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Friday, May 25, 2012

Just the Facts Ma'am

Back in the beginning of March, I told y'all about our second trip down the Infertility highway. Then, I got all wrapped up dealing with Marty's never ending migraine (ended up lasting 2 months...until almost the end of April). I was so preoccupied that I totally forgot to write the post to tell y'all about the hopeful solution to our infertility issues.

To briefly sum it up, Vic was diagnosed as a diabetic in the beginning of 2006, shortly after Gabe was born. He has had a bitch of a case and it rapidly progressed to complete insulin dependence. His diabetes also tanked out his thyroid function and his testosterone levels. Vic is not only insulin dependent but he's extremely insulin resistant meaning he has to take enough insulin to stop an elephant in it's tracks (and high insulin doses cause weight gain).

For quite a while, Vic has been thinking about weight loss surgery. He was considering lap band surgery and, not long ago, finally made an appointment for a consult with a doc who specializes in bariatric surgery. He was very pleased with the surgeon he consulted with and Doc B will be his surgeon. However, Vic will be having gastric bypass surgery, not lap band surgery. Doc B said that he could make more money doing lap band because it is simpler and he can do more of them per day. However, Doc B said that if Vic insisted on lap band surgery then he would not be his doctor. He said he felt it would not be serving Vic's best interests to do lap band surgery. Doc B said that with the severity of Vic's diabetes and the large number of complications he was already experiencing that Vic needed to be aggressive in his treatment approach. A higher percentage of gastric bypass patients have full reversal of their diabetes that lap band patients  and, of the patients who don't have full reversal of their diabetes, there is a huge improvement. Both Doc B and Vic's endocrinologist are very hopeful that the weight loss and the ensuing improvement of his diabetes will reverse the peripheral neuropathy he has been experiencing. There might possibly be improvement in his testosterone levels and his hypothyroidism when his diabetes improves but, until then, he is being treated for both those issues. There are a ton of appointments he has to go through and a bunch of hoops he has to jump through before we schedule the surgery. Hopefully, it will be scheduled for sometime this fall.

Not really sure where we'll go from here. I'm 42 and Vic is 52. We are definitely pushing the edges of age for new parenthood (at least the ages we are comfortable with)...but, I won't say it'll never happen. Guess we'll just have to wait and see.