Shannon H.
My journey began in the summer of 06 when I finished school nursing school. I moved to Arizona and thought about getting bariatric surgery as I had seen what it did for some gals in my nursing class. Much to my dismay after attending my first info session and contacting my insurance I found out it wasn't covered. So nothing happened for the next 2 years, other than several unsuccessful attempts to lose the weight.
Then I moved back to MN, changed jobs and to my excitement, my new insurance covered surgery. So I went through all the steps, meetings again, nutrition, psych evals, meeting with the doctors and nurses, and the HP phone program. I then was excited to get my approval in Jan of 09 for the Rny surgery, sadly I had not lost my 20# and was stuggling with it.
In feb then I found a study at the U of MN and decided to try that. It was called the TOGA study, it was a transoral device that was placed that reduced the size of the stomach. It was a blinded study, and 2 out of 3 people got the device and 1 out of 3 got nothing. I did loss weight initially, only about 15 pounds. But then it slowly came back. Even with the great support of the nurses and doctors and nutritionist at the U of MN. Then in April of this year I found out I had the device, and was devistated that "I failed". I had a lon long talk with the bariatric nurse right away about what my options were. I went home and that night, cried a little more and then changed my attitude.
I went in the very next day to meet with the surgeon again, and we set a goal of losing 10# and planned for the DS this time as soon as I could. I sadly had to go though all the psych testing and evals again, as it has been over a year. I am also having to redo the HP phone calls. But then things just kept moving in the right direction. I got my surgery scheduled for July 20th, this was tenitive, pending my approval, but they kept telling me not to worry, since I had gotten it once before. Well I still worried, that something else would go wrong. Well it didn't, on July 22nd, the U called me and said they got my approval, only took 8 days! So I had my pre-op this last Wed and next week I go in for my weight check and the U. Then next is my big step.
