mamaofboys1019

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So been really frustrated lately with the whole submitting to the insurance situation.  I finally got my letter of approval on monday Feb 27.  I almost immediately called the office to see what my next step was and I talked to the lady to submits to insurance and she rudely told me that she did not receive anything.  I told her I had the letter in my possession and that I was approved.  She said she would "check" into it and call me back...today is thursday and I had heard NOTHING from her.  So I called my insurance company just to double verify that I was not a crazy person and that the letter meant I was completely approved for the surgery.  They told me that I was approved for the surgery and hospital stay up to 6 days if necessary and that I had been approved on Feb 25th.  It is incredibly frustrating to think that someone's life/future is dependent on a person and they could not care less.  At first, I gave her the benefit.  Like I am a nurse, I know that work gets busy but this person has wasted 3 weeks of my life.

So I called the office and explained to the person that answered that I was getting frustrated because the letter came on monday and I was supposed to get a call but didnt.  She looked in my chart and said that it still did not have an authorization number.  I told her I had the authorization in my possession and gave it to her.  She told me she would give it to the scheduler, which thankfully for me was not the same person that I was depending on to get the authorization!  By the end of today, I was called and got my scheduled date for March 24th!!!!!

So overly excited!  Can not wait to start this new journey!!!  Everyone deserves happiness and this is my beginning 

Carrie

Feeling pretty frustrated at this point.

On Feb 14, I saw my dietian for the first time.  When I got to the office, they told me that she would not see me because I didnt see the dr yet.  I KINDLY reminded them that I DID in fact see the Dr on the 7th and that is the same day I made my appointment with the dietian.  After waiting for about 15 min, she saw that I did in fact see the Dr and saw me.  Because she did not plan on seeing me, she was not quite prepared.  I was patient though because I knew I needed this counselling.   So she threw together a binder for me and we did our hour long session.  By the end, I was feeling great because when I had my Lapband, my nutrition consult was a joke.  I had to go to the hospital I worked at because of my insurance and our dietian was not specialized in bariatrics so she basically was just like eat right.  This dietian only works at my bariatric office and does this everyday, all day so she is a wealth of knowledge and resource.  I felt overly ready to start this journey!

Before I left, she was like "Let me see if they heard anything from your insurance yet!"  When she went to talk to the person that was submitting it, she found out that it was not submitted yet.  She stated that APPARENTLY it was placed on her desk and the Dr didnt say anything so she did not submit it yet but that she would.  I was immediately disappointed because at this point, it was a waste of an entire week.

So Friday I was driving to Cleveland to meet my new niece (yay!) and decided on the 2 hour drive that I would give my insurance company a call and see how long they expected it to take and things because I want to plan my future with my work schedule.  I am a nurse and I want to give my employer enough time so that I am not screwing up their schedule and staffing.  When I called, I was placed on hold for 20 min while the girl was trying to find my information that was submitted.  Turns out, it was STILL not submitted!!!!  So now it has been 10 days wasted.  I called my office and they stated that the person that submits to insurances is not in on fridays.  I explained the situation and so the person that answered put me on hold.  When she returned, she stated that she looked and that my chart was on the right persons desk and that she could transfer me to her office voicemail.  So I left a message.

This morning, she called me and said I understand you have some questions.  I said yes, I wanted to know how long this is going to take because now its has been almost 2 weeks wasted.  She asked if I did the 6 month preop supervised diet.  I stated that the Dr told me that I would not need this and she stated that they are hoping I wont need it but they wont know until it comes back from the insurance company.  She did state that she was submitting it today though and that she expected to know in a week or 2.

I was just in such a good, positive mood from the start because I am BEYOND ready to start this journey and this whole submitting to insurance has really got me down in the dumps.  I am part of multiple FB support groups and every day there are more and more success photos and stories and here I am sitting and waiting because the office screwed up.  Every day I wake up and my feet are really hurting.  I know its because of the weight I have expected them to carry all of these years and they are finally giving me the whole "f" you.  I am tired of being short of breath.  I am tired of hating myself and my appearance.  I am tired of being tired.  I am overly ready to have this tool help me with success after failing time after time after time with diets.

How do people stand the waiting????  It is literally killing me.  My anxiety is on high.  My frustration is on high.  My sadness is on high.  

Praying for it to be just one more week instead of two.

Carrie

So due to working on Thursday, I had to move my appointment and today was actually available!   

I could seriously scream from the rooftops because it went WAY better than I couldve ever expected!  Everyone at the office was SUPER nice and Dr Wilcox was so nice.  He basically told me that in 2009, he never wouldve encouraged me to do the lapband because I had too much to lose.  He said he wouldve probably talked me into the bypass from the beginning.  But that is way in my past so I have to push forward.  He said that my symptoms are definitely grounds to remove the band and that he would definitely revise me to the gastric bypass.  Those I was not concerned about at all.  I knew that I would have no trouble convincing him to revise me.

So the part I was worried about: One or two surgeries?  And would I need to do the preop stuff that I had to do in the past?

The GREAT news-----ONE surgery!  I have about two weeks stored in time paid off of work and I am accruing every pay.  So i could not really afford to have two surgeries so that was HUGE relief!  Then they told me that my insurance was no longer requiring the preop workup even with new patients.  She said that they MIGHT make me see a psychiatrist but she wouldnt know for sure until they try to put my stuff through.  That to me is small potatoes.  Bring it on!

