To start with, sorry if this post is a downer, but nobody ever said this whole surgery thing was all fun and games, right? So, after the first seminar, you are required to attend a second consultation. My husband and I were told to plan on 2-3 hours in the office for this consultation, which I was fine with because I knew I'd get to finally meet with the surgeon one-on-one. It ended up being closer to 5 hours, and 4 of those hours were just waiting! Needless to say my husband and I were not happy campers at the end of this whole thing. There were three of us (patients) in the seminar, which was basically a recap of everything we heard at the first seminar except for the cups. The woman giving the seminar brought out two, tiny 1 ounce plastic cups and told us that is all we got to eat! 2 ounces of food, 3 times a day! Think 2 sacrament cups, if that means anything to you. My husband and I were joking that for me, church would now be serving lunch! After the group seminar, our surgeon met with each of us individually. I was the last one. Waiting...waiting...waiting. It was an hour before we saw the surgeon, and he was only with us for 15 minutes max, so what he was doing with the other people, I have no idea. Just to show you how bad my attitude was, I actually said that the people in front of me needed 3 times the amount of time because they were 3 times the person! Not kidding though, these people were HUGE. They actually made me feel skinny - I guess that's a bonus! :P
The consultation went fine with the actual surgeon, Dr. Sherman Smith. It was quick and fast, but I didn't really have a lot of questions. He said my stomach was a surgeon's dream workspace - whatever the heck that means! He said he couldn't guarantee that there wouldn't be any complications, but he also said that he doubted with my current physical condition that I would have any problems at all. Needless to say, I was still feeling pretty good about the surgery when he left.
After waiting forever, again, we finally met with the woman who does the surgery scheduling, and right off the bat she said that we would have to pay for an upper GI and an ultrasound for my gall bladder. What? The $20 K doesn't cover this? Talk about bursting my bubble! I whined enough she said she'd talk to the surgeon and see if he'd sign off on the upper GI, and the gall bladder ultrasound turned out to be optional (although strongly recommended). Turns out that if the gall bladder is healthy anyway, they can't legally take it out.
So, here is the post-mortem... I did not set a surgery date - yet. I'm waiting to see if the surgeon will forgo the upper GI. If I do the surgery, I've decided to NOT get an ultrasound of my gall bladder; or in other words, I'm hanging on to it! Another concern that was brought up because of this consultation was the fact that my health insurance may try to deny claims down the road, citing that the problem resulted because of my Gastric Bypass surgery. I'm checking into this. I'm also checking to see whether or not a Gastric Bypass may prevent me from being covered by an individual health plan in the future, or see if the rates would be astronomical. And finally, checking to see how the Gastric Bypass would affect our Life Insurance, as my husband and I are looking to extend or policies.
Whew! So, let me reiterate again...research, research, research! I do not want to be broadsided by something that I did not think about. I think that's why the upper GI and gall bladder thing threw me so much because I wasn't expecting it. If I am able to get positive answers to all my concerns listed above, I'm still down for the surgery. The benefits of the surgery for me still can't be denied. Oh, and the doctor also said I probably have sleep apnea, and I just don't know about it... that's because my husband brought up my snoring, which to this day I'm still denying!!!
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| Some people think my rolls are cute!!! :D |
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