SuperDave

Good luck! I had a couple denials before the final approval. In the end it was worth the wait. I'm sure it will all work out!

Hi there! Congrats on taking the first step! I am 8 days post-op, and I won't tell you that it has all been easy, but it has been worth it for me so far. Best of luck while you go through the process!

I find the shakes and flavored powders to be too sweet and weird tasting, so I buy the unflavored Protein powder. I mix it with about 6 ounces of milk and a couple ice cubes. It basically just tastes like milk, which isn't great, but I'm not drinking it for the flavor!

Great work! Keep it up!

Thanks for the support!

I kept it quiet until my last day of work, and then I told one person. I'm sure when I return after a month everyone will know. That's okay, I don't care too much what anyone else thinks!

Hello there. I’m Dave, 44 years old, from Arizona. I will apologize in advance, this might be long! I am 1 week post-op today, but my weight loss journey started almost 3 years ago. I knew my weight was out of control, but I had no idea how bad since I had long ago exceeded the max weight of a standard scale. I was walking out of work one night, through the warehouse. Nobody was around, so I decided to weigh myself on the shipping scale. (Hopefully I didn’t weigh more than a pallet of goods!) I was 450. I knew it would be bad, but I was shocked at that number. Definitely my “what the @#!*?” moment! I decided that night that I had to make changes, and I did. Bariatric surgery had not entered my mind at that point. Several months after that, I had emergency surgery for a strangulated hernia. By chance, the surgeon on staff that day was Dr. Podkameni, who also happened to be the head of the bariatric center at the hospital. There were complications that resulted in an 11 day hospital stay, meaning that I saw a lot of Dr. Pod. We talked about bariatric surgery, but I told him I was already working on it and having success, and I didn’t feel like such an extreme measure was needed. The truth is, I feared that I would have to give up food the rest of my life. I was raised in a food centered family. My father was a baker by trade. He owned several cake shops throughout his life. My earliest childhood memories are playing in the back of the shop while Mom baked and Dad decorated cake after cake. Family activities centered around food. It is just how it always was, and still is. I picked up the bug at an early age. I became an excellent cook, and still to this day nothing brings me greater happiness than cooking for family and friends. It is my escape from reality. It is what I love to do. So, over the next 2 years I worked at it. I had my ups and downs, but I managed to lose 120 pounds. Down to 330. A definite improvement, but not where I needed to be. And then I bottomed out. I hadn’t changed what I was doing, I just got to the point where it was no longer enough. I settled in at that weight, but in the back of my mind I knew I had to do more. The one thing that kept coming back to me was what Dr. Pod said on the day I was released from the hospital. Basically, I knew where to find him when I got to the point that I needed help. I did some research and decided it was time. I had my initial consult in March of this year. I started my medically supervised weight loss, as required by my insurance. The whole process reinvigorated me. I started losing again while the bariatric center and insurance company fought about payment. After 8 months I was finally approved and scheduled for surgery on November 10th. The morning I checked into the hospital for surgery I was 299.9 pounds. I truly do not remember the last time in my life I weighed under 300 pounds. Surgery went well, but the next few days were rough. At times I was sure I had made a huge mistake. I had extreme nausea for 3 days, including dry heaves several times a day. My pain level was much worse than I was expecting. I was unable to even come close to taking in the fluids I needed, and I am still struggling with that. But it gets better every day. I am down 12 pounds from surgery and ready to face the challenges ahead. I appreciate the information and support from the people on this site. I have no doubt now that I can finish the journey. Thanks for reading and for sharing the adventure with me!

While I understand the point you are trying to make, this argument does not make any sense to me. First of all, neither WLS or other weight loss programs are illegal anywhere in CO. The same is not true of marijuana, cities still can and do prohibit it within their limits. Second, though WLS is not covered by the ACA in Colorado, neither is marijuana whether for medical or recreational use. In fact, it is not covered in any state, as it is still illegal on a federal level. Third, the "wise elected officials" did not pass the marijuana measures in Colorado, the voters did that. Have the voters been given the same opportunity to decide what should be covered by the ACA? Maybe if they were, you would discover how "open minded" they really can be. Last, if marijuana is more of a "medical necessity" than WLS, why is it so heavily taxed? WLS is considered a medical procedure, meaning that not only is it not taxed, it is federally tax deductible as a medical expense. I challenge anyone to legitimately use weed as a tax deduction. Please don't take this as meaning that I am against WLS being covered, I agree 100% that it should be. I'm simply pointing out that you can't fairly compare apples to oranges. If this is something you feel strongly about, perhaps you should look into what it would take to get it on the ballot. The marijuana movement started because somebody recognized something that they did not feel was right, and started the process to change it. Just my two cents.