Radar

I hope you feel better soon. I don't even know what a drain is and it sounds awful. Get well soon!

My gastric sleeve surgery is scheduled for September 21st only 17 days away. In 3 days I have to start my 2 week surgery prep diet. It didn't seem real until I was told yesterday that I was approved and today that I'll be getting the surgery in less than 3 weeks. Now it seems real and I must admit, I'm slightly nervous. I'm just happy my doctor is one of the best around. He normally works at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center but I'll be having the work done in Marina Del Rey. Here's my story... I was once in really great shape. I grew up very fit but always felt fat anyway. I wrestled for 6 years and had to go up a weight, and down a weight all the time. Eventually I couldn't bounce back as easy. When I got out of the Navy, I was a monster, and I was in the best shape of my life as a very solid, cut, and muscular 170 pounds. I got a hernia shortly afterwards or even when I was still in and got an operation for it. I couldn't hit the gym as hard as I did before due to the pain. Follow that with about 5-6 pretty bad car accidents (I must have a bullseye painted on me) and my back and shoulders got pretty messed up too. Pair that with me being a professional computer geek and there just wan't a lot of exercising going on. My diet was horrible too. I work a A LOT! I work at strange hours and have gotten into some pretty bad habits. My wife does nails so we never eat dinner before 8pm and normally around 9pm. I have never been one for planning meals and just grab whatever is close and cheap which is usually fast food. As Louie C.K. says, "The meal isn't over when you're full. It's over when you hate yourself". I grew up with a father who was very poor as a child and he drilled into my head that you eat everything on your plate. As a child I was abused very severely both mentally and emotionally as well as physically. I could go into the horror stories like having my head held under Water or a towel twisted up and put around my neck and being lifted by it, or having my body tossed across the room into a wall to fall on the floor, or being kicked in the face with steel toed boots on my father's feet and many worse things, but let's just say my brother and I had it very tough. Eventually I learned to forgive my parents, but I never forget. To this day my father won't admit to what he did. He just says, "I wasn't a very good father" but if I mention specifics he will deny them. Now I'm a father of my own and I feel like a failure because of my weight. I want to take my daughter to Disneyland and ride the rides with her, but I can't fit in the rides and she's too short. Well she's getting taller and I intend on being smaller. I will not see her childhood wrecked because of my weight. I want to play in the park with her and ride bikes together and one day see her graduate from college and dance with her at her wedding. My daughter was born when I was 37 years old. I had planned on an early checkout, but now I have to stick around. My plans have changed. I am doing this surgery to save my life. I have diabetes, high cholesterol and triglycerides and high blood pressure and hopefully after this surgery I can lose enough weight that I can exercise without much pain and can get back into the shape I was in when I was younger. This is me in the blue shirt back when I was in shape... ] This is a photo of me taken a month ago... My goal weight is about 140 pounds away. I've done every crazy diet in the book including but not limited to Fen-Phen, Belviq, Master Cleanse, Atkins, Jenny Craig, Body for Life & Eating for Life, etc. but eventually I either hurt myself with the exercise, or try to eat something normal around my family and all of the weight comes back with extra. This is it for me. This is the end. I'm drawing a line in the sand and this is where I say NO MORE! I will change my lifestyle, change my body, and change my life once and for all and I'm never going back.

My first appointment is 11 days away. They checked my insurance and said my insurance requires 6 nutritional consultation appointments and I can't do more than one per month so 6 months is probably pretty standard. I also have to complete a psyche evaluation form (already done) and have a call with the psychologist, and lastly, I need to do an endoscopy which I'm told is not very pleasant. I'm hoping they can get the surgery done before the end of the year, because my insurance will be changing before that time.

I saw that you were approved in only 2 days to get the Lap Band surgery. I'm considering getting this procedure and I was trying to choose an insurance carrier for my family that would also allow me to do this. Would it be possible for you to share with me the process of getting approved by them?