mel_smiddy

Well here I am Happy 39th Birthday to me. This time next year I should be well on my way to a thinner, healthier, happier me!!!! Now if I could just get the surgeon to hurry the heck up and call me. I wonder do they know that they are slowly torturing me? Oh well in this world of instant gratification I suppose I should sit back enjoy the ride and practice delayed gratification. I didn't gain the weight over night I sure won't be able to lose it. I love the entire world at this moment (give me a few minutes I might change my mind) Talk to you'll later.

I'm so very excited for you hope it all goes really great. Sounds like the hospital doctors and staff are wonderful. I'll be praying for you. I wish my surgeon would call already!!! I know I have to be patient but it is so very very very hard.

It is really sad that those that are most dear to us try to mess us up. Maybe like you said she is jealous that you are able to do something that she never could. Hopefully if you stick with it she will eventually come to admire what you are doing and stop trying to mess you up. Stay strong and you will win the race. Good luck!

I just got woke up from a really bad dream I guess you would have to call it a nightmare. I would tell you about it but I better wait cause I'm still freaking out a bit. So now that I'm awake and groggy and don't want to go back to sleep yet I guess I'll do some posting. I haven't really said how I personally got to the point where I needed a lapband so hopefully you have a glass of water and time to read. I am 4' 9 1/2" I weigh in at a whopping 219.4 pounds. Imagine a large beach ball with fat little legs and arms sticking out. :thumbup: Well anyway as a small child until I hit puberty I was bone thin. At that point the pudgy monster hit me and all of my family on my mother's side were so supportive and helpful. You know the comments like "you would be so pretty if you just lost weight" or " you have such a pretty face" I mean Gee why didn't they get it over with and say "hey fat pig quit eating and you'll be beautiful" Well as you can imagine I had a few issues with body image. At 18 yrs old I joined the United States Marine Corps. I was in the best shape of my life coming out of boot camp!! :thumbup: I was super sexy and wearing a loose size 2 in jeans!!!! Now that is skinny. Of course that only lasted as long as it took for me to pack the pounds back on by eating lots of junk food. I stayed within reason though and stayed within the Marine Corps weight standards since if I didn't they would throw me out and give me a bad conduct discharge. I was stationed in Okinawa Japan for a year and came back and was station at Cherry Point NC where my battle with the bulge went overboard. I crossed the line and couldn't seem to get my weight back under control on my own so the Corps sent me to fat camp. Yep believe it or not the Marine Corps has a fat camp and it is a last resort if you don't lose weight there you are booted out the door. In comes my dear hubby we met at fat camp. As a matter of fact we met at fat camp and got married 6 weeks later!!!!!!!!!!!:tt1: Now let me tell you what the Marine Corps sent me to fat camp for being 2 pounds over my max weight of 121 pounds! :huh2: Talk about tough. Anyway married hubby and found out 1 month after we were married that I was pregnant. I took that as a green light to eat anything and everything I wanted. I went from 114 pounds to 168 pounds in 8 months! I say 8 months because my oldest son was a premie. So here I am gained all that weight with my first child and since I was close to getting out of the Corps because of my contract ending they didn't give me anymore grief about my weight. My oldest was 1 1/2 yrs old and I got pregnant with my 2nd packed on about 15 more pounds that never quite left either. Child number 3 was 8 yrs later and I hit 203 pounds at the end of that pregnancy. And some how I have managed to get to 219 pounds now. I have had sucess at loosing weight with traditional diet and exercise on many many occasions. But as we all know diets aren't a long term solution for those of us with food issues. At one point about 10 yrs ago I was actually down to 148 pounds. But as soon as I started working where I'm working now at an office job I gained all the way back to where I am now. So here is my fat story hopefully soon I'll have the band and will be able to tell a differnt story. So long for now I think I can sleep now. Night all.

