Wanda Bragg

Well its been awhile since I have posted on here. A lil fill in for those who are new to reading about my surgery. I was going to Carle close to my house and almost finished there just had a few more tests to do then they would have submitted to insurance. Right before I got those tests done I found out because of where I worked I had to go to Springfield IL to have the surgery done if I wanted my insurance at the time to pay for it. Mind you that Springfield is 2+ hours away from me, but after losing my job and insurance I could go back to my original doc to have the surgery done. So I have had all my tests done and just waiting to get the results of my Psych eval. to be able to submit to insurance just called this morning and the office said it would be yet another week before they might hear anything so at this point I am at a stand still. Hopefully I will be able to start my new life soon I can not wait to be able to.

Yea I hope so. Just got cleared for surgery by psych now just have to wait for doc to get that info then they can submit to insurance. My doc is scheduling in March right now but by the time that I get approved it will be in April some time .

Today I called my surgeons office to see if they can submit my paper work for both insurance at the same time because I know one will deny it and that would make my other pay for it. I got a call a few hours later saying that because my primary is not accepted where I want to have my surgery that I would have to go some where else to have my surgery if that is the case then I have just wasted six months of doing doc visits for nothing, but the kicker is the office that I would have to go to is 2+ hours away from where I live. So the lady that I talked to said that I pretty much have no option but to go where my insurance it accepted. Which I think is crap because my secondary is accecpted at the surgeon that I want as mine. So my three options are 1 either go to another surgeon and start over and possibly not get accepted for the sugery 2 stay where I am but have to wait months and months to find out if i can even have it there in the first place and 3 dont have it at all. I want number 2 to be the one i get but who knows. wanda

Well I found out this last week that since I have bcbs and that the doc that I want is not part of my in-network and that im choosing to go to him instead of a doc in my network that is two hrs away. that my bcbs wont cover anything and since they wont my state care wont either. So its either become self pay or go to the doc that is 2 hrs away. I did finally get a call from that other docs office after my pcp contacted them they said that I have to go to a seminar (sp?) before I can even be seen. So I dont know if I will be able to go there or not. So its just a waiting game.

I am new to all the forums and things and I have been reading a lot of them. I was wondering how long did it take for approval for surgery?? I am doing that last of my pre-op testing on Nov 12th. I am hoping to get approval quick but since I have two insurances I dunno. I do know my prim. insurance will deny it due to it not being done in my home hospital. Would it be wise to have them submit it to my seconday insurance first with that insurance I am done with the pre-op things that they wanted me to do. I so can not wait to get the surgery done and start getting back to my self. Thanks for all your input!! Wanda

I felt like I was weird for looking forward to a surgery. I was saying to my mom the other day that just thinking about everything that is going to change after surgery I get really giddy. The excitement of the change that I have been wanting for years will finally happen and I will get to be like my old self. The only thing I am worried about is the psych eval. Not sure why but I am. To explain a bit when I see my self in my minds eye I dont see my self as a big person I see my self just like I was when I was 17 weighig 130. So when I do look in a mirror I am disapointed with what I see because it is not what I was expecting to see. Hopefully that will not stop the surgery.

I dunno I have been waiting to hear from the other office. Before I found out originally that the doc im going to now dont accept BCBS I called this other office NEVER got a response from them at all. So I dunno about going to some where they wont even give a call back about info.

I have talked to them and the office has talked to them. The biggest reason why they wont pay for it is because of the doc I want to do the surgery is not in my "home" hospital system. See I work for a hospital that is where the insurance is from. Even if the BCBS would cover it the doc that i go to does not take BCBS. I just wish I knew all about this before I got the insurance. The only reason I got it is because I thought that it would make it easier for me to get the surgery done. But boy did that back fire one me big time.

I have BCBS and my stated medical as well. I dont know if i can drop it right now with out quitting my job.

That would be great if I could do that but they said that I could not.

