A new plan of action

After 4 solid years of doing Weight Watchers and counting calories, I had lost 71 lb, then gained 40 back, and have lost another 20, for a total of 52 lb. While I am so proud of that number, I am still bummed that it’s taken so long and has been do difficult to lose and maintain. In addition to coping with having a chronic disease, I am a mom, a wife and employee. So in February I decided to look into Weight Loss Surgery (WLS) at Oregon Weight Loss Surgery (OWLS) with Dr. Emma Patterson. I had looked into my insurance (Cigna) and bariatric surgery is covered at 90%.

Friday, February 20th, I had my first appointment at OWLS, where I had lab work, EKG, resting energy expenditure (checks metabolism) body comp analysis, dietitian consult, exercise consult and was set up with a sleep study to do over the weekend. Then March 4th, I did a psych evaluation; and I passed with flying colors on all tests! I knew I didn’t have sleep apnea, but I had to do that whole test anyway. That was the least favorite test of all, mainly because it was 2 nights of shit sleep.

What the “Sleeve” looks like. 80% of the stomach is removed, leaving you with a sleeve/tunnel/banana shaped stomach.

Tuesday, March 10th I had the official meeting with Dr. Emma Patterson. She answered questions for me, told me which type of bariatric surgery would be the best for me and my lifestyle. OWLS agreed to send in my 4 years of weight records from Weight Watchers to see if the insurance company would accept those in lieu of the 3 months of doctor supervised weight loss. The surgery that I chose was a Vertical Sleeve Gastrectomy (VSG, for short). I met with the insurance coordinator who would be sending in my application for surgery. She told me she’d be in contact soon, and I was done.

Wednesday March 25th, I was at the club, finishing my work out, and I got a phone call from OWLS. It was Camille, the insurance coordinator, and I asked her if she was ready to submit the application to Cigna. She told me that they already had, and heard back already. It was accepted! So when I was thinking July for a surgery date, it was going to be a lot sooner! She told me the scheduler would call soon and schedule my surgery. A couple days later, Dylan from OWLS called and we scheduled the surgery for Monday. May 4th.

I met with Lisa, Dr. Patterson’s PA, on Wednesday April 15th, to go over all the pre-op diet requirements (there isn’t one, just liquids the day before and nothing after 12:01 AM the day of surgery), post-op care, all prescriptions, how to take current medications, what I am allowed to take or when to stop meds I am on (No NSAIDs a week out), when to take milk of magnesia, etc. I filled all my perscriptions and got all the regular over the counter medications all ready to go. I am also testing out a whole bunch of different protein shakes, since I will be on those for a long time.

Today, April 21st, I got a call from Dylan who asked if I would like to move my VSG surgery up to Monday April 27th, a week early. I will be checking in at 8:30, with a surgery time of 10:30 or so. Less than a week and I’ll be sleeved!