Time to Stop Dragging my Feet and Introduce Myself

[Bakomom 0]

Hello everyone! I have been dragging my feet for a while and decided it was time to just in here and introduce myself. I have been so inspired by so many of you ~you guys are amazing.

OK, well a little about me. I am 41 years old and have been married to the love of my life for 20 years. I have a 19 year old daughter and 17 year old son. I was diagnosed about 10-12 years ago with lupus and fibromyalgia. My PA at the time tried many different medications to try to relieve some of my pain without much success and I spent a lot of time either in bed or on the couch. I was over weight before this, but a combination of the meds and lack of exercise I gained over 100 pounds. I have since found a new rheumatologist and feel like a new woman!

OK, so fast forward three years ago. I work for a hospital and have worked there for 20 years. For our entire married life, our family has been covered under my husbands insurance. My husbands insurance was horrible and we were paying high premiums, so I decided to check in to obtaining health insurance through the hospital. Well, as it turns out, we now have amazing insurance and I don't pay a dime in insurance premiums. The other nice thing is that any procedure or test that is done at our hospital is completely covered-no out of pocket expense for us at all.

I quickly decided to check in to our bariatric program at work. I went to my first seminar almost three years ago and found out that my insurance had just changed the policy for covering WLS. You have to have our insurance for three years before they will cover it...great just my luck. At the time I was planning on having the lapband done. In addition to my aches and pains, I had high blood pressure.

So I have been waiting for the last three years to have my surgery. Meanwhile, earlier this year, I was diagnosed with both sleep apnea (I wear a CPAP at night) and most recently diabetes.

My three years will be up on September 15th. I started my 6 month supervised weight loss in April and will finish that in September. I finally was given the ok to have my surgical consult, so I am ecstatic about that. It finally feels like this just might happen. Oh, I almost forgot to mention. On my first appt. with my primary care, I told him that I was there for my 6 month supervised weight loss for lapband and that I was afraid of the bypass. He said well why don't you do the sleeve? That is when I found out about the sleeve! I had never even heard of it before that!

It turns out that my insurance just began covering the sleeve on the 13th of this month! I really think it was meant to be. I feel much more confident regarding the success of the sleeve compared to the lapband. I was worried to put about my body rejecting the lapband because of the lupus. Honestly, I am just so ready for this. I think the 3 year wait turned out to be a blessing in disguise for me!

Anyway, this week I have my surgery consult and I will take it from there. I am super excited to get to know everyone and learn everything I can about how I can have the most success when I finally have my surgery.

Take care,

Becky

[SmokyMtnGal2011 10]

:welcome: Welcome Becky, you will get the best information here about the sleeve you could ever ask for. I am still preop and will finish my 6 mo supervised diet in September as well. there is alot of great knowledge you can get from all the old timers on here. Just ask questions and you will get answers. honest ones and ones that are very helpful. Maybe we can be sleeve buddies since we are on the same track to success. Please let me know if you need help with anything. I will give you all the knowledge I have weened from the posts here on this site. Good luck in your journey and i will be right in there with you!!!!

[MeMeMEEE 206]

Congrats Becky - you are getting so close!! I also went in thinking lapband because I feel the bypass is too extreme for me and then learned of the sleeve! YAY sleeve!!

[Bakomom 0]

SmokyMtnGal2011,

That is awesome that we will be finishing our 6 months at around the same time! Have they let you do anything yet other than the monthly visits? Thanks for the welcome, I can't wait to go through this amazing journey together!

[exoticheart 5]

Hello and Welcome...........I have similiar story... same age and work for a hospital for 16 years and have great insurance. I was sleeved on June 24 th and feel amazing and soon you will too.........Good luck to you and this is a wonderful source of information and the people are terrific..

Hello everyone! I have been dragging my feet for a while and decided it was time to just in here and introduce myself. I have been so inspired by so many of you ~you guys are amazing.

OK, well a little about me. I am 41 years old and have been married to the love of my life for 20 years. I have a 19 year old daughter and 17 year old son. I was diagnosed about 10-12 years ago with lupus and fibromyalgia. My PA at the time tried many different medications to try to relieve some of my pain without much success and I spent a lot of time either in bed or on the couch. I was over weight before this, but a combination of the meds and lack of exercise I gained over 100 pounds. I have since found a new rheumatologist and feel like a new woman!

