When I was young, I couldn’t decide on which career path I wanted to take more, lawyer or psychologist. About junior high age, my dad made a comment to me stating the only reason I wanted to be a lawyer was I wanted to make sure everything in life was fair. Looking back on that comment, I realize as a lawyer, trying to get a fair shake for your client is your job, so my desire for fairness was a good thing. But, as with most teenagers when their parents make a comment about their dreams and aspriations, I chose to get angry and decided I would become a psychologist instead. So there, Dad! Through the rest of my junior high and high school years, I had a goal and devoured books in the realm of psychology, trying to give myself as much of a leg up as I possibly could. I even developed a plan, whereby I would graduate from high school early and go to a school of concentrated study in psychology, which would have put me graduating with my doctorate at the ripe old age of 24.
Needless to say, sometimes the best laid plans do not work out the way we want them to. The first blow to my aggressive educational plans was that my parents wouldn’t allow me to graduate early from high school. The second was when I realized that no one was going to listen to a 24 year old with a doctorate in psychology advising them on how to live. So lacking the dream, and the plan having been derailed, I began to drift through life for awhile. All of this is important only because during the process of pursuing the lapband, one of the requirements is that all patients must undergo a psychological evaluation. I mentioned the 144 True/False questions when talking about all of the paperwork that had to be filled out.
The psych eval was my next step along the journey I am on, and I made the arrangements as quickly as I could. I was actually quite excited to go through the process because I was interested in what was involved, since my fascination with psychology didn’t perish along with my educational dreams. I was particularly interested to see how the psychologist would react to some of the answers I put on the personality assessment test. I did answer all of the questions to the best of my ability, trying to keep my answers as truthful as I possibly could. However, I knew that some of my answers would be waving like red flags in the wind. I didn’t think they would wave hard enough to slow down or stop the progress toward my weight loss goal, so was more amused by the thought of those flags than anything.
What on earth would raise those flags? Well, some of the questions were surrounding the ability to shut your mind off at night. Questions like, I sometimes have stories running through my mind that I can’t turn off. True! I’m a writer. Sometimes, those characters won’t leave me alone. Anyway, after I arrived, the doctor came out to greet me and asked that I wait a few moments, and she took my sealed white envelope with my answers and disappeared. I waited for awhile and then she called me back into her office. We chatted for a bit, with the doctor asking me some clarifying questions and then she talked about some studies which have been done which show those who have the highest success rate have certain things in common. The number one factor for success was continued participation in support groups. I inwardly groaned.
Then, almost before we got started, the session was over. She told me I have a few quirks, which made me smile because I knew what had caught her eye, but there was nothing which indicated I was not a good candidate to have the surgery. When I told her that I was not really a support group type of person, the doctor said she got that very clearly. But, I did tell her I would do my best to attend, and make a conscious effort to participate.
And with that, I was able to check one more requirement off my list. Now I just had to get scheduled for the nutrition class, and the doctor’s talk, and I had to attend a support group meeting to get to the submission of authorization request to the insurance company. I felt like I was on my way.
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LK Gardner-Griffie
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