Finding more information

Well, after convincing my wife that I haven't lost my mind... I went about starting the ball rolling toward having the surgery. For me this quest started on the internet.

One of the things I was immediately struck by was the barrage of information that hits you when you do a search on "weight loss surgery" on google. Literally thousands of sites and ads come up, very few of which were actually telling me information I could use, like what doctors in my area I need to seek out or what the next step from having an interest in the surgery is.

Fortunately, the ever-incredible Silverfox was there for me in my moment of need. My wife went through a full-on gastric bypass years ago, primarily because she was having trouble conceiving children. One of the side affects of the surgery is that it basically forces your body to reset your hormone levels, and in Silverfoxes case, it totally worked. Short stuff was born a little over a year after the surgery.

"The first step," Silverfox told me, "Is to attend a seminar about the surgery. Then if you are still willing to go through with it, they have you meet with a psychologist, and with a support group of people that have had the surgery."

So I narrowed down my search to "Weight loss surgery New Orleans seminar" Considerably less websites popped up, but it was still a lot to go through. Of the sites, I found only one that had a seminar that both Silverfox and I could attend, and was in network for our health coverage.

I looked around their site a bit before actually making the reservation for the seminar (reservations are required, as doctors like to keep the seminars small so that everyone attending will have an opportunity to ask all the questions they have). The site gives a lot of success stories, and tells you quite a bit about the various surgeries available now. The whole process is quite a bit more refined from when Silverfox had her surgery, and the recovery times are much shorter. I like that they also put an emphasis on making an informed decision, so I signed up for a seminar next week. We'll see how it goes.

I've also made a decision not to tell anyone about my decision other than Silverfox. One of the things she had to deal with before her surgery was friends and family telling her that she was making a mistake. I've finally come to grips with the idea of needing medical intervention about my weight, and the last thing I need is my Mom trying to talk me out of it.