Melissa S.

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Today I stepped on the scales and I have made it to the century club!  At least since surgery :)  I have lost 100 pounds since RNY in June 2010.

I have lost 147 pounds from my highest weight of 380.  WOW!

Where has the time gone?  So much has happened in such a short time.  Where to start....  Well on the day of surgery I weighed 333 pounds.  My A1C was 8.1 my blood pressure was high and I was taking three different medicines to try to control it.  Not to mention the high cholesterol.

In the six months since my surgery... I have lost 98 pounds.  My A1C is 5.1, my cholesterol is normal, my blood pressure its pretty decent and I am no longer on any meds at all!  (except for the vitamins and calcium that I have to take for the rest of my life)

I have went from wearing a size 26/28 to now I wear 16/18 (and still getting smaller)  Most importantly is I feel so much better than I have in years.  I move faster through my day.  I actually enjoy going places now and meeting people.

I would do it all over again in a hearbeat.  I have no regrets at all.

I will be attending a two hour pre-surgical class tomorrow with Tabitha, Dr. Nease' nurse.  Afterwards I have to go to the hospital to pre register for surgery.

Only six more days until surgery day!

GIt er done!

I heard from the surgeons office today.  Its official... June 14th is my surgery.  Just a little over two weeks away.

Wow!  Finally... after all this time, I can't wait.

Actually,  I sort of have a date, it is just not written in stone yet.

June 14th.  That is the date that is tentatively set for my surgery.  I will hopefully know for sure tomorrow.

But wait!  Theres more!  My sister may also get her surgery on the same day.  She got her letter of approval from her insurance and the doctor does two surgerys a day and right now, they are trying for the both of us to have surgery the same day.

This is what we have wanted to happen all along, but we didn't think it would, because it seemed it was taking so long for her to get the approval.

This is good news!  It will be nice to begin this journey together.  We are very close.

So now we are up to speed on this WLS journey of mine.

I will keep you posted.

So, my sister and I go to the nutrition class on May 3rd.  She has already attended her class, but went with me anyway.

Marsha, the nutritionist is very through in going over the stages of food we are to follow.  She sets up a table with various proteins and other items we are allowed to have after surgery.

She also goes over the vitamin details during this class.  We are given our dietary guide to keep and refer to from now on.  It was pretty interesting.  I am still wondering how things will change after surgery.  Even though I know people who have had gastric bypass, it still seems so far away from me.

After the class was over, we went shopping for a while and had dinner.  The monthly support group meeting is tonight and we are sticking around to attend.

So at the support group meeting, there were several people there who were five years out from RNY, a couple that were a few months out from RNY, VSG and lapband.  Everyone seems to be doing very well.  The poeple that were five years out, came to tell how they kept on track.

One lady says she has a certain plate that she uses to eat all her meals so that she has good portion control.  One man says that he walks or exercises to keep his weight maintained.  Another lady says that she cooks up here meals and freezes them so that she doesn't have to stress over what to eat all the time and if she is short on protein, she still uses the protein powders and calls it her "medicine" to make sure she gets in enough daily.

It was a full day for sure, I was tired, but I want to learn as much as I can from others who have been there before me.

So April 27th came and I travelled to Huntington to have my inital exam and consult with Dr. Nease. I was a little nervous, but not too much.  Nothing to be nervouse about.  Dr. Nease is such a nice man.  He talked to me about the different surgeries that were available.  Explaining the Pros and Cons of each.  Examined me and told me that all my tests were good and that I was a candidate for any of the surgeries I wanted to pursue.

I took copies of all my tests to him in case there was a problem and the hospital hadn't sent them over beforehand.  He saw how ready I was for the surgery and how long I had been researching and trying to get approved.  He said he wished all his patients were that prepared.

When I left his office, I was given an appointment for the next step, the 3 hour nutrition class.  I got the next available appointment which was next week.

Things are moving right along.

So on April 3rd, my sister and I traveled to Ashland, to see Dr. Prater for our physc evaluations.  We kind of freaked the doctor out, he didn't know we were together and we each put the other down as contacts on our paperwork and he thought there was an error.

I talking with him, we found out that he believed it was a sign for us to be there togther.  He said that he never has a cancellation and for him to call me on such short notice was just strange.

Everything went well with the evaluation.  We both were through with our respective visits in less than the hour it normally takes.. Actually in about 40-45 minutes.  He walked us out and wished us well.  He was very nice.

So now, I have to wait until my doctors visit to go any further.

I actually did go ahead and submit the application for my money from my 401K.  I didn't know how long it would take to get it out.  (acutally wasn't long .. about two weeks)

Self pay for lap RNY is $21,007.00 (plus physc eval and any labs before hand)  Just about broke the bank, but what good was the money gonna do me if I didn't live to retirement?  I am just so thankful I had the money to cover the surgery.

The day following the seminar, Jackie called me from Dr. Nease's office and scheduled my first office visit.  It was set for April, 27th.  Oh my, I have to wait a whole month more??  It has been so long for me with trying to get surgery, that I am anxious to get things rolling.

My sister is also in the process of getting surgery approval with Dr. Nease.  She has insurance that will cover it, but she has to have so many months of doctors notes, etc. before they will approve her.  She started the process back in November 2009 and is waiting on here physc eval.

I called Jackie a couple of days later and asked her if I could get anything done before my visit with the doctor to hurry things along.  She said yes!

So I went ahead a called to set up my physc eval with Dr. Gary Prater, from Ashland, KY.  My sister had an appointment with him on April 3rd.  Dr. Prater called me back a few days later and said he had a cancellation and did I want to come on April 3rd!  I said absolutely.  That way my sister and I could go together.  We live a couple hours away from both Dr. Nease and Dr. Praters offices.

I also had my PCP write up orders for my EKG, Chest XRay and bloodwork. (Tabitha, gave me a list of what was needed) so I had that all done before hand.  I was getting ready

I work on the second floor of my building.  The audit department is on the first floor and while working late one evening in January 2010 one of the auditors came up the stairs to my floor to speak with an accountant.

This auditor, like myself, is morbidly obese.  The stairs nearly killed him and we started talking and he told me he was going to try to have lapband surgery.  Of course, I told him that our insurance wouldn't cover it and about my attempts over the years.

He told me that he knew the insurance wouldn't cover it, but he was going to take the money from his 401K.  I didn't know that you could do that!  So needless to say that got the old ball rollin' again.

So in February of this year, I sent out emails requesting self pay information from three top surgeons.  I scheduled seminars with two of them.  The three surgeons I was looking at were Dr. Nease, Dr. Shinn and Dr. Stickler.  Of the three, I sent emails out to them all (Twice), only one responded.  It was Dr. Nease's office. Jackie, has been very helpful to me.

I attended the first seminar (in March) with Dr. Shinn and he was very nice, but seemed in a hurry (ok, it was on a saturday and a pretty day to boot).  Then I attended the seminar with Dr. Nease on March 25th and was blown away.  This man took his time, answered so many questions and told you more than I have ever heard about WLS.  His was by far the BEST seminar ever.  I made up my mind then and there that he was the surgeon I wanted.

Before I left that evening, I had submitted my letter from my PCP supporting WLS and my initial application.