Naomi H

In my previous topic I was having a lot of regret and I was upset because my doctor did both an open and closed procedure on me. I was in a lot of pain and I was still in shock about having the huge scar down my stomach. After my last post I suffered a major setback and I developed an infection and a seroma under the incision site. I was sitting on my bed drinking my Protein drink and I felt a pulling like a stitch was being pulled, so I changed position because I thought I was sitting in a way that was putting undue pressure on my incision site. When I stood up to move I noticed I was covered from belly to knees in this sticky, smelly, and yellow-brown Fluid. I got up and went out to my mom's living room and I woke her up and I told her to call 911. I got to the hospital and I ended up being transferred to the hospital I had my surgery at that night. The next day my surgeon comes in and takes out 3 of my staples and opens up the incision. Under it he finds a space that had been filled with this infected fluid and he starts treatment right away. I ended up being in the hospital for 4 days and now I have a nurse that comes every day to take care of my wound and to pack the hole under my incision with this silver stuff used for healing deep wounds. It grosses me out, but it doesn't hurt that much and the hole is getting smaller and smaller every day. I feel a lot better now. I am able to walk and do almost everything independently except drive or go back to work. I lost 15 pounds so far after the surgery, and I am getting used to the incision line. It doesn't bother me as much as it did before. I look at it and I can see that in a few months or years it will be tiny and no one but me will notice it. I am just happy to finally be feeling better after such a bad ordeal. I will say the reason I was unable to have a completely laparoscopic procedure is because my insides were too short for him to close using the scope. My doctor said that when he tried to close the pouch and hook everything up it fell apart because whatever it is he was trying to sew together was too short for him to get to come together closed. My liver was not the issue, of course it didn't help the situation I just have unique anatomy inside. Who knew?? I know I have a few more months of healing before I will feel normal again and I am ready for that. Weird thing is the first place I lost weight that I can tell is in my calf muscles. It's a strange place to lose weight first. LOL I am happy to have lost weight at all at this point after all I have been through so far. I was hoping to be able to wear tall boots this winter anyway. LOL

The pain is getting better and I am much more mobile than I was a few days ago. I was told I had less then a 1% chance of having an open surgery. My friend that the doctor talked to after the surgery said he did 90% laprascopicly but the last 10% he was uncomfortable doing closed. I don't know if it was my liver or not because he told her it had to do with my unique anatomy. I see him tomorrow and I will find out the details of why he went to open and exactly what it was about my anatomy that made him change the surgery. I did the presurgery diet and followed directions to a T before my surgery. We shall see what he says tomorrow.

I was supposed to have a laprascopic surgery. I woke up to a huge surgery scar going from just below my breast bone all the way down to about an inch before my belly buttton. I also have 4 scars from the trocars because they started the surgery as laprascopic and changed during the procedure. I have no idea why he changed the type of precedure or why he told my friends and family that my scar was much smaller than it is. I hope I start feeling better about this because I can't change it now. I am feeling very angry that this happened and I don't understant why.

I plan on requesting the records as soon as I can. I read surgery reports for a living as a coder and I know there had to be something bad to change in the middle.

I am new here and I have been working towards a gastric bypass since last October when I found out my insurance will cover it. I went to every meeting and lost weight and kept it off since May. I am now scheduled for surgery on August 18, 2015. I found out today that my insurance apporved the surgery. I really wasn't expecting it to go through so quickly. It literaly took about a week and a half to get the aproval once the surgeon's office submitted it to my insurance. I feel like it just got real. I have been telling myself that it probably won't happen as soon as I wanted it to and that I would have to appeal a denial. Not that I can think of a valid reason for a denial but you know how insurance companies are. I am 5'6" tall and I weigh just under 280 pounds. I am not even near my highest weight of 320 8 years ago. I am type 2 diabetic, I have high blood pressure, extremely mild sleep apnea. The lung doctor said I didn't even need a CPAP machine it is so mild. I have anxiety and depression. I know that surgery is not a quick fix and that I still have to do the work. I also know that plenty of people have had this surgery and it didn't work for them because they didn't work the program. I am nervous that I will be one of them. I have an extreme sweet tooth. I eat sweets like it is going out of style. I don't feel guilty when I do it either. I have been told that after surgery my tastes will change, but I am worried that I won't be able to give up the sweets. I know they can cause dumping syndrome, but since I have never had that yet I am not sure how much of a deteriant it will be. I hear it is quite bad and I am hoping that if I ever have it, it will help train my mind to associate sweets with sick feelings. I really want to make this surgery work for me because I am only 40 years old and I want to be healthy and to not have diabetes anymore. Any tips for the sweet lover? Also I will be picking up a blending system next week any recomendations for a newb?

