To wear cute trendy shoes with heels and a skirt!

After figuring out that I would basically be self paying for the majority of my surgery...I took a break for a few weeks. I didn't think about any kind of surgery and just let myself wallow for a bit. I figured that I couldn't really afford to get the surgery that I needed and had pretty much given up. 

I then decided that I NEED something to help me. I am not doing this by myself. Even though I have done it before by restricting myself to 1200 calories per day and exercising 1-2 hours a day I was able to drop 50-60 lbs....of course I was quite a bit younger and I didn't keep it off. So, I knew that I needed a change. 

After I decided to suck it up and pay for surgery, I was reading the boards and found my way to the sleeve board. I was completely opposed to any kind of surgery that cut or rearranged my internal organs. However, I was also worried about all the complications that I have heard about with the band. I know that there are many many people out there that love their band.....but there are also many that seem to have lots of problems with it. All the complications scared me. Erosion, slippage, pbing. sliming. being too tight, reflux,not being tight enough, never finding the sweet spot, not being able to lose the weight, eating around the band(which I would have done as I love ice cream)..etc. It seemed like so much. So, when I read the VSG board posts, it seemed like there were a great deal less complications. So, many less that most of the time I searched for posts specifically related to issues and was hard pressed to really find them. I know that it isn't all sunshine and roses...and cutting 80% of my stomach out is a very scary prospect. But, so are the complications with the band. 

So, I have scheduled my surgery with Dr. Aceves in Mexicali on July 24th. I am taking the plunge, going into debt and praying and believing that the outcome is going to be beneficial for me.

I had my surgical consult with Dr. McKeen on Friday. His office is considerable smaller than that of my original surgeon Dr. Sanchez. It was clean and comfortable with two very oversized couches and one oversized chair and a coffee table in the waiting room. The waiting room was full pretty much. There were about 7 people in all waiting for their appointment. I was a bit concerned by this as if I am not mistaken Dr. McKeen is the only dr in that office.

I had to wait about 30 minutes before I was called back to the exam room. The woman that took me back was quite nice, sorry but I don’t recall her name. Once in the exam room, she weighed me, took my blood pressure and asked me a list of medical history questions. It was pretty much a repeat of history that I was required to fill out on the website.

After that I was taken to another room which had 3 large living room type chairs and a tv. I waited in there for about 20 minutes or so before Dr. Mckeen came in for the consult. He is a very personable man. We sat for 20-25 minutes going over the procedure and any and all questions I had about the lapband. I was even able to see the two versions of the lap band that are out. He said he only uses the newest one that holds 10cc and has only been out since…I believe he said November of last year. He showed how a fill works by inserting air into the port and having the lapband fill. It was pretty much what I expected. He said that he has done over 600 lapbands. I thought that was a pretty good number. He has had a couple of flipped ports, kinked tubing etc…but no other major problems. No deaths etc. He does not require an overnight stay in the hospital and says the surgery is only about an hour long. He does not care if I drink caffeine (not that I do anyway) or carbonation-he did state that I probably wouldn’t want carbonation since it was unpleasant…that it backed up into the throat and nose etc. He gives out his home phone and cell phone to his patients if they need to contact him. He does all the fills himself and does not charge for unfills after too big of a fill. He does fills without floro unless absolutely necessary. There is no aftercare included in his surgical fee. That was a little disappointing as there was 3 months aftercare with Dr. Sanchez and all fills were only billed as an office visit and therefore I would only have had to cover the $30.00 copay. Dr. McKeen says that he believes that most patients pay around $75.00 for their portion of the fills. Which isn’t horrible, but $30.00 is so much better. I never felt rushed during the consult with Dr. McKeen at all.

Once we were through, he said that he felt I was an ideal candidate since I was so well informed and have lost a significant amount of weight in the past on my own and have very few health issues. He then took me out the front desk where I scheduled my appointments for the nutritionist and the psychologist for this Friday (they are both in house). In addition to the nut and the psych I have to attend a mandatory weight loss informational meeting on Thursday, then another pre-op phone appointment and have either and ekg or an echo or both…I am not sure I have to clarify as there is some confusion on how it was checked on my ‘to do’ list for surgery. I had already completed all my blood work when I was working on approval from the other surgeon and they accepted those lab reports. I also had a letter of recommendation from my PCP. I was told that if I get all my laps complete that Blue Shield usually approves in a weeks time. He told me that the process would be about 4-6 weeks. That’s pretty fast! After this week, the only that I will have left to do is get my ekg/echo and then we will submit for approval. I am hoping to be scheduled for surgery in mid to late June. Oh, another thing is that they front desk mentioned for anyone that is interested, the out of pocket costs for his office usually run in the $3,500.00 range. My insurance max out of pocket is $3,600.00 for which I have already met about $1,000.00 this year…so I am anticipating an additional $2,600.00.

 
I have probably missed quite a bit about the consult and some of the questions asked and answered, if they come to me I will post them later. 

So, I will update again after my nut and psych consults. That should be fun. LOL