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Goals

Be comfortable in my own skin

23 People
 in progress, 
1 Person
 achieved this

get approved for surgery and get to a healthy weight, finally!

166 People
 in progress, 
46 People
 achieved this
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Latest Surgery Support Comments

  • Comment by Pat T. on 10/26/09 8:35 am
    Congratulations! This is such an exciting time! The first few weeks after surgery will be a roller coaster ride, but you will do great! Wishing you the best for an uneventful, successful surgery and a speedy recovery! Best wishes!
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teachmusik's Blog
teachmusik's Blog


Progress
on September 10, 2009 1:09 pm
I just hung up the phone with DVR's office. Rose (the lady in the office who deals with all of the financial/insurance stuff) said she had actually called my insurance yesterday and they had said it was still pending, but that they should have made a decision by now. She said she'd call the specific person working on my case either today or tomorrow (more likely tomorrow) and see what's going on. I will update when I know more. Prayer is good.
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Still no news
on September 9, 2009 9:10 pm
I'm very bad at waiting, I've found out...I need to work on that :) I think I'm going to call my doctor on Friday if I still haven't heard. I was supposed to have found out by last Friday but nada so far. I origionally thought that I would have known by mid-August but I found out DVR didn't actually submit my stuff until August 15th and I was to find out by 10 buisness days, 15 at the latest (which was last Friday). It's times like this that send out the "Eat! Eat!" trigger but I won't do it. I don't like not knowing what's going on. (Double negative anyone?...anyone?....hey it's after midnight and I can't sleep. Give me a break) I want to know. :( Next Wednesday's my 24th birthday. Hopefully I'll know by then.
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No News
on August 21, 2009 9:23 pm
Haven't heard back from the insurance yet.

As a friend of mine would say, "boo and hiss". 
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The (hopefully) last tests
on August 14, 2009 8:50 pm
This week I took care of the extra tests/lab work. On Wednesday I went and got blood taken for the liver test. I know DVR has the results by now so I'm taking the fact that I haven't heard anything as a good sign. The lab techs can never find my veins. It's really annoying. So I end up with bruises. This bruise has shrunk down a bit, now it's about the size of a penny but still all black and blue.

This morning I headed back to the pulminary lab at St. Agnes for an arterial gases test (to find out what's wrong with my oxygen level in my blood). Normally blood is taken from your veins. However this one (as you can tell by it being called "arterial") had to come from my artery.

****WARNING-not for the squeamish**** (I know, I know, I'm the only one reading this. But after I get approved by my insurance I'm letting everyone read it, so I thought I might as well post the warning now just to have it covered.)



They stuck a rather long needle into my wrist and started wriggling it around, probing for the artery. It HURT. ALOT. They kept bumping the needle into nerves or accidentally pricking the nerves and that was really bad. I really wanted to jerk my arm away but knew that was a quite bad idea so instead I just started tapping my toes inside my shoe and humming a bit to try and take my mind off of it. The nurse looked at me, laughed, and said that at least I didn't cuss which is aparently what most people do when they hit a nerve (literally hit a nerve, in this case).

She pulled the needle back out of my wrist and called a different lab tech over. The new tech got a fresh needle and stuck it in next to where it was stuck in before. By this time I was really hurting. As in biting my lip, tears rolling down my face hurting. Before they stuck this second needle in, I had asked for a few seconds to myself and just huddled in my chair for a bit to get myself under control. This time the lady only had to wriggle it around a smaller amount of time before she found the artery and got the blood out.



****End of squeamish-ness****

They said that those two needleholes would bleed alot more than normal vein needleholes so they had me hold a pad on my wrist until they got the results of the test (about 5-7 minutes). Then I got a band-aid and they said that my oxygen was fine. It must have been a glitch in the earlier test. Which was annoying because on top of the pain and the time it took, this test cost me money just like all the other ones. This one and the other pulminary lab one were the most expensive since they were done in a hospital.

