Finally met Dr. G

I had my long-awaited appointment with Dr. G yesterday. He spent quite a bit of time explaining the different surgeries he performs and eventually agreed that the Duodenal Switch surgery was appropriate for me. He went over my test results and informed me that I had a kidney stone, which was a total surprise to me. Hopefully that will never be an issue, but it's good to know. He expressed some concern about what scar tissue and adhesions I might potentially have as a result of my open gallbladder removal and subsequent T tube placement. He said that it could be possible that he can't do the entire DS surgery in a single operation if there is too much scar tissue, in which case he would do only the stomach portion in the first surgery, and then do the intestinal portion down the road after I had lost some weight and give him more room to work with.  That was pretty disappointing to hear, and I hope that scenario doesn't come to pass. No way to know until he actually gets in there, as scar tissue doesn't show up even on a CT scan.

The only additional pre-op testing he is going to require is clearance from pulmonology (which I already knew about and have scheduled for later today) and an endoscopy, which he requires for all patients. Unfortunately, since he only does these the 1st 2 tuesdays of each month, and I'm going to be out of town until Aug. 10th, I can't have that done until September. I'm hoping that after I get back home, and have my NUT and psych appointments (both in August), they will go ahead and put me on the surgery schedule, even though I won't have had the endoscopy yet.