I went to have my pre-op meeting with my PCP (Dr. Marietta) on Friday. I was fully expecting for him to try to talk me out of the surgery again. I got there and the person who takes you back and weighs you and gets your blood pressure, etc. was a young man… looked like college age. He was pleasant enough. Took my weight, 252. eeeek. Then we went into the room and he took my blood pressure. I asked him immediately after he took it, what it was (because I wanted to list a before and after blood pressure on my site) and he said it was 158 over 82. Now, I don’t know a whole heck of a lot about blood pressure stats, but I did know that for me, that was kind of high. So I commented on it, but he didn’t seem to care. Then he’s asking me all the normal things, like “why are you here?” and “are you allergic to anything?”, etc. And he’s fumbling over my chart. Then he says, “hmmm. Lemme check your blood pressure again. It’s not usually that high.” I felt like saying, “well, no sh!t, sherlock… that’s what I tried to tell you a minute ago.” So he takes it again, and again I ask what it was and he says 118 over 68. Now, I’m thinkin’, how on earth can it be high one time and low the next. No tellin’ how many people they have on blood pressure medication unnecessarily because some stupid assistant doesn’t know how to take blood pressure accurately. Then he goes back and comments on how weird that is, since it’s not usually that low. Freak.
So, Dr. Marietta comes in and asks me how I’m doing and the usual things. Then he asks me about the surgery. I brought him a bunch of printouts about it with stuff explained in medical terminology… and diagrams and so forth. He asked me all of the specifics like how long I’d be in the hospital, what the recovery would be like, what the specific surgery is I’m having, and how I will stop losing weight. Then, he totally surprises me and says, “well, Shannon, you’re a very determined young lady. After all of my discouragement from having this surgery, you continued to do the research, and you’ve succeeded in getting it covered through your insurance.” He proceeded to tell me that he thought I would do very well with this surgery and that he hoped I would keep him posted on my progress. He said that he had many patients who he thought would benefit from this surgery and he was eager to see my progress and how it all worked out. That felt sooo awesome! It was like here was someone who had done nothing, but tell me that he wished I didn’t want to take such drastic measures and to take it slow. So I took it slow, and here I am 6 months later, and he’s congratulating me. It was like I passed a test. Wow. What a feeling!
So, he ordered my gallbladder ultrasound and my upper GI. I’m supposed to have the results to Dr. Wongsa’s office by July 24th. I get up to the front desk and they can’t schedule the tests until the morning of the 23rd! uuggghhh. They said that they could have the results to Dr. Wongsa’s office within 24-48 hours. I’m not sure if I believe them, though. I’m going to call Ruth at Dr. Wongsa’s office tomorrow and see if she thinks it’ll be a problem. I’ll report more after I have the tests done.
