weebev
Surgery Update
Sep 04, 2008
As I am approaching my 1 year anniversary, I felt it would be a good time to update my blog. I have had an incredibly busy year both at work and at home.
First updates on my surgery. The day before my surgery, my surgeon's office called and gave me the good news that Cigna was going to cover my surgery. I was more than surprised. Dr. Chebli did a peer to peer evaluation and got me approved. I could not believe it! My experience with Dr. Chebli and his entire office has been nothing but positive and caring.
My surgery went off without a hitch and I was home by late afternoon the same day. I took off 2 weeks which was plenty of time to recover and adjust to my new eating habits.
Then came the complications. I began having severe backaches the week I returned to work. I would start the day ok and by noon would have to go home to lay down. It became progressively worse every day. I went to see Dr. Chebli and had the band checked out by x-ray, all was well. I was prescribed medication for the pain and nausea, but became progressively worse until I could no longer drink more than a few sips of water or eat without nausea. The worst part was that I was only able to sleep about 1-2 hour per night before waking in pain.
The weekend after Thanksgiving I had had enough and honestly felt as if I were dying. I paged Dr. Chebli and he had me go the ER. After initial tests they could find nothing wrong, but because gallstones had appeared on my pretests we tested for that. And that was the problem.
I was scheduled for surgery the next day and Dr. Chebli removed the nasty thing. The recovery for this surgery took much longer. I believe that was because #1 had just had surgery within the month and #2 the functionality of my gallbladder was pretty much gone.
I am back to normal now and feeling great. As you can imagine the weight came off pretty quickly those first few months. It has slowed considerably, in fact no additional loss for 6 months (yikes), but I came back to the boards last week to get re-motivated and have to say I am reminded of why I started this journey to begin with.
First updates on my surgery. The day before my surgery, my surgeon's office called and gave me the good news that Cigna was going to cover my surgery. I was more than surprised. Dr. Chebli did a peer to peer evaluation and got me approved. I could not believe it! My experience with Dr. Chebli and his entire office has been nothing but positive and caring.
My surgery went off without a hitch and I was home by late afternoon the same day. I took off 2 weeks which was plenty of time to recover and adjust to my new eating habits.
Then came the complications. I began having severe backaches the week I returned to work. I would start the day ok and by noon would have to go home to lay down. It became progressively worse every day. I went to see Dr. Chebli and had the band checked out by x-ray, all was well. I was prescribed medication for the pain and nausea, but became progressively worse until I could no longer drink more than a few sips of water or eat without nausea. The worst part was that I was only able to sleep about 1-2 hour per night before waking in pain.
The weekend after Thanksgiving I had had enough and honestly felt as if I were dying. I paged Dr. Chebli and he had me go the ER. After initial tests they could find nothing wrong, but because gallstones had appeared on my pretests we tested for that. And that was the problem.
I was scheduled for surgery the next day and Dr. Chebli removed the nasty thing. The recovery for this surgery took much longer. I believe that was because #1 had just had surgery within the month and #2 the functionality of my gallbladder was pretty much gone.
I am back to normal now and feeling great. As you can imagine the weight came off pretty quickly those first few months. It has slowed considerably, in fact no additional loss for 6 months (yikes), but I came back to the boards last week to get re-motivated and have to say I am reminded of why I started this journey to begin with.
10/23/2007
Oct 23, 2007
I had been waiting to update my blog until I knew that I would have the surgery. Well, after 3 weeks of fighting with my insurer (Cigna, grrrr) it seems I am not fat enough to qualify. I had been told in the past by 2 seperate reps that, yes, high cholesterol does indeed qualify as a co-morbibity, but apparently it does not. I am moving forward as self-pay and hope that my good health prevails against any complications.
A few insurance tips:
1) Make sure your surgeon's office is your "partner" in getting you approved. I could not have gotten as far as I did without out the help of the office assistant. She called Cigna at least once, many times twice a day for the past week and a half on my behalf. In addition we sat down together when it was time to submit the request to ensure all information was included and relevant.
2) Get the requirements. I can't emphasize this enough. I have mine memorized, and even then they pulled a fast one on me.
3) Be sure that if you lose weight in your pre-op diet past the eligible BMI, your insurance will still cover you. Mine would not have and it is not in any documentation.
4) The first question you should ask of the insurer is if your company has an exclusion policy for WLS. Going into the process, my company did not have one, but next year they will.
5) If you are even considering WLS get started on the Physician Supervised diet. Sure it's a pain in the butt to see your Dr. every month, but get that clock started, nearly all insurers require something like this.
So, now I am VERY excited!!!!! I finally get to celebrate. My surgery is scheduled for this Friday 10/26. My Dr. requires a very low carb diet and I have been doing it for some time now and have lost nearly 20 lbs. I think it is a great kick start and aditude adjustment pre-band. Although you could not have convinced me of that 2 months ago.
A few insurance tips:
1) Make sure your surgeon's office is your "partner" in getting you approved. I could not have gotten as far as I did without out the help of the office assistant. She called Cigna at least once, many times twice a day for the past week and a half on my behalf. In addition we sat down together when it was time to submit the request to ensure all information was included and relevant.
2) Get the requirements. I can't emphasize this enough. I have mine memorized, and even then they pulled a fast one on me.
3) Be sure that if you lose weight in your pre-op diet past the eligible BMI, your insurance will still cover you. Mine would not have and it is not in any documentation.
4) The first question you should ask of the insurer is if your company has an exclusion policy for WLS. Going into the process, my company did not have one, but next year they will.
5) If you are even considering WLS get started on the Physician Supervised diet. Sure it's a pain in the butt to see your Dr. every month, but get that clock started, nearly all insurers require something like this.
So, now I am VERY excited!!!!! I finally get to celebrate. My surgery is scheduled for this Friday 10/26. My Dr. requires a very low carb diet and I have been doing it for some time now and have lost nearly 20 lbs. I think it is a great kick start and aditude adjustment pre-band. Although you could not have convinced me of that 2 months ago.