The actual center requires me to do a dietian consult, which I am so ready for because I KNOW I need help with the dos and dont of the procedure.  So I made that appointment for next tuesday.

So I am basically just waiting for them to call me when they find out from the insurance company!!  So excited!  They made me feel so comfortable and like I am not a complete failure.  They told me that it is becoming so common for them to be removing Lapbands and revise them.  

So praying for a quick insurance situation because I am OVERLY ready!!!!

 Carrie

Happy tuesday everyone!

Just got my call that the new surgeons will accept me as a patient!  The earliest appointment I could get was next thursday Feb 9th.  We will discuss the next step.  Hopefully because I already did the whole 6 month thing already, they wont make me do it again but we will see. 

I weighed myself yesterday morning and solidified my decision to do the revision to the bypass.  I need to do this for so many reasons.  

One of the things that I have decided to do was start a video diary of my progress.  I havent decided if I am going to be open enough to do it on Youtube or anything like some people do but I want to keep a log of my progress.  The other thing that I am going to prioritize is making a video to look back on to remind myself of why I dont every want to be back to where I am today.  I have been watching a lot of Youtube videos and getting ideas.  It is giving me things to keep my mind on because I am really impatient once I make a decision to do something.

So excited to have a date to look forward to!  I bought a journal to write down my NSV goals, my reasons why this is so important, and any other things along the way.  

Have a wonderful day everyone!

Carrie

 Hello everyone!

I started my first journey in 2009.  I decided that the Lapband was the perfect thing for me because I had yet to have children and it was easy to manipulate to take the fluid in and out.  I went through the 6 months of PCP visits, psych eval, pulmonary and cardiac clearances.  And on October 21, 2009, my lapband was placed.  When I went to the first follow up that I could get a fill, the dr had difficulty.  After an hour of him painfully poking around in my belly near my port, he decided to take me to radiology to try to see it under fluoroscopy.  After trying again, he realized that the port had flipped and so he couldnt access it.  Shortly after that, he took me back for outpatient surgery to fix the port.  So needless to say, the beginning was not the start I had anticipated.

Within the first year, I called for a follow up and was told that the Dr I had left and all of his patients were referred to a different group.  I was irritated because I was just there and no one said ANYTHING about him leaving.  At this point, I had gone from 309lb when I started the preop phase to around 270lb.  This new dr told me that since I had plateaued for awhile that I was probably done losing.  He said that that amount of weight was about what I would be expected to lose.  I was completely devastated.  I was still considered morbidly obese!  Completely heartbroken.   It really made me lose a bit of motivation.  I didnt start regaining but I did stop losing and I felt hopeless.  

In March of 2012, I found out I was pregnant with my first miracle baby.  We had tried to get pregnant for about 2 years and finally, the test was positive!!!!!  I followed up and told the Dr that I wanted the fluid removed because at this point, I was getting food stuck at least once a day and I wanted the best chance for my baby.  Once I got the fluid out, I finally realized just how miserable that life was for me.  I went from throwing up because of it getting stuck to being able to eat again.  Oct 2012, we welcomed out first son, Noah, to the world.  I decided that I truly hated the feeling of the stuck food so I was not going back to get it filled.  

In July 2014, we found out we were expecting and in April 2015, we welcomed our second son, Jack, to the world.  Shortly after his arrival, food started to get stuck again.  At first it was occasionally and now it is daily again.  I dont want to go out to eat because who wants to eat with someone that has to leave to throw up?  Its just easier to eat at my house just in case.  I do not enjoy life like I should.  My access port has always been something I felt, but in the last few months, the pain at the port site has increased immensely.   I cant lay on my belly (I am a belly sleeper) because it hurts and if it doesnt when I go to sleep,  when I wake up its excruciating. 

I am getting to the point of depression that it is really effecting the life around me.  I have no joy in things that I should.  My children are everything to me and I am not the mother I should be because of my depression and weight.  I have regained most of my weight. 

I am a nurse and recently had a patient that had a lapband and had it removed. So I asked him a bunch of questions.  I have always had it in the back of my mind to change to a bypass but recently with the pain and trying to lose on my own without success, I have come to the decision that what is best for me is to get the band removed and do a revision to a gastric bypass.  My heart hurts because I know that there are people in my life that will not understand and will not be happy about the decision I have made.  I know that they will love and support me because that is the type of relationship we have.  I have to do what is best for me and my boys.  I spoke to my husband last night and he has concerns, which I expected but he said he will be by my side the entire journey, just as he was with the first one.

I feel like such a failure with the lapband.  I feel like my first surgeon wasnt completely upfront with me on my options and didnt explain everything to me.  I regret not getting the bypass in 2009.  But these are all things that I can not change and I have to move forward.

My current situation is that the second dr I was referred to has also left and so I am trying to switch to Hope Bariatrics because their office and hospital where the surgery will be is closer to home and I just had a friend have a great experience with them.  So I requested my records to be faxed to them and I am waiting on their response as to whether or not they will accept me as their patient (fingers crossed!)

Not sure if anyone is going to read these blog posts but it makes me feel better to get it out and to share my journey.  If it helps someone else make the right decision, then it has done its purpose.

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                             Carrie