Muddling Along

It’s been a strange week.  Not exactly an easy one but I’ve been coping with the loss of  Cody, my 14 year old Golden Retriever, by staying busy and remembering times when he was still healthy, vibrant, and brimming with vitality.

At work, one of our co-workers is about to undergo gastric bypass surgery.  He’s been working toward this for the past year and because he is our one and only male colleague and quite a bit younger than the rest of us, we are all mothering him (in my case grand-mothering him) to pieces.

He keeps assuring us that he will be back to work in 2 weeks.  We keep trying to explain to him that it might not be quite that easy.  Several of us have family members or close friends who have been through this surgery.  He seems to think that once it’s over, he’s not going to want to eat anymore.  We are trying to explain that he’s still eventually going to want to eat what he ate before, and that some foods will have very different effects on his system than they did before, and that there is a bit of a psychological component that will inevitably rear it’s ugly head.

In the meanwhile, he’s assuring us this will not be the case and is busy running to buffets with his family to get his last digs in while he still can.   We (the rest of us at work) all find it odd that his bariatric surgeon did not have him lose any weight prior to the approval.  He was 427 lbs when he began this journey, and is currently 453 lbs.  He wasn’t put on any type of restrictive diet, wasn’t sent for any type of psychological evaluation, only met with a dietician twice to give him a list of their corporations supplements line and point out the protein and vitamin supplements that will best fill his needs based on his blood work.

His is upset because his family physician has been dragging the process on by insisting he see a cardiologist and a gastroenterologist.  The Cardiologist wanted him to at least attempt some type of heart healthy diet plan and loss a little ahead of time, but eventually they cleared him for the surgery.  The gastroenterologist discovered he has H-pylori and treated him also encouraging him to re-think bariatric surgery.

He has his mind made up.  He want this surgery.  It’s now scheduled for Oct. 23rd.  This weekend he is looking forward to one last trip to the Texas Roadhouse, and one last trip to a favorite buffet.

None of us ever heard of his bariatric surgery group until now (we all work at a hospital and have one of our own but that particular bariatric group insists that their patients go through psychotherapy, dietary instruction, a myriad of physical exams and mandatory changes in dietary habits proven by some weight loss prior to approval for the surgery) …. so we are all a little concerned.

While we all want this to go well for him, the truth is we are all a little frightened for him too.