OK, so fast forward three years ago. I work for a hospital and have worked there for 20 years. For our entire married life, our family has been covered under my husbands insurance. My husbands insurance was horrible and we were paying high premiums, so I decided to check in to obtaining health insurance through the hospital. Well, as it turns out, we now have amazing insurance and I don't pay a dime in insurance premiums. The other nice thing is that any procedure or test that is done at our hospital is completely covered-no out of pocket expense for us at all.

I quickly decided to check in to our bariatric program at work. I went to my first seminar almost three years ago and found out that my insurance had just changed the policy for covering WLS. You have to have our insurance for three years before they will cover it...great just my luck. At the time I was planning on having the lapband done. In addition to my aches and pains, I had high blood pressure.

So I have been waiting for the last three years to have my surgery. Meanwhile, earlier this year, I was diagnosed with both sleep apnea (I wear a CPAP at night) and most recently diabetes.

My three years will be up on September 15th. I started my 6 month supervised weight loss in April and will finish that in September. I finally was given the ok to have my surgical consult, so I am ecstatic about that. It finally feels like this just might happen. Oh, I almost forgot to mention. On my first appt. with my primary care, I told him that I was there for my 6 month supervised weight loss for lapband and that I was afraid of the bypass. He said well why don't you do the sleeve? That is when I found out about the sleeve! I had never even heard of it before that!

It turns out that my insurance just began covering the sleeve on the 13th of this month! I really think it was meant to be. I feel much more confident regarding the success of the sleeve compared to the lapband. I was worried to put about my body rejecting the lapband because of the lupus. Honestly, I am just so ready for this. I think the 3 year wait turned out to be a blessing in disguise for me!

Anyway, this week I have my surgery consult and I will take it from there. I am super excited to get to know everyone and learn everything I can about how I can have the most success when I finally have my surgery.

Take care,

Becky

[rubyspring 1]

Welcome and good Luck!

[Nancy Rivers 24]

Welcome to the forums. Good luck with getting your surgery scheduled quickly.

[Bakomom 0]

Thanks for the warm welcome everyone! I am learning so much here. I really appreciate everyone's honesty about everything.

[SeattleSue 25]

Welcome Becky... This is a great place to be and to learn incredible amounts of information. This community is very supportive and there are some AMAZING woman (and men!) here that are very generous with their knowledge and experience. I wish you the best!!!

Susan

[M2G 1,836]

Welcome and best of luck to you on your journey! I too, credit my insurance's "wait time" for giving me time to learn about the sleeve. I was also headed for a band and am SO thankful that I found the sleeve. You will find a ton of helpful people and lots of good information on this site!

[GreenEyedMamma 5]

Welcome to the forum...from one BakoMom to another!!

I know I mentioned this last night but Dr. Irani was/is AWESOME. His PA, Kristen, is fabulous too. He is highly recommended by most bariatric departments in town and my primary care physican recommended him too. I had a pretty good experience at Mercy SW. His equirement for all the pre-op testing he does has to be done within 30 days of surgery (not more or they will make you redo the tests).

Best of luck to you and since we are in the same town, know that I am here to answer any questions. We must live fairly close to eachother if our kids go to the same school so we can even become walking buddies.

[Bakomom 0]

Thank you so much for all of your help! My physician really likes Dr. Irani and I had a great outcome with my gallbladder surgery when Dr. Irani removed it. I was really afraid of the gas pains because I had horrible gas pains after an abdominal surgery done 18 years before. He assured me that they use a different gas now and that I would do well and he was right. I didn't have any problems at at. From what most people say, the gas pains for the sleeve surgery tends to be the worst part also.

I work at San Joaquin, so I will have my surgery there. I have never met Dr. Irani's PA. I am relieved to hear she is good too. Bummer that all of the testing have to be in the last 30 days since I just had a PFT and sleep study a few months ago. Oh well, no biggie.

Yes, it does sound like we live pretty close. I would love a walking buddy! I have been doing Water aerobics at home and I am loving it. I definitely want to be in the best shape possible for my surgery.

Welcome to the forum...from one BakoMom to another!!

I know I mentioned this last night but Dr. Irani was/is AWESOME. His PA, Kristen, is fabulous too. He is highly recommended by most bariatric departments in town and my primary care physican recommended him too. I had a pretty good experience at Mercy SW. His equirement for all the pre-op testing he does has to be done within 30 days of surgery (not more or they will make you redo the tests).

Best of luck to you and since we are in the same town, know that I am here to answer any questions. We must live fairly close to eachother if our kids go to the same school so we can even become walking buddies.