My Second Support Group Meeting

My Second Support Group Meeting

 

Thursday June 8, 2006.

 

After trading emails, I ended up having dinner beforehands with two nice ladies. One LapBand, One Bypass. It was interesting and good to see that they could go to a restaurant and with minimal difficulty change a few things on the menu to get a satisfying meal with the protein they needed. Keeping with the anonymous theme of the blog, they will just be called Miss LapBand and Miss Bypass. (Employees go by their names, everyone else gets a nom de plume.)

 

We went to Camp Washington Chili and had variations of the classic three ways. Spaghetti, Chili and Cheese. I got a five way- add onions and beans, and a Coney dog on the side. Miss LapBand was a small three-way, light spaghetti. Miss ByPass was a small three way, extra cheese. She did not finish the extra pile of cheese. Keeping with the slower eating time, I believe the extra cheese version could have used microwaving halfway through. 

 

One of my great failings is inhaling food. I am definitely going to have to work on eating slower. I did speed up a bit tonight so we could ensure we got to the meeting in order to be weighed before hand. 

 

The ladies even brought me samples of protein products. Soon these will be a daily fixture of my life. I even got tips on where to find them. It sounds like I will be buying these in bulk and keeping a Rubbermaid container in the trunk of the car and some in my desk for "just in case".  They both stated that would be a good idea.

 

We got to Deaconess with a few minutes to spare and they weigh you in. Amazingly I was down 4.5 pounds since two weeks ago. I have had no beer, cakes or pies in a while. Dessert is sugar free Jell-O or Jell-O Pudding most nights. 

 

I had exchanged many an email the last two weeks and one of the major themes was that I thought it just cruel to have the weight loss support group meetings in the cafeteria. The Deaconess Nutrionistess  was one of my recipients and she made arrangements to have a CONFERENCE ROOM for tonight. Having just 8 two weeks ago we thought that would work. Well, 38 showed up, not 8. So every seat was taken. 

 

One of the things I had stressed was that the initial seminar was in the Goetz Center and it held a much larger number of folks, why can't we get that room? She listened and I appreciated that.

 

In the future the help groups will have a time frame such as:

 

6-6:30             Weigh ins

6:30                 Post operative group and discussion

7:00 -8:30      Joint group. This will vary according to week #2 and week #4.

 

The Deaconess Nutrionistess will be getting speakers, every other meeting. She will get us a schedule. The other weeks when we break out to discuss things, we will have one group for LapBands and one group for ByPass. While some things are the same, others are quite different. Rebecca seems to be trying to jump in with both feet and trying to help us all. I appreciate it.

 

Tonight was basically a discussion of what the group wants and needs. She got a lot of feedback and has just started full time this week, but now she knows what we want, and hopefully what we need.