Friday, July 30, 2010

Putting the Band Back Together

Starting weight: 328 lbs.
Current weight: 280 lbs.
Total weight loss: 48 lbs.

It's been almost two months since my unfortunate yard diving incident splattered my spleen and rendered my bariatric implant null and void. But boy howdy if it hasn't made for a good story. I mean, I fell out of a tree. That's some funny shit.

Good news is that I'm all healed up and surviving just fine without my purple antibody making little buddy. Bad news is that my underwear is currently providing more restriction than my Lap Band is. So now that my surgeon has given me the green light to get back into my normal routine, it's time to make like Jake and Elwood Blues and put the band back together.

"We had a band powerful enough to turn goat piss into gasoline."
- Donald 'Duck' Dunn, bassist, The Blues Brothers

Now I won't go so far as to say that my Band was that powerful. I mean, I didn't actually TRY to use my Band to turn goat piss into gasoline. So I can't truthfully say that it couldn't. But what it could do was help me lose weight. And ever since my ill conceived and poorly executed turn as Tarzan, Lord of the Apes left me singing the little Billy Joel/Garth Brooks ditty, "I'm Spleenless," a plate of nachos (with cheese) and a heaping pile of jalapenos has done more to help me lose weight in the past two months than my Lap Band has.

My crash landing caused the tube to the port to come loose, and my surgeon had stitched it back into place but couldn't re-attach it. So, last week I went to see The Good Doctor (TGD) to find out what needs to be done to fix my band.

Let me just say up front here that I made a tactical error when scheduling this visit. Best piece of advice I got at the outset of this was to ALWAYS take the earliest appointment possible. Doctors, in general, tend to run long on each patient meeting. The Good Doctor, especially. Multiply that by 10-15 patients, and afternoon appointments become LATE afternoon appointments.

Needless to say, my 3:30 turned into 4:45, and by that time I was, as the kids like to say these days, HAWT!!!! And not in a good way.

For WHATEVER reason, The Good Doctor's minions had flagged me as a new patient, and that only made things worse. So as I not-so-calmly and not-so-politely informed them that what should have been a 15 minute consultation had turned into an hour-and-a-half ass whipping, The Good Doctor magically appeared out of nowhere a la All-American Burger manager Dennis Taylor after Brad Hamilton said, "Mister, if you don't shut up I'm gonna kick 100 percent of your ass."

Just had a few questions. What's involved? How much will it cost? How much pain medication can you legally give me without the AMA taking notice? (hee. I kid!) I was already a little irked by the disclosure I had to sign when I got there stating any "revision" would cost a fat (heh!) $1,100 outside of insurance coverage. So my blood pressure had red-lined from the get-go. Throw in a 90-minute wait and I was Mount Freaking Vesuvius all ready to get my pyroplastic flow on up in here!

OK, I wasn't really that irritated and loud, though I did tell them through clenched teeth that I had to leave and needed to reschedule. But you wouldn't know that by how everyone was scurrying around with ducked heads and tucked tails. I guess they aren't used to us fat people raging against the bariatic machine.

Anywho, just like that The Good Doctor and I tipped off into an empty office for a little chat. I explained to him what happened, and that my surgeon had faxed over the procedure notes so that he'd know exactly what went down at the spleen scene. Ain't no thang says TGD. Fax in a letter of predetermination to get insurance approval (which he seemed to think wouldn't be a problem) and then they'll put me on the schedule. Don't have to pay the $1,100 because this is not considered a "revision." Should only have to pay what the insurance won't cover (which hopefully will be only about 10 percent of it all). Three incisions, half an hour, in and out, done and done.

See. Now was that so hard? Next time out my ass will be waiting out in the hall for them to open the door. Early bird gets the fat worm and all that.

So, while I wait for clearance to fly from the friendly skies of UnitedHealthcare, I have to remain culinarily diligent and keep up with the exercise. Because the bariatric floodgates are open and all I can think of is ... some toasted white bread, four fried chickens and a Coke.

Peace, love and three orange whips.

1 comment:

  1. I couldn't find your email address, so I will post my response to your question here. The font that I used for The Ninja Warrior stuff I did, I got from here: http://www.dafont.com/osaka-sans-serif.font

    It is not an exact match, but pretty close. If you want the file that I used for my logos, I would be happy to pass it on to you. I did them in Photoshop Elements, but I can save them as something else if you want. Email me if you want that! Good luck!

    ReplyDelete