I just got woke up from a really bad dream I guess you would have to call it a nightmare. I would tell you about it but I better wait cause I'm still freaking out a bit. So now that I'm awake and groggy and don't want to go back to sleep yet I guess I'll do some posting. I haven't really said how I personally got to the point where I needed a lapband so hopefully you have a glass of water and time to read. I am 4' 9 1/2" I weigh in at a whopping 219.4 pounds. Imagine a large beach ball with fat little legs and arms sticking out. Well anyway as a small child until I hit puberty I was bone thin. At that point the pudgy monster hit me and all of my family on my mother's side were so supportive and helpful. You know the comments like "you would be so pretty if you just lost weight" or " you have such a pretty face" I mean Gee why didn't they get it over with and say "hey fat pig quit eating and you'll be beautiful" Well as you can imagine I had a few issues with body image. At 18 yrs old I joined the United States Marine Corps. I was in the best shape of my life coming out of boot camp!! :scared2: I was super sexy and wearing a loose size 2 in jeans!!!! Now that is skinny. Of course that only lasted as long as it took for me to pack the pounds back on by eating lots of junk food. I stayed within reason though and stayed within the Marine Corps weight standards since if I didn't they would throw me out and give me a bad conduct discharge. I was stationed in Okinawa Japan for a year and came back and was station at Cherry Point NC where my battle with the bulge went overboard. I crossed the line and couldn't seem to get my weight back under control on my own so the Corps sent me to fat camp. Yep believe it or not the Marine Corps has a fat camp and it is a last resort if you don't lose weight there you are booted out the door. In comes my dear hubby we met at fat camp. As a matter of fact we met at fat camp and got married 6 weeks later!!!!!!!!!!!:crying: Now let me tell you what the Marine Corps sent me to fat camp for being 2 pounds over my max weight of 121 pounds! Talk about tough. Anyway married hubby and found out 1 month after we were married that I was pregnant. I took that as a green light to eat anything and everything I wanted. I went from 114 pounds to 168 pounds in 8 months! I say 8 months because my oldest son was a premie. So here I am gained all that weight with my first child and since I was close to getting out of the Corps because of my contract ending they didn't give me anymore grief about my weight. My oldest was 1 1/2 yrs old and I got pregnant with my 2nd packed on about 15 more pounds that never quite left either. Child number 3 was 8 yrs later and I hit 203 pounds at the end of that pregnancy. And some how I have managed to get to 219 pounds now. I have had sucess at loosing weight with traditional diet and exercise on many many occasions. But as we all know diets aren't a long term solution for those of us with food issues. At one point about 10 yrs ago I was actually down to 148 pounds. But as soon as I started working where I'm working now at an office job I gained all the way back to where I am now. So here is my fat story hopefully soon I'll have the band and will be able to tell a differnt story. So long for now I think I can sleep now. Night all.

This waiting for the surgeon's office to call is killing me!!!! All I can think about is how my life is going to change when I get the lap band and when is the doctor's office going to call????? Part of me wants to get my band ASAP and the other part wants to put it off until school is out for the summer so that the weather will be nice while I'm on sick leave. I have 2 months of sick days saved up and I'm going to use all of them after I have my lap band put in. I know that recovery should only be a week or two at the most with the office job I have but I'm going to use all of my days that I have stored up. Oh well hopefully they will call very very very soon. Maybe tomorrow.

Hey thanks alot for the great idea it's really neat. I've never blogged before. I'll bet you're really really nervous your lapband is happening on my birthday right? Sending you healing prayers and can't wait to see less of you in the near future.

This waiting for the surgeon's office to call is killing me!!!! All I can think about is how my life is going to change when I get the lap band and when is the doctor's office going to call????? Part of me wants to get my band ASAP and the other part wants to put it off until school is out for the summer so that the weather will be nice while I'm on sick leave. I have 2 months of sick days saved up and I'm going to use all of them after I have my lap band put in. I know that recovery should only be a week or two at the most with the office job I have but I'm going to use all of my days that I have stored up. Oh well hopefully they will call very very very soon. Maybe tomorrow.

Ok here goes nothing. I'm not promising anybody anything but I'm going to try to keep a blog about this process. I didn't do very well when it came to keeping a diary so who knows. Well I guess I officially started this lap band journey years ago but until recently when Tricare announced that it would cover the lap band I never had the chance to even seriously consider WLS. I've been interested in WLS for years but the whole idea of someone cutting out part of my stomach scared me to death. On Feb 8, 2008 I went to the WLS seminar at Georgetown Hospital in Georgetown Kentucky. I took dear hubby with me as he has just as much at stake as I do. I liked what I heard and handed in the completed packet before leaving the seminar. To be perfectly honest unless they had really worked hard to change my mind I had already decided before I went to the seminar. So on 2/8/08 began one of the longest 15 business days of my life. 10 to 15 business days is how long the program director Jo Wiggins said it would take the process the paperwork and make sure that it would be possible for the surgeons to do the WLS on me. They don't want to jerk you around and say that they can do the surgery only to turn around and say no. I can totally appreciated that because life has too many disappointments as it is and it would be just cruel in my opinion to jerk someone around when it comes to something as important as this WLS. So now here we are at 5 working days and I've already put myself going up and down on an emotional roller coaster. As some of you may know Tricare now covers lapband with certain restrictions. You either have to be 100 pounds over your ideal weight with co-morbidities or 200% over your ideal weight without co-morbidities unfortunately for me I was 100 pounds over my ideal body weight but as of yet don't have any of the specified co-morbidities that Tricare required so I figured I'll just gain enough weight that I can be 200% over my ideal but I couldn't gain it fast enough. Lucky for my I have an awesome doctor that helped me out he gave me a co-morbidity. I love my doctor. So here I am waiting waiting and it's killing me. Well guess I'll talk to you tomorrow.

