Believe in yourself

"It's so important to believe in yourself. Believe that you can do it, under any circumstances. Because if you believe you can, then you really will. That believe keeps you searching for the answers, and then pretty soon you get it." - Wally Amos

Day 63

My belief system in general has been challenged today. I was close to devastated during the noon hour when my surgeon called me and pronounced that due to the kidney function test results I'm no longer a candidate for the gastric bypass. Holy crap! Here I FINALLY get myself into this mode and on the path and he pulls the rug right out from underneath me.

Not to worry though... you are still eligible for either a sleeve gastrectomy or a lap band. They don't work as well, but they're better than nothing. And the insurance company may not cover either of those options because the former is still considered somewhat experimental -- look up costs and they're $20-25K! OMG! Thank God for good friends at work else I don't know how I would have been able to make it through the rest of the afternoon. You guys are great.

But I get ahead of myself. Shortly after 8 AM this morning my PCP's assistant calls and asks me to make an appointment to come in today so we can "take care of everything all at once today." This makes me worry since the PCP's been so unresponsive. Surely he must have finally looked at the Lab results and decided that yes, I am having a problem and he'd better attend to my medical needs. Or so I thought at the time. Imagine the further panic I feel when the surgeon calls around 4 hours later and tells me he can't perform the procedure. This was followed by a call from his RN who says the dietitian will call me Wednesday and probably put me on a renal diet. OMG - are my kidneys going to fail today? Trying to be rational and realizing if it were that bad my endo would have sent me to the hospital Friday instead of referring me back to my PCP, but having a hard time rationalizing.

Finally 4 PM rolls around and I see the PCP. I like the way John refers to him -- he says he's so blaise about everything he would probably just casually in passing mention you had a terminal illness but not to worry... sheesh. In any case he comes in, looks at my labs and says he still doesn't see what the big fuss is. The numbers aren't that bad. What is wrong with the endo and the surgeon? I look at the labs -- the ones he ordered, vs. the ones the surgeon ordered, vs. the ones the endo ordered. And you know, maybe he is right! While out of the normal range, they're not all that far out of the normal range and there is variation on the same tests performed 3 different times (due to overlapping orders).

So here it is Monday evening and now I'm wondering who should I believe? The PCP calmly says if this surgeon won't do the procedure we'll just find another that will -- he's had a patient with congestive heart failure that the procedure was performed on because of the overall health benefits. And who says if the high protein diet is the cause that they can't modify my post-op diet, and even if they can't, there's no reason to think I'd go into kidney failure as a result of a slightly elevated creatinine level. So there. Neaner neaner neaner.

So who to trust? I see my endo tomorrow so will certainly discuss with him. I have a lot of confidence in him and appreciate his conservatism and caring attitude. I'm also done with this PCP, very done. Have to live with him this month, but will definitely move on to someone I have more confidence in, even if he is telling me what I want to hear today. But I have gone from feeling somewhat hopeless at noon to hopeful once again.

And I know you're dying to ask about the referrals... you know me, so you know I left with them, but OMG, what a pain to get them! The PCP starts down the path of, "Well, if this guy won't do the procedure (even though I think he's an idiot) then maybe we should just wait. He's way too conservative. I've known other surgeons that haven't asked for all this stuff." I jump in and tell him I've done a ton of research and these are standard protocols. He stops arguing and starts producing finally. I have the prelim visit scheduled now for my EGD on Wednesday, a call into the local dietitian to schedule a consult, am waiting for a call from the local sleep center to schedule a sleep study and an appointment for an echo cardiogram next Wednesday. Yay. Progress at last! And it only took a mere 12 days. Can I say "sheesh" again?

And yes, I'm redoing my labs again this Friday. Just the kidney function stuff. The PCP said to drink tons of water and he's willing to bet I'll be back to normal. If I am, then we'll try the high protein diet again and retest again. Fingers crossed.

So at the end of the day, who should I believe in? Myself. Wally's got it right. I have been living with this body longer than anyone else. I've never had kidney problems before. If I have them now I guess I'll have to figure out how to deal with them, but I really don't feel like I have a problem with them, you know? And if I do, I'll keep searching for answers and with a lot of help from my support network we'll figure this thing out, right? RIGHT!