That's the date I'll be making my way onto the 'Loser's Bench'! I just got the call today, from my insurance company no less.

My paperwork was originally submitted around 8/4. I gave it a week, called my insurance company and found out it was sitting in the wrong fax queue. So glad I called! This awesome rep, Cynthia, personally got the docs, checked them to make sure there weren't any obvious exclusions (i.e. my hospital wasn't a Center of Excellence or whatever BCBS's term is) and then pushed it over to the correct department. She then followed up with me 3 days later to let me know it was there but a case number hadn't generated yet.

She said I'd hear back on Monday, but I didn't (which really, I wasn't bothered by), but I did follow-up on my on Wednesday. Got through to the right department only to find out that my file was still sitting in someone's pending queue and, again, hadn't been touched. The rep got his supervisor involved and he personally started the process of creating the case. I got a call later that night from Cynthia, giving me the case number and telling me she'd be following the case personally. This was last Friday.

I called yesterday, got a rep that wasn't quite as helpful but did find out that my case was still 'Pending'. My plan was to call again on Wednesday, since I wanted to be sure it didn't sit in pending for days. Lo and behold, I got a call this afternoon and it was Cynthia letting me know that the procedure had been approved, along with a 2 day hospital stay. WHAT?

So the next hour was a flurry of activity that involved checking on my husband's paperwork, getting it faxed again (they didn't get the actual paperwork for some reason) and then scheduling my appointments.

Sadly, we discovered that in order to have my surgery at the hospital that's about 10min from home, I'd have to wait until November to schedule. While there's nothing wrong with waiting, there are various reasons that I really wanted to be sure this was done before the end of October. Fortunately the surgeon had 1 slot opened at his other hospital, about 40min away, that was his last before he went on vacation for a few weeks.

So September 18th it is! The next 2 weeks are going to be relatively busy, so I don't even think I'm going to notice the wait.

Next week I have my pre-surgery education class on 9/3. I'm looking forward to that and getting more information about what Dr. Srikanth expects post-op.

On 9/8 I start my 10-day, clear liquid diet. My husband has already said he and the kids will be staying in a hotel from 9/10 until surgery.

On 9/15 I have my final consultation where I'm sure we'll go over a lot more information.

Then at 5am on 9/18 we make the 40 minute drive to get me checked in for surgery.

This will be the first time since I was 17 that I'll be going under general anesthesia for longer than 30 minutes. This will be only the second time I'm having any sort of major surgery.

I'd be lying if I said I wasn't scared - I am. There's a lot of 'unknown' ahead of me, but also so much promise.