"One step at a time"

"Hurry up and wait
So close, but so far away
Everything that you always dreamed of
Close enough for you to taste
But you just can't touch...

To take one step at a time
There's no need to rush
It's like learning to fly, or falling in love
It's gonna happen when it's supposed to happen
And we find the reasons why
One step at a time"

- "One Step at a Time" - Jordin Sparks

Day 115

The "council" has voted me in... yay. I feel like a Survivor contestant -- this week they didn't vote me off the island. :)

The bad news is no surgery date, yet... sigh. The infamous letter that I will likely receive in a week (amazing how long it can take to travel less than 5 miles -- it goes to the hospital in Pleasanton, then to the hospital in Livermore and then into the actual US postal system it seems) has few requirements thankfully and all but one have already been fulfilled:

1. Fax pap smear test results to the Valley Care Weight Loss Surgery Program (VC). I called my gyn's office and the results just came back today. Thankfully the sample was good enough and even more thankfully the results were favorable -- woohoo.
   
2. Start taking calcium citrate with vitamin D 3x/day. Started. It turns out my vitamin D levels were low in the test the old surgeon ordered but no one told me to do anything about it until I joined this program. Since this is a supplement that I'll have to take forever anyway I have started. This will be retested in 3 months and adjusted if needed -- not a surgery show stopper. They also recommend spending 15 minutes/day with your face and arms in the sun -- sounds like fun!
   
3. Maintain weight loss. Love that! Maintain vs. must lose more is good, but I am going to continue to try to lose what I can -- I want that darn liver of mine to be small enough for the retractors to be able to lift it out of the way and came the procedure laparoscopic.
4. Take their 8 online classes and pass each with 80% or higher -- just finished. Interestingly enough the focused primarily on psychology, behavior modification and exercise -- a lot of nutrition and pre-op/post-op stuff as expected.
5. Letter of medical necessity from PCP. Holy cow -- how retarded is this. My endocrinologist referred me into this process to start with -- they've tested me from the top of my head to the tip of my toes and know every little issue I have or have ever had -- all well documented -- and now they want a letter from my PCP too? Seems like a bit of overkill at best. I know this won't be an issue, but it does seem like an absolute waste of time for all involved.
6. Keep records of exercise.
7. Attend a support group session -- done, and will continue to do.
   

All in all, not too bad. I do love the VC administrator -- she's great. I sent her an email asking her to confirm she'd received the fax from my gyn and the confirmation of my "passing" all the classes and she responded within a very few minutes with lovely affirmation and some very kind words of support.

So now I guess I'm back in a hurry up and wait mode. The VC administrator did note that my insurance company generally responds very quickly, so my original hope of hearing next week about a date range is possible. They declined me within a day from the last group... the administrator said they are generally almost as fast to provide acceptances too, so we shall see.

On a different note, our first laptop was delivered today. I suspect we'll be spending part of the weekend trying to figure out how to install the new wireless network that was delivered yesterday. I'm thinking that during the first couple of weeks post-surgery it will be hard to use our steep stairs to get to and from the office where the wired network currently resides and you know me -- I can't go too long without a computer. :) We've been thinking about getting a laptop for a while for traveling and photography so this provided a great excuse. This one should be pretty cool -- it's more powerful than my desktop! Maybe Photoshop will actually run consistently without crashing on it. It is amazing how technology improves exponentially in such short periods of time -- good thing, else I might not make such a good living in the industry.

I hope you all have a great weekend! It looks like the weatherman is predicting much more comfortable temperatures for us. At 7 PM here it's still 98 degrees and humid as all get out -- something we definitely are not accustomed to in the Bay Area.