LumpySpacePrincess

Trader Joe's unflavored soy protein powder is great for cooking and does not clump. Best of all, its less than $15 for a huge tub of it! It also has absolutely no flavor, so its great for cooking.

Wow, thank you, everyone! That does put my mind at ease! Now I can stop worrying and go on being excited for my new life to start! woohoo!

So I'm finally approved by my insurance and I'm going in for my final visit to set a date this coming week! The only thing that really still makes me nervous, to be honest, is the intubation; specifically will it still be in place when I wake up? I remember my surgeon told me originally that I would have to be "awake" before they could remove it, but I have also heard others say that what they consider "awake" is probably different than what most people consider awake. Maybe its more of the twilight phase of anaesthesia most of us had with our endoscopies? I have a pretty strong gag reflex, and my biggest fear is not being able to breathe, so I am nervous I might wake up and try to rip it out myself. The worst part about intubation: no singing for a full two months after! I'm a vocalist and I sing everywhere..even in the grocery store! It will be so worth it to get the sleeve, just hard to not be the Bette Middler of my local grocery store for awhile!

So freakin' excited!!!! I have my final consult with the surgeon Thursday and we will set my surgery date! Hopefully it will be very soon!

Just got a call and I'm APPROVED!!!!! WHOOOOO! Thank you to all of you wonderful people who kept me company during this! Wow I don't think I've been this stressed out since I was ready to give birth! lol!!

How do you get customer service at BCBS to give you an answer as to what is going on? I keep getting the runaround from them saying "we can't really look into that..."

My surgeon's office faxed my file nine days ago. I'm still waiting. So happy for everyone who has approvals, though! Really hoping mine comes soon!

Still no word for me. Its not even up on my Insurance member page that anything is pending for this. Drives me insane that no one seems to know what is going on with it. I can only afford to pay for this policy for another couple months, then my savings will be gone (paying $900 per month right now!) so a quick answer and early surgery date is really important to us.

No, nothing yet.

Thank you! That was honestly the most helpful and reasonable explanation anyone has given me so far! Makes total sense about things being slowed down because of Obamacare. I actually feel more relaxed about it now. Would still love to get a call from the office saying I'm approved today but now at least I have a justifiable reason why its not going as fast.

At 18 I was exactly where you are, even our weights matched up! I'm 33 now and wish I had taken advantage of the opportunity to get surgery back then, because it rarely gets better naturally for people like us. I'm sure your dad is just scared of the procedure and projecting it in a judgmental light. My mother was also extremely judgmental at that age, just telling me I was lazy and that I didn't need the surgery. Now she sees how wrong she was and apologizes all the time. Do what you feel is right for you. Take control of your life now and you will be much happier in the coming years!

I had high hopes from all the stories I heard about people getting approvals in 1-3 days. Its been a week and still nothing yet. One kind customer service agent at my insurance company gave me a number to give the insurance coordinator so they could put a rush on my file, but my surgeon's office refuses to call. I can't get a surgery date until I get the insurance approval. (That seems weird to me, because everyone else I talked to said they had a date set before now. hmmm). I'm just very, VERY anxious about this. I've been waiting six months since I went to the seminar to get everything in place, I've been on the pre-op diet for three weeks already, even though they only require me to be on for three weeks before surgery, keeping in touch with the nutritionist, etc. I just want my surgery date. I've put my entire life on hold for this, including pushing off starting my PhD program for a year so the start of that didn't collide with surgery. Thank goodness I can email my therapist whenever I need to, because yesterday my anxiety turned into a full-blown panic attack for about two hours. I feel like the waiting is like when they send a jury out on a murder trial; the longer the jury stays out, the more likely they will come back with an acquittal (or in my case, a denial). I need some good vibes and mental hugs today!!

$600 up front for admin fees? That is just insane! Yes, here's to hoping we're both sleeved very soon! I look forward to the day I don't have to deal with the coordinators at the office, just the practitioners!

