disney38
46 year old mom of 3 adult sons, married for 27 years to a wonderful man. I have had weight issues for the past 20 years, but lately my health is being affected. I am looking to LIVE.
4/30/07
Well, it is time to tell my story. I am a 46 year old mother of three sons. I was not always overweight, but I have been for the past 20 years. I guess it kept getting worse over the years as I was always in a cycle of dieting, not dieting. I would lose 20 lbs, gain 30, lose 20 lbs, gain 40 and so on. Finally, I found the one thing that helped me lose weight, and that was fen-phen. I lost 80 lbs (and my gallbladder) within 6 months time. It was wonderful. I felt good, I had energy, it was amazing. Then they took it off the market.....sigh. I gained all 80 lbs back plus 20 more.
I started researching WLS 5 years ago, but at the time did not have any comorbidities. Approximately 1 year ago I went to a bariatric support group and talked to the coordinator. She said she thought I had a pretty good chance of approval, even though my BMI was not quite 40. I jumped through all the hoops they asked me to; supervised diet, psychologist visit, nutritionist appointment, sleep study. I was diagnosed with Sleep Apnea, so I thought that would cinch the deal.
My insurance denied coverage because my sleep apnea was controlled by CPAP according to their records. I had only had the CPAP for 1-2 weeks when the denial came in. The surgeon appealed, but that was denied too.
Two months later, I find that I needed to have A DIFFERENT surgery; I needed a complete hysterectomy because of fibroid tumors and ovarian cysts. The surgeon told me that the conditions I had were related to obesity. I had that surgery and recovered just fine.
I called my insurance to see if I could resubmit. They said only if something changed. So, I figured my sleep apnea was the thing that had changed according to theier records. My doctor wrote a very firm letter to my insurance indicating that my Sleep Apnea was getting worse and hard to control.
Tuesday I got a call tedlling me I HAD BEEN APPROVED. I am so excited, but scared.
