The Interview

Well the surgery interview happened today.  I think it went fairly well I think and honestly I think it was way scarier in my head then it was in real life.  The reality of the interview was that it really was four separate interviews and at the end of each of them they give you a few goals they want you to work on.  I'll quickly run through each of them.

Medical History:  Really this one was pretty straight forward.  We basically ran through my family medical history and my own history.  The sad truth of this is my medical history is really boring.  I'm a 39 year old man who still has all four of his grandparents alive and well. My own medically history is pretty boring as well.  I've had three surgeries in my whole life; both big toenails removed, Tonsils removed, and I had all of my teeth removed to be replaced with dentures.

Dietary: I think of all the different discussion this was the one I was kind of dreading the most.  I've been using MyFitnessPal for at least a year now. So I have a pretty good history of my eating habits and I know they are shit.I have McDonalds for breakfast an average of 4 times a week.  Of course it also isn't uncommon for me to grab it or some other convenience food for lunch as well.  Bottom line is that I need to make some serious changes.  I guess I shouldn't be to concerned about my current standing, if I was doing everything right I wouldn't be going through this process

Fitness: Here we talked about what is challenging me and preventing me from being more.  For the most part I am physically able to be active.  It is a matter of getting up and making the time to do the activity.  I'm confident that the time table will keep me on track and since it will really show me where I am along the way.

Psychologist: This was without a doubt the toughest of the interviews.  I was asked a lot of why questions which I've never been fond of.  The concerns my wife has about the procedure came out most in this interview, She made it pretty clear that she would support me and be for there and their is no doubt in my mind that she would.  I'm not so sure the doctor we were talking bought it.  In the end I guess it isn't about them believing her it has more to do with my believe in her.

This was also the section where we talked most about the after effects of the interviews.  Things like a life long change in my eating habits, the need of supplements for the rest of my life, and the loose skin.

At one point in the discussion the psychologist is talking about addictions and rattling off some examples.  Tamile pipes and tosses Porn in to the mix. Then the psychologist turns and looks at me with this hugely serious face and asks "Do you have a porn addiction?" it was completely out of left field and I don't have anything close to a porn addition.  So the whole question left me speechless for a moment until I recovered with the clever comeback of "Is that on your questionnaire?" From there we go into a discussion about transferred addictions.

So the chat with with the psychologist ends with her asking me if I wanted to start Challenge Craving, a program they offer that is mandatory if you want to go ahead with the surgery, today?  I was really thrown by the question at first, but said I would Tamile brought up a concern of rushing in to everything.  The psychologist explained that they liked people to talk it as early as possible because there is a lot of information that will help make the changes.  In the end I said I would start today, but after I got home I called and asked to be removed from the class.  I've no idea if it was the right decision in the long run but it is the one I needed to make right now.

Everything has just felt so rushed in the whole process.  I felt I needed to slow things down a little bit.  Take some time to learn to make the changes that I need to make in my life so that I can be successful at this.  If I just kept rushing through everything I might just rush right past the point.