With the requirement being only losing one pound, would they let her stay even after she started gaining?
It was at the initial seminar she attended when she spent all her time playing on her phone that the requirement mentioned was lose “at least 1lb”. That would never have been the end requirement. Basically they were being told ”do not gain anything”. They may well keep her around, as long as she’s not being a complete nuisance (she is). They collect her cash while really doing nothing for it, but eventually either the clinic or Amber herself would say enough.
It's not like I was thinking they give you some big fatty handbook or something that she could show off....but it seems like they would give patients something.
Bariatric clinics are as full of upsell items as freaking Mc Donald’s. From supplements, cookbooks, portion plates and bowls, marked up drinking bottles, even protein shakes and waters. Let alone dietician handouts about standard portions, hi and low GI foods, sample menus etc. Yet we’ve seen nothing. To be fair, the handouts might well be online in a private clinic support group style forum.
Aside from her stupid ass metrics she puts in herself in her videos, though, we've seen nothing that would indicate she's actually following any sort of structured program.
Indeed we haven’t. That’s not necessarily a tell though at very early in the process, particularly when a patient has been tagged as not ready for surgery. At this point the clinic would just be attempting to get a patient to eat healthier, drink more water, and get more daily movement in. This is the time when they are assessing her baseline health. They just want to see her changing her priorities and preparing for the much more restrictive diet times ahead. If she can’t manage the simple changes, then she won’t handle the hard ones, consequently excluding her from surgical approval.
I just wonder how long any clinic would continue to fuck with her and her nonsense even if she was paying them out of pocket. Like, she's literally just not worth the hassle of however much money she's throwing their way.
It’s hard to say and really depends on the clinic and how busy it was. The one I was associated with was so busy they had a three strikes and you’re out rule. Miss an appointment (or even reschedule) twice, it was noticed, written up and a formal warning was given. The third time and you were discharged by the clinic. While there was an appeal process, you'd better have a death certificate of a first line relative with the funeral notice showing the times clashed for all three appointments to get the appeal accepted. If not, the option was there to start over, but it would be at least another year before you’d get an intake appointment.
She keeps insisting that because of COVID all these visits are online now. How in the hell would they weigh her online?
Her dietician appointments are in person. Her psych appointments are online, and not through the bariatric clinic. That’s how she’s presented them. Her seminar was also in person and she would have been weighed in then as well.
With people like Amber it's far easier to let them hang themselves by fucking up than trying to discharge them for something nebulous and get them in their feelings over it.
There does come a point when you have to discharge a patient because everyone is wasting their time and energy (patience even). Amber may be very close to that time already. The 3-4 month review is just humouring her. They know she’s not going to lose any significant weight, but this review means they are at least giving her another chance. I doubt she has any actual clinic appointments now until that 3 months is up, and I guarantee you they’ll have her into the clinic for a supervised weigh-in on their calibrated scales. Her psych was a referral and not a member of the clinic staff so he really doesn’t matter.
Let her be the failure she is with no excuses to blame anyone but herself...although I'm sure she'll still try.
Any way you look at it, it will be the clinics fault. They’ve already failed her by not approving her WLS 3 months ago. They don’t know how Amber’s body works the way she does, because she is unique. The fact is, she’s no different to any other 400lb+ fattie. There simply aren’t any excuses bariatric professionals haven’t already heard hundreds of times before. Amber is a textbook deathfat.
