When you are a bariatric candidate as a spouse in the Army there is a certain amount of education that goes along with the procedure to ensure that you're stable enough to undergo such a surgery and understand the life-long changes and impact that it will have on your life. There are 11 mandatory appointments that you must go through and complete successfully in order to receive a final clearance and schedule your surgery date.
The Wellness Center:
The first 2 appointments are at the Wellness Center. You have to get your resting metabolic rate checked and they hook you up to a breathing machine. I was kind of nervous to have this done, because the machine looks intimidating.
They hook you up to it and it sends your results to a computer. you just breathe into it normally for 15 minutes - in my case they had me lay down and relax. It was painless enough. The second appointment is to receive your results after a doctor is able to analyze them and they can tell you how many calories you burn in a single day without any physical activity. This can help to determine how many calories you should intake to lose weight.
The Nutrition Care Clinic:
The next 4 appointments are completed with the Nutrition Care Clinic. The first and second appointment are bariatric classes, where you learn about the different procedures available to you and the nutrition you will need upon choosing each one. You go over supplements and vitamins and learn how important they will be to your health after the weight loss surgery is performed. The third is an individual consultation with your dietitian to determine the nutrition you should be consuming prior to your surgery so that you will be more prepared after the surgery and will already have some new goals and routines set in place before coming home from the hospital. The fourth appointment with the Nutrition Care Clinic was my favorite because it was a support group meeting. There were people there who haven't had the surgery, people who just got it done, and people who are years out from their surgery. Going and talking to others who have chosen a healthier lifestyle, just like you is so encouraging and you get a lot of great tips and motivation from them. It was a wonderful experience. I will continue going to the support group once a month after my surgery is complete.
Bariatric Orientation:
As your seventh appointment, you must go to a Bariatric Orientation with one of the performing surgeons. Dr. Mayfield led my Orientation and was a straight forward, honest speaker about the topic. He stressed how he would not do anything to us that he wouldn't do to his family - and thus it is his personal opinion to not perform the Gastric Banding procedure. He was very informative about statistics in the US for obesity and gave wonderful information about the procedures.
Psychological Evaluation:
There are 3 appointments with a Psychiatrist that you must complete and be cleared from in order to receive the surgery. I have only attended one of these so far and my second one is this afternoon. I don't know how I feel about Dr. Drozd. I feel like he is just there to study you, but perhaps that's the way it should be. I am confident in my ability to pass the psych e-val.
FINAL CLEARANCE:
This is the eleventh appointment that everyone cannot wait to schedule! At your final clearance appointment you go over pre-op information, decide on the surgery that is right for you, and set your surgery date! My Final Clearance appointment has already been scheduled and I go in for it on October 17! (They usually don't schedule this until after they receive the psych e-val but my surgeon is confident that there won't be any problems.) I can set my surgery date anywhere from 2-4 weeks out from my final clearance, but I will probably end up waiting 5 weeks or so because my husband, Anthony, will be at NTC from late OCT to late NOV.
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