Ok here goes nothing. I'm not promising anybody anything but I'm going to try to keep a blog about this process. I didn't do very well when it came to keeping a diary so who knows. :thumbup: Well I guess I officially started this lap band journey years ago but until recently when Tricare announced that it would cover the lap band I never had the chance to even seriously consider WLS. I've been interested in WLS for years but the whole idea of someone cutting out part of my stomach scared me to death. On Feb 8, 2008 I went to the WLS seminar at Georgetown Hospital in Georgetown Kentucky. I took dear hubby with me as he has just as much at stake as I do. I liked what I heard and handed in the completed packet before leaving the seminar. To be perfectly honest unless they had really worked hard to change my mind I had already decided before I went to the seminar. So on 2/8/08 began one of the longest 15 business days of my life. 10 to 15 business days is how long the program director Jo Wiggins said it would take the process the paperwork and make sure that it would be possible for the surgeons to do the WLS on me. They don't want to jerk you around and say that they can do the surgery only to turn around and say no. I can totally appreciated that because life has too many disappointments as it is and it would be just cruel in my opinion to jerk someone around when it comes to something as important as this WLS. So now here we are at 5 working days and I've already put myself going up and down on an emotional roller coaster. As some of you may know Tricare now covers lapband with certain restrictions. You either have to be 100 pounds over your ideal weight with co-morbidities or 200% over your ideal weight without co-morbidities unfortunately for me I was 100 pounds over my ideal body weight but as of yet don't have any of the specified co-morbidities that Tricare required so I figured I'll just gain enough weight that I can be 200% over my ideal but I couldn't gain it fast enough. Lucky for my I have an awesome doctor that helped me out he gave me a co-morbidity. :wink2: I love my doctor. So here I am waiting waiting and it's killing me. Well guess I'll talk to you tomorrow.

Just a quick note went to my doctor's office today to get the letter from him saying that he thinks that I need lap band surgery. I was really worried as my insurance (Tricare) requires either you are 100 pounds over your ideal weight with co morbidities or you must be 200% over your ideal body weight. Which unfortunately I was just shy of both requirements but my wonderful doctor helped me out by saying that my pre diabetes was now diabetes. So I don't have to gain any weight to qualify!! You go Doc!!!

I got the information about what tricare will approve directly from their website in the Tricare book. I am standard. I don't know if I do or not. My husband is in the Kentucky National Guard. I think the closest one for me would be Fort Knox and I don't know if they have a surgical wing or not. I will have the referral from my civilian primary care doctor. So how would I go about finding out if the hospital at Fort Knox has a surgical wing or not? Isn't there a waiting list at most military hospitals? Any information you can provide would be most appreciated.

I have several questions that I'm hoping someone can help me with. I have Tri Care standard and I am in the North region. I am 110 pounds over what I should ideally weigh and have a BMI of 47.5. I am prediabetic. I have urine incontinence problems. Pain in my back, feet, legs and ankles. 1) Do you think I will be able get approval for lap band? 2) How long does it normally take? 3) Is there a 6 month supervised diet required? 4) About how much of a percentage of the total cost of the surgery did you have to pay? Thanks for any and all responses. BTW I went WLS seminar yesterday. Melody

I am located in Corbin,KY it is in the South Eastern corner of Kentucky

I suppose I would prefer driving. I'm not much for flying. I wonder I have already submitted my paperwork to the doctor and put 118 lbs on it maybe I can convince them that I was going by an old weight and that I had not weighed in a long time? I can gain weight in no time it isn't a problem.

sorry I don't know if I said my height. I am 4 ft 9 1/2 inches and weigh 218 currently. I would love to be able to save some money on the surgery but I don't know where I would be able to find an in network doctor that would be close enough for me. Any ideas would be great. I don't suppose I would mind a bit of travel but I don't know where I could go.

Thanks for the encouragement I really appreciate it unfortunately for me none of my doctors are in network there isn't even a medical treatement facility near me so I'm going to have to pay more than if it was in network. I have about $2500 cash for the cost of my part I'm hoping that it will be enough if not I'll have to borrow from my parents and I really don't want to do that. I have an appointment with my primary care doctor 2/14/08 to get a referal from him I'm trying to gain a couple more pounds just to make sure that I make the 200% mark. I know that sounds crazy but I am that desperate to get this done.

I will definately let you know as soon as I know something. According to the WLS seminar speaker I should know in 10 to 15 working days if they can do the surgery or not for me. Lady said that it could be sooner because they have been getting pretty fast at approvals. CarolinaGirl please feel free to email me melodysmiddy@hotmail.com

Is there anyone out there that can help ?????

Hi I'm new I'm 38 yr old mother of 3 happily married to my National Guard soldier for almost 18 years. I have had a weight problem most of my life and am currently 4'9" and weigh 215 lbs. As I'm sure everyone here has done I've been on and off diets all my life. I have sucess for awhile and then slip up and gain it all back and then some. I am just starting the process of looking into the lap band system for myself. I have Tri Care insurance which as of last year has approved lap band surgery for their customers with certain conditions. I meet the weight condition and the diet condition but I don't have any serious problems caused but the weight with the exception of mild depression. So I don't know if I will be able to get approval or not. And my doctor is being a pain. So please wish me luck.