So I called the regular office number and talked to the other person who deals with insurance. Boy was he a bit of a snotty thing! He was saying "Yeah, I have a confirmation that it did go through." I just asked if he could call them and make sure, since they were telling me they have no record of it, and he was like "Um, no." o.O Not like my eventual payment for all this is helping pay your salary or anything. Not like I'm unemployed with kids and dishing out $900 a month for this insurance, so, yeah, I'm going to get a bit concerned when member services is telling me "it shouldn't take this long to get approval" but they don't have anything on file. I'm sure you can imagine just how close I was to saying screw it and going out to eat tonight. So hungry, PMSing like a bear, and this isn't helping. ERRRGGGGHHHH!

That's what I feel like doing, too. I took a nap instead and I'm just hoping that whoever I talked to in customer service was wrong. The insurance coordinator is, of course, not working today, so I'll have to wait until tomorrow.

So I called HBCBS today to ask if there has been any progress on the approval. Guess what? They never got the file! Also guess what? The insurance coordinator at my surgeon's office is a temp and she NEVER answers her phone or returns voicemails. UGH. Now I have to call them and have them track all this down. Part of me wonders if she just told me she submitted everything but didn't. I'm really pissed right now!

I am in the same boat. I have Horizon BCBS NJ and its been almost a week, when I was told it would only be a day or two. Maybe its just a busy time of year and they haven't gotten to our files yet. I'm going to try to call again today.

Hooray!!! So happy for you! Let us know when you get a surgery date!

OK, so a week. That means three more days. Wondering what to do until then becuase right now every minute is dragging on like I'm being slowly mauled by a bear.

Starting my 3rd week on the pre-op diet. It was a breeze before, but now that PMS has come around I am absolutely STARVING! Any suggestions for getting through? My pre-op diet looks like this: 3 Protein shakes per day (I use EAS AdvantEdge Carb Control) 1 solid meal consisting of: 4-6 ounces very lean protein 1 non-packed cup salad greens with fat free, oil free dressing 1 cup steamed non-starchy veg I don't want to go off my plan, just wondering how I can dress all this up to make it more filling.

Pretty 1960's style mod dresses! I'd also like to learn to do my hair, nails, etc, finally because growing up as a fat girl no one really thought it was worth it to teach me those things (and my mom isn't really into girly things), so I feel like I missed out on Girly 101!

I know I'm an impatient woman with this and will drive people crazy until I get what I need. But the reality is I live across the country from my family and my dad is really sick right now (B-cell Lymphoma and Follicular Lymphoma) and he really wants me to come out around Xmas time to visit in case he starts getting worse, so I was hoping to have had this done already. I had a ton of delays with doctors, etc like I'm sure everyone else did. I just don't want to make flight plans until I know when my surgery date is.

Thanks, Sonya. I called again today and they said it wasn't showing up on the system yet, but that it could have been approved, she just didn't know. You are one strong woman not going crazy after three whole weeks of waiting!

Packet sent in last Thursday, and still no word. Was hopeful after hearing people say it only took 24 hours for them to get a response. Called HBCBS NJ and they said they won't give me an answer over the phone, to wait for a call from my surgeon's office. I'm a stay-at-home mom right now so my days are wide open and I honestly don't know what to do with myself until I hear back!

I haven't been sleeved (yet) but as someone who is trying to lose the required 10% body weight before surgery I can give you tips to get you through the stalls mentally. 1. Don't weigh yourself every day! As long as you are staying as close to your nutritionist's plan as possible, know that you are doing everything right and count each day on plan as a victory. 2. The body is constantly trying to keep itself in homeostasis, that is trying to maintain a relatively stable and consistent environment between your organs, hormones, brain, muscles, fat, etc. When we lose weight, the body needs time to readjust to the new standard of homeostasis, and may put fat-burning on hold for a little bit. Your body needs to learn how to function and run at your new weight before it can let go of more. 3. Because of #2, the body will often hold onto Water weight within the fat cells to keep weight stable until it reaches homeostasis again. Once the body is in balance, the water weight will drop away revealing that loss. 4. You are only a few weeks out of surgery and your body is still healing. Although we get this surgery for weight loss, sometimes the body may hold onto fat while it is healing in case it needs extra energy to fuel the healing process. Honestly, #1 is the most important to remember, but I hope this little post helps. A positive mindset will also go a very long way in helping to break stalls, because stress releases hormones that make us store fat. Here's to hoping your stall breaks soon!!