Preparing for Lap-Band surgery is in itself it’s own journey.
For the passed 6 months I’ve been visiting doctor after doctor just to
be able to submit to my insurance company a request that I want to have
the surgery. I have completed all the requirements and am now in that
waiting process, which I was told can take anywhere from a couple days,
to a couple weeks. I initially planned to start blogging right before
surgery, but the anxiety I have from waiting for approval from the
insurance company is what’s caused me to start blogging now.
First, what is Lap-Band?
In a nutshell….Without any stomach cutting or stapling, the LAP-BAND®
System reduces your stomach’s capacity, restricting the amount of food
you are able to eat at one time. Plus, you feel full faster and stay
full longer, so you wind up eating less. They do this by placing an
inflatable silicone device around the top portion of the stomach, via
laparoscopic surgery. They control the “tightness” of the band around
your stomach by doing ‘adjustments’. These adjustments are done at
quick office visits where they access a port just under your skin and
inject saline into that port which in turn makes the band tighter. (or
removing saline, which makes the band looser)
Next, let’s go over the requirements I had to do before the insurance will even consider it…
1.
Six Month physician supervised weight loss program:
This part was cake. (No pun intended) I didn’t really have to lose
weight, I just had to visit my primary care doctor once a month for 6
consecutive months and she would document what my eating habits had been
and what my exercise routine was. (Which in the beginning I really did
try to stick to the 1500 calorie diet she recommended but I just didn’t
lose any weight..But I didn’t gain either! I digress…)
2.
Nutritional Consultation: This was very
enlightening and crucial to my success once I have surgery. I met with
the nutritionist who went over the different stages starting two weeks
before the surgery and going thru the 8 week mark after surgery. The
different stages have different foods that I am allowed to eat.. The
food requirements I feel should be in their own post..But let’s just say
it starts with a 2 week protein shake diet before you even have the
surgery.. *sigh*
3.
Psychological Evaluation: I was a little nervous
about this. Knowing that I have major emotional food issues, made me
hesitant to say the ‘wrong’ thing that would make her say that she
doesn’t recommend I have surgery. But all went well and she wished me
luck on my journey!
4.
EMMI: EMMI is an online video program that the
doctors office has set up for you to watch and answer questions.. I was
just kinda going thru the motions here.. Informational stuff, but by
this time I knew all of it and it was boring- but quick.
5.
Attend Seminar: This was the first thing I did.
All Bariatric doctors have seminars they hold for people interested in
Bariatric Surgery- whether it be the Gastric Bypass, the Lap-Band, or
the Gastric Sleeve. I went to
Celebration Health
first and was turned off from them because for the psychiatric
evaluation they REQUIRE you to visit this specific Doctor that, by the
way, doesn’t take insurance and his fee is $500. SHADY! So then, I did
some more research and found
ORMC’s bariatric division. I got a much better feeling from them so I decided to go for it.
6.
Attend Support Group Meeting: I did not look
forward to this simply because I’m not much of a “group” person… But I
ended up hearing lots of useful information and deciding that it might
be beneficial for me to continue to attend these meetings, especially
once I have my surgery.
7.
Upper GI: Let me tell you, when I went for this
quick procedure, all I knew was that I was going to have to drink some
gross stuff while they x-ray my digestive system. That’s exactly what
it was. The stuff you drink is pretty damn gross and I gagged a couple
of times while trying to drink it, but the process of them taking x-rays
while you’re drinking it is actually kinda cool. Watching the fluids
going thru my digestive system was really fascinating. It was like
watching my own documentary.
After meeting all these lovely requirements, the surgeons office has
submitted all the paperwork to the insurance company and now…..we wait.
