Scraggling through a surgical psychology appointment
Good early morning. It’s only 4:20 am and we’ve been up for about an hour so I’m not sure if we should go back to bed. Probably? Damn But, I just got coffee… Psych appointment today? I know… HMPF!Well, it’s much later now … 1:36 pm to be exact. Now it will be up to me to piece together what had happened, plus I don’t think anyone wrote so much on Sunday and then neglected Monday and Tuesday all together … what is the matter with us? But we just finished a very long and engaging lunch and thinking that something should be happening … to put the perspective on it – we are now home and have come back from the 2 hour scheduled psychiatrist appointment with the new guy.
Ok first our quicky summary to Dr. Marvin:
Dear Dr. Marvin,
We're feeling a little on the confused side ... we met with the Dr. for psychiatry for the surgery ... he says he's going to talk to you ... I think to verify stuff. He was pretty much ok, but I felt he was trying to catch me up on something more than "be on my side." He was ok. The appointment was ok, but then at the end, he said that he would like to see me again. I said that I didn't think there would be any more appointments after the one, he said that there would be from one to three more because he wasn't sure of my knowledge of the nutritional plans for eating after and, he was more for behavior than the stuff you do... yeeks - I hope not behavior modification! I think we'll be seeing him like January 10th at 3 pm ... if that's a Thursday. I scheduled it right before your appointment to make it more convenient and also more productive - going from him to you.
I wasn't real clear on the depression stuff ... I could remember the hospitalization with my father, and I thought there was one more before that where we went to a hotel. I couldn't remember if I took pills with either or were just threatening. I didn't know if there had been any incidents since, but I didn't think so. I also couldn't remember how many hospitalization before that ... there were a whole lot in doctor Woollcott's day, but it seemed like only 3-4 in your time ... I'm not sure ... and beside the Mayo one, i'd forgotten to mention the Winona ones. I told him about Bj and that we'd been sexually, physically, and mentally abused in the growing up family, and mentally with the ex, but we didn't go into details. I told him that we hadn't gone into the real deep stuff ... just the stuff on how to survive day to day - like hold a job and relationships.
Oh yeah and there was a quiet female intern there too. I don't remember names. I'd filled out a survey that he skimmed, there was a small get to know you part, then there were questions from a sheet, and then a little set of tests, then his summary ... everything took almost two hours. He was late for the appointment. And, his secretary wasn't up to par. She was having a breakdown day ... and when I said I was here for a 10 am appointment, she didn't correct me and say it's a 10:30, so I spent some of that time frustrated until I asked 10 minutes into the next half hour, and then he was 15 minutes later than that! HMPF!
Lots more to talk about later. We are going to write a bit ... try to settle some thoughts and feelings. We're behind in our writing - didn't go back to work. Day two of liquid diet - didn't hurt no-one yet :)
Mi
I’m thinking I need a little break from all that now. Cuz when I reread it I can see we’re going over words, but none of them make sense in our brain. I feel a little tired I think. Oh Lordy, please do not make us sleepy again! It’s 2 pm now How could we waste a whole afternoon with a nap!
There … we wrote a note to Sr. too. We wanted to make sure she knew that we were home, but that we’d come home because the meeting ran late and that we were very tired. We’re letting Sr. know some of the bare details just enough so she knows what’s going on, but so she doesn’t worry. I think it’s important she knows that we are going through a process, but that everything is going smoothly. At least let’s hope its going smoothly. I think a couple extra Dr. appointments can’t hurt, right? Now we should be worrying a little about that heart test. BUT, the ECT test looked good and we have low blood pressure SO don’t worry, right?
Ok, we can beat those yawns … bring em on … we’ve seen worse! Well don’t really, because we’re kinda wimpy, but sure … on the exterior we CAN look tough!
Where are we going here … maybe like the pony walking in a circle. I got so much on my mind … I just can’t think. You know the good thing? Rich is planning on being home tonight. We talked to him before we got home. Just the last stretch. I’m afraid I slowed up traffic. Like Hmm, better not do that again.
His daughter got into town last night … so we’re going to be flexible. But, he couldn’t tell us anything really about how she’s doing … like he says she’s doin fine, but he does it in that way that tells me its more complicated than that and he doesn’t know where to begin. *Sigh* Fathers … I suppose they can be like that. I think we need a good lemonade to discuss that! Maybe have just some skin between us and one of us the one with long hair be doing the rubbing. *Sigh* Girlfriends, we be like that!
Mostly though the being flexible means being open to last minute time changes over the next two weeks, and being open for emotional upsets that need to be talked over. He’ll let me know things if he has to, but usually more for listening to reason, rather than for advice. He likes to think out his troubles on his own. The one thing I know about sweetie pie is that he loves those kids no matter what happens and he’s going to want to make sure they are safe and happy as he can … that’s the kinda guy he is. So we’ll have to wait and see what comes up.
Rich said also that he had four meetings in front of him … he was held up on the first because he was waiting for someone to get back from lunch. I think he had his lunch in the car and he was working on his computer to get a job bid. Woo HOO!!! He wasn’t sure what time he would be in, but later – I’m sure he’ll let me know when he’s close to home, unless he wants to surprise me. I’m thinking on the nap side, I would be much more able to be with him, if we napped before he got here. I’m thinking that we write a small bit and then napped a bit and then he could wake us up … maybe in an hour or an hour and a half. Eh, we could always drop off whenever, right? But, for the timebeing let me write just a little please?
