I went digging through my medical folder this morning and came across the last appointment card that I had with my surgeon, Dr. Yu...a good looking, Chinese gentleman that I like to call 'Handsome Jack'. (Note: One of these days, I have got to get a photo of this man.)

Dr. Yu is the one who will actually be doing my knee surgeries. More importantly, he is the person who has the authority to start the process of getting me a surgery date. Once he says that I am ready...as in lost enough weight, he will put my name on the list for all the preop lab work, ECG and consults with physical therapy, etc. When all of that is done, a date for my first knee replacement surgery will be set. That is typically about a 3 month process.

Even though I am still about 15 pounds away from 'his magic number' of 70 pounds lost, I wanted to try and give Dr. Handsome Jack 'a little push'. Hoping that I could maybe move the process along...a bit faster. So, I did it.

I said a quick prayer and called the Ortho advice nurse for Kaiser. Her name is Leti; and we had a lovely conversation, while I answered some of her questions and threw in some positive remarks about already losing more than 55 pounds, exercising every day and now doing an hour of swimming laps. Initially, Leti didn't seem to think that I could get 'moved up' from that required number set by my surgeons, both here and in San Diego.

After some more 'enthusiastic reports' from me on my steady progress and food plan...and help from MFP, Leti started to soften up. She asked me, "Well...(long pause)...how much do you still have to lose to reach the doctor's weight requirement?"

I told her that I was only 15 pounds short of the doctor's number and was averaging about 7 pounds per month in weight loss. I plead, "I am planning to lose EVEN MORE WEIGHT before the surgery and AFTER THE SURGERY. My goal is 170 pounds. Leti, I have been faithfullly recording my food each day since November and staying to my food plan. I don't plan to stop, just because I get surgery. That's only part of it."

Then, Leti took another long pause again and said something like..."Let me see.", while she did something on her computer. She mentioned, "You do know that you still have to have a lot of labs and an EKG and..." At that point, I cut in, "...and consults. Yes, I know. My surgeon in San Diego said that my labs were excellent. I don't have any problems like diabetes or high blood pressure...or anything!" I wanted to sound confident...but my tone was probably more like desperate. Let's face it. I was BEGGING for help.

Then, the tension broke. Leti said what I had hoped to hear, "Well, if you can keep your promise to Dr. Yu to lose the rest of the weight, I'm sure that he can help you get the process started, but you must still keep losing."

I practically bubbled across the phone line, "I will, Leti. I promise." Inside, I was shouting, "Hallelujah!!! Thank you, God!"

That's when Leti scheduled me for an appointment with Dr. 'Handsome Jack' Yu on July 17th at 11:45AM. I just know that I am going to 'get on that list'. I will be taking printouts of my weight loss with me. He loved those printouts, when I brought them to my last appointment...even asking, if he could keep them to show some of his other patients.

I know that 'Handsome Jack' will also be pleased to know that I have obtained my old medical records from Northern California Kaiser on computer disks. Those disks include my very important bone density scans which he has been requesting without success. Ed and I had to travel to Fresno to get those; so, my surgeon owes me one for that little favor. : )

All I can do now is PRAY...pray that 'Handsome Jack' will start this surgery evaluation process earlier, trusting in me to lose the other 15 pounds...pray that God will go before me as He did today with Leti...pray that I have the right words to convince my sweet surgeon that it is safe to start the preop process earlier for me.

You folks can pray for me too. I need all the prayers that I can get.