Mood:  not sure
Well, this is my first entry so let me give you a little history about myself. I am a 26 year old, married female. I have been married for 6 1/2 years. My husband and I got married when we were 20 and were in college. We graduated college in the spring of 2003. I have a Bachelors in Family Life Education/Child Development and his is in Electrical Engineering. We don't have any children but want to in the next few years.

I have been overweight for what seems like my entire life. When i was born I weighed 9lbs 13.5 oz. Yes, I was a big baby. It seems that the weight stuck with me my entire life. Since being a teenager my weight was never less than 30 lbs over weight according to the height/weight charts.

So in July of 2003 I went with my mom to a seminar about weight loss surgery. I was very skeptical and hesitant about it. My mom had already decided she wanted to do it. Well, during this seminar there were people talking about how much they had lost and how much better they felt. Well, I was already in the high 200 lb range anyway so I started really thinking this might be a good idea.

I didn't have insurance at the time b/c we had just graduated from college and I didn't have a job yet but my husband did. We were just waiting for it to kick in. Since, he was working for the government we had lots of choices. We picked Blue Cross/Blue Shield Federal. In their catalog it stated they covered weight loss surgery. I thought it was a good choice.

Well, come to find out they don't pay for the adjustable banding they will just pay for the R&Y. Which I refused to have done because I didn't want anything that invasive. Well, by this time we had already missed open season (time to change benefits for the government employees). SO I now had to wait until fall of 2004 for open season to come around again so I could get the insurance changed. Boy, was this a long wait.

Well, in January of 2005 our insurance was changed to Federal Mail Handlers. We did a lot of research before we picked a carrier. I wanted to make sure that whichever one was picked covered the surgery that way I wouldn't have to go through another 1 year and 1/2 of waiting. In the policy it stated they covered the adjustable band.

Now that I had insurance that covered the surgery I still had to get it approval from them to pay for my procedure.

I contacted the Dr. office again and ask them to submit my records that I had given them from 2 years before to the new insurance company. I of course had to send them a copy of the insurance card. And they asked me to redo my application for the surgery since my medical conditions could have changed in that time. Once that was done it was time to wait.

Well, then the insurance company started requesting information. I had to see a psychologist, a nutritionist and the doctor. The insurance company wanted me to visit with the Dr. about why I wanted to have surgery and they wanted his opinion on how I would do. Once all that was submitted it was time to wait again.

The insurance company then requested a letter from my regular Dr. on her opinion of me having the surgery. It was then time to wait again. Then they asked for a letter from my regular Dr. asking if I had any heart problems. I thought this was a good sign. "They want to know because they are going to approve me for the surgery!!!!" Once that was submitted to the insurance company it was time once again to wait for an answer.

One day after getting that final letter to them I got a call from the surgeons office saying that my surgery had been approved. Boy-o-boy was I excited. I was ready to get it scheduled and be done.

WRONG!!! The surgeons office then had to run test of their own. They did blood work and I had to schedule a meeting with a physical therapist and a pulmonary test. I waited about 3 days for these to be scheduled because I couldn't call myself for scheduling I had to wait on the physical therapist and the pulmonary technician to call me. Once, the test were scheduled I got to then schedule my surgery.

June 1, 2005 was the date of my surgery. I had started my 10 day pre-op diet. I was ready to go. Until, a week before surgery I got a call and I had h-pylori bacteria in my stomach. It could cause complications so the surgery had to be pushed back at least 14 days. I was up on 14 days worth of 3000mg of antibiotics and previcid. The surgery could have been scheduled for June 15th but due to my work I couldn't schedule it then. So it was set for June 22, 2005.

About a week before surgery the surgeons office called and my surgery had to be pushed back 24 hours because the Dr. had a last minute out of town trip. So it was then scheduled for June 24, 2005.

I am now 5 days out from surgery and doing great. I will go into more of that in the days to come.