Thank you…
Ok, anything more on sweet lips? What’s been going on there? Ohh that’s something … did we tell you the part yet … where we went out and got groceries all on our own?? I think we did that … um Monday night! That’s right, because yesterday was the first day of the liquid diet and today’s the second – so far so good. We went to the bank first and cashed $100 … we had $20 left in the Dr. money from the money before – so we thought that be ok if we went over. Not so good on figuring that out. With the sales tax and discount we spent $103 so fell right in there! Plus part of that was to get our Cris Kringle gift for work. I wasn’t sure of that, but Brandi pushed me into the ring. I ended up with Margarita which was great. When I was shopping I didn’t look, but at one point, looked down and saw the sign - $20.99 marked down to $15.00 and behind it was a gorgeous set of red shiny bowls that had fancy lips on them for pouring as well. I thought of Margarita and the side dishes she made and sometimes served right out of the pan and I thought WOW! Perfect. And, I knew she would LOVE the color … that’s the wild side in her! She’s the practical type – so I knew I couldn’t error there.
The other expensive items were that I got 5 blue plastic Rubbermaid 20 oz bottles with thick plastic straws and sipper ends. I figured 2 for work, 2 for home, and 1 in-between for the car. Works for me … but total that was like a $20 expense. Then there was some things from the pharmacy. We got the lotion the doc was saying we needed, and we got caltrate with vitamin D – a generic deal for 500 pills! And we got some under the tongue B12. WOOHOOO … AND some deodorant. Don’t want to frighten people away. That’s the worse kind of stuff to get though, because you need it, but you can’t eat it. Everything else was on the liquid diet list as was on the schedule the other day. I felt pretty good about it.
I went through the banking part and the grocery part all on my own … I thought the bagger people were a little possessive of the carts because they left their coats on them, but the people have to come first. At one point while I was in the pharmacy, I realized that I was sitting there reading a label quite unconsciously at first and then consciously and it felt like a small miracle had happened because like oh man here I was just dawdling along at my own heart’s content. It was totally amazing. I told that to the doctor today … I could tell he liked that kinda stuff, but probably wondered why I hadn’t done that earlier … or what was the matter with Dr. Marvin for not making better suggestions for me. Believe me … this guy is definitely pushier.
We sent Dr. Marvin a note asking a question as to whether or not that was his office … the new doctor said, “no,” but we had thought “yes.” Dr. Marvin would clear it up. I told him I thought the other dr. was pushy too. Just am getting a negative reaction now … It’s 3:30 pm officially 3 hours after the test.
Couple small things happened too. We say Angel for a second … I think she’s got great news. If her insurance goes through it looks like she’s headed for surgery in 4-6 weeks. I think insurance takes about a month and then there is 2 weeks prior to surgery 10 of which is doing the liquid diet. WOOHOOO!!.. I think she’s going to do it. She liked Dr. Ayloo and she’s going to have a sleeve done because of all the other surgeries she has an she says she was out to Brookfield that day … isn’t that so cool I mean I LIVE IN BROOKFIELD! I wonder if they saw the Sears Tower … I think that might have been a goal of theirs … I just didn’t know they had that much extra time.
Anyway … then next Rich came in and then Angel had to go before I could get back … Rich is now in the kitchen doing some more work, but we talked about tonight a little he was saying something about him going out about 4:30 pm and getting back about 6:00 pm. There is a garage sale in town at the VFW an his friend Bob took some of Rich’s fishing lure stuff to put in the sale … and they figure Rich should come over and check things out. So oooook. There were a couple of times that Rich and us through around, but I liked best the version where he went out as soon as possible so he could come in and stay in for the rest of the night. WOOHOO … there was some loose talk about playing … well … you just never mind, but we were thinking after he left we might want to nap!
We really haven’t handled our first meal together since the liquid diet. He made a statement about going out to dinner more. We said that would take away the sense of companionship we’ve always shared over the table and that it was a good idea to learn to eat together WITH our food differences. I believe that firmly, but I know he is the one that has to get over the guilt of eating “better” than us. I have to admit … it squeaked out the other day that we told sweet bunny that he was growing quite a pouch. Hmm, that didn’t go over so well. The next day he agreed that his pants were being stressed a bit. We told him the first step was that we’d have to both officially weigh in again the next morning – and no “My clothes weigh 20 pounds!” So this morning we both weighed in Rich was 296.0 and I was 325.4 Beside the fact that I have 30 pounds on rich, I was very happy with my weight. I think that the scale at the U is 5-6 pounds heavier then the home scale, but it said last that we weighed 336, and our scale last had said 330 pounds … so this round 325 was looking very good. We’ll now see how tomorrow goes.
I’ve got the feeling Dr. Prenzel or something like that … is going to have something to say with the regulation of our weight, but I’m not sure how he correlates with the nutritionalists. I’m pretty sure as a Dr. he’s over the dietician, but she’s working with the surgical team … hmm, but I think she is too. We’ll have to check out that relationship more carefully after the holiday’s oh man are we looking forward to an 11 day break oh man oh man.
posted by Ann Marie @ 12/13/2007 07:53:00 AM
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