Bariatric Center brings it.

For the past two days I've been working with the R.D.s at the Bariatric Center of Excellence here at Moore Regional. There are two full-time R.D.'s at the center, and they cover all of the bariatric pts that come through the center. There are two surgeons that perform all the bariatric surgeries here, and I've had the opportunity to observe both of them in the O.R. One of them, Dr. Mitchell, has logged over 1,000 bariatric surgeries in his career! (And he's not even that old!)

Anyway, after sitting in on a few 2 week post-0p pt follow-ups, I attended a 3 1/2 hour class led by one of the R.D.s and one of the surgeon's nurse practitioners. The class was held for pre-bariatric surgery pts who were already a few steps into the process of preparing for surgery (which included a psychological test, consult with the surgeon, etc). The class was very informative, if not a bit overbearing. The R.D. and N.P. covered everything from comorbidities to the 3-step post-bariatric diet to the very regimented maintenence required after discharge from the hospital (feeding through your G-tube to supplement intake, drinking blue powerade and checking your Blake tube for internal leaks, sipping on fluid 10 hrs a day, tuning in to new hunger cues, etc). To be perfectly honest with all of you, I left the class feeling entirely overwhelmed and utterly thankful to have a normal BMI and functioning GI tract. To be even more honest with you, I felt like driving straight to a cookout after the class and ordering an 800 calorie milkshake!

Anyway, yesterday when I was at the bariatric center, I was able to do a few fun things like get a full body composition test and indirect calorimetry/metabolism test done. I won't share my body fat % with you guys, but my metabolism was apparently in really good shape (not a shocker). The R.D. waived the $90 fee for this test (because you know I wouldn't have put that money done for the test!)

Tomorrow I'm back in DaVita for my last Dialysis day. (fyi: DaVita.com has really good recipes for dialysis pts!)