Not to sound mean but NG stands for Nasal Gastric Meaning its a feeding tube. The tube to help you breath is called an Endotracheal tube or ET tube. Again sorry but its the EMT in me coming out. lol

Yes it does, its bad enough buying scrubs that cost $30 for just a top but add on extra for plus and wow its a lot. Plus no good designs or things like that for the plus people. Its been said many times that America is the "bigest" country in the world with the most big people in it but you could not tell my our stores thats for sure. You would think that a country that has as many big people as ours does in it that there would be a lot of good looking clothes for our sizes but nope that is not the case.

I am from Arthur IL work in Decatur IL and having surgery in Champaign IL with Dr. Rowitz at Carle.

Thanks!!

I plan on only taking 2 weeks off from work. My job is not really physical just a lot of up and down being a lab tech and a phlebotomist. After my hysterectomy I only willingly(sp?) took a week off then had problems with my surgial site not staying closed (im allergic to steri strips) so my doc called my work to inform them I would be out another week at least. LOL

I am really glad that I found this forum! Before I found it I was thinking all these things and to find out that I am not the only big person thinking these things to do after surgery. This last fair year my son wanted to ride a ride that I loved to ride when I was his age and to have to tell him that I could not it broke my heart sadly he did not get to ride it because we could not find any one to go with him and it has to be a two person ride. I AM goin to ride it with him this next summer at the fair!! Again it has been so good to have a place to talk to people like my self and want to do the same things that I do but cant for the same reason but we are all going to be able to do the things that we want on our own time after surgery!!!

I also cant wait to be able to buy what clothes I want but I am not going to buy new new clothes till I am at my goal weight but till then I will be a thrifty shopper to save on money.

What I miss is being able to play sports and also being able to go shopping at the local store for clothes. It sucks wanting/needing new clothes but cant just go get them because I cant find them to fit. Plus to being smaller is the clothes wont cost as much!!

I am only telling the close fam as in my mom maybe my dad but I dont plan on telling any one other then that. I guess its because people in my life have alway said things about my weight from fam to doctors. So I guess in not telling any one and I dont plan on seeing the people I dont plan on telling for a while then when they do see the "new" me then frankly they can eat their words about saying I cant lose it! wow that sounded worse here then it does in my head. LOL

Yea its all because I wil be having the surgery not at my home hospital. If I was having it at my home hospital it would be covered.

I am a 30 year old female. I have been a lil overweight as long as I can remember. When I was 15 I weighted 130 and I was happy with that but even that was considered overweight for my 5'1" frame. I did not have a big problem with my weight until I had the Depo birth control shot and after that no matter what I do or try I have not been able to lose very much weight. As of now I weight 325 but oddly I dont see my self as big in my minds eye, I still see my self as what I was 15 years ago. I have tried all the diets and weight loss plans over that last 10 yrs. I have even tried meds to help was on those for 3 months but only lost like 5lbs even though I walked/worked out every day. I have never ate a lot nor do I eat a lot of bad foods. I love salad and have one every day for lunch. About 6 months ago I started on the road for the weight loss surgery, and now I just have to finish 3 more things before they will schedule the surgery and those will be completed in the mid nov. I dont have a lot of medical problems with myself the bigest I would say is I have MASSIVE heartburn problems as in I take two different meds for it and they still dont help. I am very active but I do have to say that I have I have missed all the sports I used to do when I was younger. I want to get back to those, I think about them all the time and cant wait till I can do them again. I have spent countless hours looking up info on the gastric bypass and I have also read good and bad stories about it. Yes they are always on my mind as well about what can go wrong and what can happen, but I feel this is the only option left to me to be able to get my life back. I look at this I cant even go to a normal store to by clothes a lot of the time because they dont have them big enough for me. I am a size 28/32 area and they only have 26. I am not one to wear tight clothes to show off what I have never been that way and I dont want to start just cause I cant find the right size for what I want to wear. So I am looking forward to the day that I get to have my surgery, I also cant wait for people who have not seen me in a number of years to see me after I loss a lot of the weight so I can be happy with my self. I look forward to reading your stories on how every thing goes with you all and plan to keep up on my own story on here now that I have found a great site to be able to do that and mostly every one on here has gone though what I will soon. So i love all the input!!! Wanda