Emily51501
October 19, 2006
My pcp has been a tad bit apprehensive about me having WLS. She is one who doesn't think too highly of using surgery to lose weight.
But since I have come to her twice within the last 2 years about this issue she finally decided to send me to the Lap Band seminar.
I attended the Lap Band seminar on July 27th 2006 and have since been researching it alot more.
I have decided to have the surgery and have met with my surgeon and considering my insurance requires 3 months of documented dieting I have started seeing a nutritionist also.
I need to have 4 meetings with a nutritionist within a 3 month time frame, so far I have completed 2. My 3rd meeting with her is November 9th. I have also completed my MMPI-2 test and have passed.
Though Dr. Medlin is a very nice man, he is quite apprensive about me having surgery because of my age (I am 21) and because I am single raising two young boys by myself. He says he prefers not to perform any weight loss surgery on people under 25, but does on a case by case basis. I told him I understood, but I did not voice my opinion to him at all because of how nervous I felt meeting with him.
A couple of weeks ago I found out that "the team" (including Dr. Medlin) was going to be meeting up on October 18th(October 18th being yesterday of course) to discuss my case and make a decision.
I made it a point to write him a long letter explaining a few things that I felt he needed to know before making a decision based only on the fact that I was a young, single mother.
The letter was quite long and touched on alot, I told him to please think through this fully before making a decision that could change the rest of my life.
I also explained to him that my mom and my best friend were my support system and that he need not be worried about whether or not I can do this mentally.
(I have depression and anxiety, and some doctors worry about whether or not you can handle such life altering circumstances if you have these)
I also had my mom and my best friend write him a letter to let him know we are all well informed of this surgery's risks and benifits and why they feel I should have this surgery.
I figured if I'm going out, I might as well go out with a bang and do whatever groveling I need to in order to get this done.
It's hard for me to beg a surgeon like this, but this is my LIFE we're talking about!
We all know that morbid obesity shortens your life span, and if someone was holding a gun to my head trying to decide whether or not they should kill me I definitely would be begging for my life, lol! Extreme as that may sound, I'm sure you can sort of see how the two relate.
So I decided to put my pride aside and do whatever I need to do to save my life.
By the way I got alittle carried away without telling you my stats:
5'6-5'7(depends on who is measuring)
285lbs.
BMI of 45.1
Anyways thats all for now I'll write more when I hear what Dr. Medlin decided.
October 25, 2006
I called Dr. Medlin's office and spoke with a lady about the meeting the team had on the 18th regarding my case and whether or not they were going to approve me for surgery.
She seemed quite casual about it, saying that the dietician has said I need to attend a couple more meetings. Which obviously I already know, considering my third is already scheduled. So I thought she was gonna say that Dr. Medlin is going to wait to make a decision until my dietician appointments are finished, because she seemed to be leaning in that direction. But then she said, " Ok well as soon as you finish your last two appointments call us and we'll set a date for surgery". I was like, " Um, ok, so has Dr. Medlin approved me or not?" And she said, " Oh yeah, Dr. Medlin said it wasn't a problem at all." I was thinking in my head- hello!!!! then why did he sound like that during the consult?? And why have I been worrying this whole time?? Maybe he read my letter and it gave him a better understanding as to why I want this surgery, or maybe he changed his mind because of my psych. results.
Anyways......after that I asked at what point we would be needing to submit my infor to my insurance company for approval. She said, " Oh, your I've already spoken with them, you're already approved." I was like, What!! She said the insurance lady said it was a go ahead. But here's the downer, she said that right now the wait to have surgery is like 6 months!!!!! That's a really long time! Especially considering the fact that I've already been working on this for 3 months. So I was assuming that I would finish my last dietician appoinment during the first week of December (usually my appoinments with her are the 9th, 10th, or 11th of the month) and then possibly have surgery in January or February. Obviously I was way off, which makes me really sad. I'm not even on the waiting list until my last appointment is finished, so if by that time the waiting list is still 6 months I won't be having surgery until June!!!! Which will mean from my first consult to surgery it took almost a year!!! That's psychotic. But there's really nothing more I can do but wait. There is one thing I don't completely understand, how could insurance have approved me since I haven't completed all of my dietician requirements yet?
So I thought about it, and either the lady was mistaken or insurance said ahead of time that they will approve me as long as Dr. Medlin's office contacts them when I finish my last appointment with the dietician, sort of like a pre approval. I don't know, but it's not like I need to be in a big hurry to find out, I have over 6 months to wait.
I'm just hoping there will be a cancelation or something during that 6 months so I can get in sooner, I've been jumping through so many hoops, I'm just ready to get this done. Though I do think it's a good thing that they do make you go through alot in order to have WLS, because it gives a person alot of time to really think things through and make sure this is what they really want. It gives you nothing but time to research the good and the bad about WLS so you can decide for sure whether or not you're ready. I can say for me in the beginning all I could see was the good about WLS and yes WLS is good in many ways, but it took me awhile to accept the fact that there is also some major things that can go wrong and that it is a big change in lifestyle. In the beginning I didn't even realize how hard it is going to be to give up eating the way i'm used to eating. Now after reading the boards for awhile now, I have realized how difficult it can really be. And I have to admit, I too stepped back for a moment, not a long moment, but for a moment and said to myself, "Can I do this?"
I've decided that not only can I do this, I WILL do this for me and my children.
Ok, well i'll try to keep updating as things come along, there probably won't be much to say for awhile, but i'll try to write anyway.
