jdeon
The Road to Referral
May 16, 2011
T-minus 4 days
In my first post I alluded to a story behind my referral to bariatric surgery. I am a little amazed by it, and hope that those of you who have been on a wait list for a long while will forgive the hand of fate that is behind my own story.
There have been many times in the last few years that I have thought about how the “weight issue” was starting to impact my health and I began discussing it as “the root of all evil” with my family physician. I had her start monitoring my weight, so that I would have some extra accountability when I went through various diet and exercise stages.
Then my body started sabotaging my attempts at exercise – ankles and knees didn’t hold up like they used to, and I had increasing trips to the massage therapist and chiropractor.
Diets worked for a while, but it seemed I would always find some reason to backslide – I was too busy, I was on vacation, it was a special occasion, even just that it was really damn cold and my body craved comfort food.
Last fall, in one of my bluer days, I asked my doctor whether or not she thought bariatric surgery was a viable option for me. To be honest, I kind of expected her to say no, that it was an extreme option only for patients much bigger than me.
To my surprise, she said that it can be sometimes the only long-term solution for many, many patients, and she felt that if it was an option I wanted to pursue, she would be behind me 100%.
(This is probably a good time for me to tell the world how awesome my doctor, Dr. Marie O’Dea, is, and always has been – a good doctor is a gift from God.)
So that was all I need to send me scurrying off to the Internet in my research. My earliest searches led me to this web site that hosts my blog, from which I have learned so much from so many.
The first thing I learned is that bariatric surgery is either a) a long wait, b) expensive, or c) both. Plus, at the time, there was no one in Newfoundland performing any type of bariatric surgery, so I would have to travel out of province for both pre-op appointments and the surgery itself.
There are three types of bariatric surgery that are the most common in Canada; the Roux-n-Y Gastric Bypass; the Gastric Lap Band; and the Sleeve Gastrectomy (which I have discussed at length in other posts)
Gastric bypass surgery is the most common and makes the stomach smaller and allows food to bypass part of the small intestine. It is not reversible. This surgery is covered by MCP and was the likeliest option for me initially. I knew that there were surgeons in many others provinces who performed this.
The gastric lap band is an inflatable banding system that is placed around the upper stomach to limit food intake. It can be adjusted, depending on the needs of individual patients, and is reversible. At the time I inquired (fall 2010), it was not covered by MCP. I inquired at several facilities in the Toronto area, and the cost was approximately $16,000. The good news was that the procedure could have been performed within 6-10 weeks from first referral.
Not having $16,000 lying around, I decided to ask Dr. O’Dea for a referral for gastric bypass. She also referred me for approval by MCP for an out of province procedure, which I also received. (MCP would pay for medical costs, but not for any travel, which was okay.)
The next step was finding a surgeon. While I knew that most patients in NL were referred to New Brunswick, first I tried to find a surgeon in Ontario that would accept me, as my family is in Toronto. Ontario boosted its bariatric surgery program with seventy-five (75) million dollars in 2009, so I thought they would have plenty of surgeons.
Oh, they do – just not a single one willing to take anyone from out-of-province. The obesity “epidemic” is so high in Ontario that despite my elegantly-phrased appeals to several surgeons, they were unable to accept anyone out-of-province and despite their program boost, most surgeons still had an 18-month to 2 year wait list.
Meanwhile, the waitlist for a New Brunswick surgeon was reported to be in the 5-7 year range. No matter, I said to myself, just start the first step and I’ll wait my turn.
Then – the hand of fate intervened. A colleague of mine mentioned the possibility of a bariatric program starting in Newfoundland under Dr. David Pace. Before you could say wham-bam-thank you ma’am, I had my referral into his office.
My referral appointment was March 22, and all I hoped for at that stage was that he would accept me into his program. I was so joyful at the possibility of getting the surgery at home; I didn’t care how long I would have to wait.
Now I know surgeons are not often known for their bedside manner, but when he said he would be scheduling me for the first day of surgery in May, I could have kissed him!
So, dear friends and fellow bariatric-surgery hopefuls, indeed, I have a horseshoe up my bum and (dare I say it?) a guardian angel by my side. I am LUCKY and BLESSED to be getting this surgery on Friday, which will be approximately seven months since I began looking into it.
I know many of you have been waiting much longer than I have, and I am so sorry for that. I will pray for your success in equal measure to my hoped-for own.