I should find out about insurance approval (or not) sometime this week. Here's hoping.
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A Cautious Woohoo!
on August 10, 2009 6:37 pm
Once Ranessa got back from vacation we scheduled an appointment. I went to see DVR on Wednesday (Aug 5) and it turned out Ranessa was actually able to see me right after that apointment because it was her lunchtime and she said she'd see me then since I was there already! So I got on the scale and I LOST MORE WEIGHT so.....

:::drumroll:::

DVR SUBMITTED MY STUFF TO MY INSURANCE!!!! I should find out in another week or so from now if I'm approved or not. If I am, I'll schedule my surgery for 4-6 weeks from then! DVR and the other people in the office said they don't see any reason why I wouldn't be approved since all my paperwork is in order.


There is one bit of not-so-good news: the oxygen in my blood was really low from the pulminary study results so I need to go get some stuff done. Also I need to get a hepititas test because my liver is wonky. It's probabily messed up because I'm overweight, but they need to do the test just to be sure.
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My Story

I never was a stick child. Growing up I was healthy but not "skinny". I was near the top of the ideal weight range for my height but I was still on the chart. All of that changed my senior year of high school. I had been going through some emotional stuff, including an emotionally abusive "friendship" (meaning at the time I thought we were friends but looking back I can see how wrong it was) with a guy that ended with him raping one of my friends. Actually we were still friends after that, it ended when I found out about the rape which was a few months after it actually happened. I didn't speak to him again after that. He used to say things like "Too bad you aren't pretty or we could go out sometime" or say that he only talked to good-looking people in public which was why he would ignore me or stop in the middle of a conversation to go talk to another girl. He said other stuff too, and that stuff still hurts now even it's been over 7 years since I last saw him. At the time, I tolerated it. He made me feel special when we talked one-on-one so I thought he was the most wonderful thing ever and put up with the way he treated me the rest of the time.

My mom is very big on healthy eating. We didn't keep junk food in the house. I used to trade taking people's trash to the compactor so they could get in line first when leaving the cafeteria (believe it or not that was a big thing in elementary school) for their junk food. That stopped after elementary school.

I started binging (bulemia without throwing up-just eating alot of food quickly) when I got my driver's license. I would go to the 7-11 on the way home from school and buy junk food. Then I would stuff it into my backpack and sneak it up to my room while my mom taught piano lessons in our living room. I would eat it as quickly as possible and then hide the trash under my bed. Or in my car. A few times my parents would go to get something they had stored under my bed and would find all the trash. I used to eat one of those one-pound boxes of Cheez-its in less than an afternoon.

At the start of my senior year I voluntarily checked myself into the Eating Disorders center at a local hospital. It didn't work. They put me in a support group that was me and the rest were anorexics. I don't think that benefited anyone. I gained over 100 pounds that year. My senior picture from my yearbook (taken in August 2002) and at graduation (May 2003) look like completely different people. I left the center and decided to go it on my own.

The last time I binged was a few years ago. I gained additional weight since the end of high school. I am currently (on June 12, 2009) about 190 pounds heavier than I want to be. I have tried almost everything-Weight Watchers, Curves, Thin & Healthy, etc. They normally work for a month or two and then I plateau and gain it all back.

I started looking into gastric bypass surgery in fall of 2008. It was still kind of just looking as an option but not something I was actually going to do. Then I found out that a girl my brother went to high school with (who I knew too) was having it. I started talking to her and she had her surgery with Dr. Von Rueden. She lost 125 lbs in the first five months. I then started looking into it seriously because that made it real for me. I went to an intrest meeting for Dr. Von Rueden myself and had my first appointment with him on June 8, 2009. I am looking at a surgery date for RNY gastric bypass in late September/early October.

This is a tool, not a miracle cure. It is still going to take a LOT of work and dedication on my part but I know I can do it. The part that I am honestly freaked out about the most is the actual surgery. The only time I've been knocked out is when my wisdom teeth were pulled and then they were just messing with my mouth. This is cutting holes in my stomach. It's going to be done laproscopically (sp?) which means I'll have five scars about the width of my thumb instead of one big scar. I'll also heal alot quicker-I'll be able to walk within 12 hours of surgery and will probabily only have to stay in the hospital one night. I will only have to miss about two weeks of work.

Wish me luck.