surgery day was April 11, 2022. A funny coincidence, a week before my birthday. I always say that it was the best present they have ever given me.

I will group the appointments according to the specializations as it is clearer to explain.

Nutritionist

This one was the hardest for me. I did my homework before, so I kinda knew what I was heading into, but it was still difficult. I was used to crazy diets, starvation, and then overeating; my relationship with food was questionable and it was a real love-hate relationship. I had no idea what to eat, food was my enemy and I had a very distorted view of what I should be eating and what not.

I spent a whole year adjusting portions, size of them, amount of protein, and carbs, and learning that fats are not my enemy. I was focusing on eating right, although I was not always completely successful. I was failing from time to time, I was angry with myself and losing it. On the other hand, I had to accept that I won’t change all the years of silly behavior around food from one day to another. It was a lot of emotions and a lot of learning. No one is perfect, and neither am I, so as I said, I was failing and I was learning.

Maybe the most important lesson I got here was that it is better to plan your meals, and not buy stupid stuff, because if you do not have it at home, you simply won’t eat it. If it is not at home, it is not likely that you will even think about it. If you don’t see it, you won’t feel like eating it. And I stick to it till today.

As it is me who buys food for the household, it is reasonably easy to combat the urge to buy chips or pizza if I make the order online from the store once a month. This is also a good strategy. If you don’t go to the store physically, you are likely to stick to buying reasonable food. You still have time to throw away from your cart things that you know are not good for you. The impulsive shopping you are suffering while in store, is eliminated like this.

Make your life easy around food. It is stupid to go to the bakers if you know that you don’t tolerate bread, right? So why go and think the whole week about all the breads and cakes and sweets? I call it torture. I am not a masochist 😀 It is much better to check the veggies section. I swear, you will learn to find delicious things there as well. Doesn’t seem likely yet? It will come later. I never thought I would be excited about bell peppers, salad, and broccoli. I am now!

I was experimenting with food a lot. One day at a time. Drastic changes lead directly to hell. It is not sustainable. And you have to like what you eat. No need to torture you with steamed Brussels sprouts if you hate it. How long do you think that you will stick to this? You know the answer, you have done this a million times before. This is exactly why all the diets fail. They are not sustainable and the change is so harsh that you are not having fun around food, you are suffering. Don’t do it.

Find something that you like. I have never been a veggie person, at all. The thing is I didn’t know much of it and I knew no recipes that I would like to make myself. I had to explore a lot. I have to say I am extremely happy, and I appreciate it a lot now, that I was given the whole year to make small changes and start adding /quitting things into my meal plans. This was so incredibly important. When I was starting my pre-op diet, I was eating no bread and no sweets at all. What an incredible change from where I was starting. So if you have the time, allow yourself some months to prepare yourself and make peace with your food addictions. You will be endlessly grateful for this after the surgery.

Surgeon

Before the surgery, I had only three appointments with him. The first one was to explain the technical details of the surgery, he wanted to see me and decide what type of surgery to do. I had abdominal eco and x-ray. They checked my kidneys as well, the gallbladder if there were no stones, and I had quite thorough blood-work.

The second appointment scared the hell out of me. I was sent to have gastroscopy. I have never heard anyone say anything good about this, so I had all the horror stories in my head. I will dedicate a special post to this procedure later. It is so worth it. I don’t want this to get lost somewhere. So tomorrow it will be, I promise.

And the third appointment was the final one right before the surgery. We checked the gastroscopy results and made sure there were no anomalies, ulcers, helicobacter, or anything important to be aware of. They found a small hiatal hernia, though. So the surgeon told me that they would repair it once they did the sleeve. Great news, I saved one potential surgery in the future. I signed the informed consent and they added me to the waiting list. It meant that in about a month I was going to have the surgery. At this point, I didn’t have the exact date yet. But I knew it was very near.

Endocrinologist

These appointments were really easy. No problems at all. They were only checking my hormone levels as I have a thyroid as lazy as a summer afternoon. We made sure that the pills they gave me were well-adjusted to my situation. It was always blood-work and urine samples. At this point, I was not taking any supplements at all. It all came after the surgery and it was a real heavy blow.

I am adding here a little note about the frequency of the appointments. In the end, they were really fast, one by one. The problem was in the middle of the process. There were months when nothing was happening and I was only waiting. This was utterly frustrating and the time was dragging endlessly on and on. It felt like a test of my patience if I meant it and I was willing to make it and wait.

Pre-op check

This was the very last appointment before the surgery. They sent me to a cardiologist as they wanted to make sure that my heart was completely ok and there would be no problems during the anesthesia. They only listened to my heart and made a Dopler in color. Yes, there was some fat around the heart but the heart was working well, so no problem at all. Obviously: lose weight, this is not good long term. Ok, boss, I am having bariatric surgery pretty soon, that is why I am here.

Then the anesthesiologist. This person was extremely strict. And I get it. He was responsible for me during the surgery, so he wanted to make sure I was telling the truth and that I was fully aware that this is no joke. He wanted to know anything and everything that was coming in pills into my body. Even collagen and vitamin C I was taking. He made me pretty nervous, so I had a little trouble remembering everything so quickly.

If you are heading to this appointment, write things down on a piece of paper or on your phone at home beforehand, and you will thank yourself. You mustn’t forget anything. He also put me on scales… yuck! The good part is I didn’t have any mandatory amount of weight loss before the surgery, so I didn’t care much. But still, seeing the three digits was pretty demoralizing. Again and again.

Then I had the very last labs – blood and urine. They asked if I was smoking. It is not my case, but if it were, I would have to give it up a month before. They double-check on the surgery date if you have nicotine in your body and if they find it, the surgery gets postponed. Things you don’t want. (and after the pre-op liquid diet… no way of doing it all again from scratch). The same applies to alcohol.

Then I was glued to the phone waiting for THE call where they told me the surgery date and sent me a prescription for the protein shakes for the pre-op liquid diet.