Ask at your surgeon’s office. They know these insurance plans inside and out. I know my surgeon has an insurance specialist in his office that knows just about every insurance policy out there and can answer any questions. I bet your surgeon will have someone like that at his/her office. I had to do 9 months of meetings without missing one meeting at all. Make sure that if your insurance policy says that you have to go to nutrition education classes that if you miss one that you aren't put back at zero. That is a problem a lot of people have. Also ask what the options are if you need miss a meeting, can you make it up by meeting with the dietitian in the surgeon's in office or is there another location you can go to, to make it up? I would plan on the 6 month waiting period and then plan for another month or so to get the approval from your insurance. Your first appointment make sure you bring a pen and paper because there are a lot of required appointments to get the approval from insurance and sometimes your surgeon will have doctors that they work with all the time and they can give you the contact information. If you don't currently have a psychiatrist get one asap because that is the hardest approval to get and you will need to meet with the PSY doctor more than once for them to give you their approval and write a letter saying you would be a good candidate for the surgery. I already had one so I didn't need have mpre than one appointment with mine. I just asked her and we talked about it and about a month later I got a copy of what she sent my surgeon.

I am Princess Naomi. I lost the book mark to this forum and I thought I had been here before but I could not remember my user name because it is not one that I have used before. I got approved for my surgery yesterday and I am from Cleveland. I will have my surgery on August 18 at UH Parma. I am nervous and excited at the same time. I feel like now it is real and I know it will happen for me. I am the kind of person that doesn't count her chickens until they hatch and they are in my basket. For months I have been telling myself that it may not happen and I kept telling myself not to get to excited because I might have to fight my insurance company to get approval. I didn't even have to make a peep let alone scream at anyone. My surgeon’s office called me at the end of June and said they were putting it through that week and gave me a possible surgery date of August 18. They said I needed to get one more record for them before they could submit to my insurance and asked me to get it ASAP. I went that day and requested it and I set in to wait and then have my surgery rescheduled because of delays that never happened. Now it just got real and I am scared, excited, and nervous all at the same time. I know I won't back out, but I now have allowed myself to begin to think about life after surgery and what that might be like. I look forward to the weight loss, but I am wondering if I will have any regrets later. I hope not because I am doing this. I want my health back and diabetes can suck it!! I worry about getting dumping syndrome, I worry about replacing clothes as I lose weight, I worry about loose skin, I worry if I will find anyone that doesn't mind my thinner and still imperfect body. I wonder if this will change the way I feel about myself. Will I like myself better or will I still deflect my body image issues with humor? What will I be if I am not the funny fat girl? Will people still like me? Will I like myself? How do you dress a body that is new to you? Will I have to wear Spanks under everything? Do they make Spanks sex lingerie? These are just a few of the thoughts running through lmy head right now. Aggggggg!!! PS Sorry for making 2 accounts. I am using Naomi H now.

I am having my surgery at University Hospital Parma in August. My mom had her surgery at Cleveland Clinic about 3 years ago. She is doing good and has lost a lot of weight. I decided on Parma because I didn;t want to have all of my appointments and required meetings downtown. I just don't like going to the main campus of wither Cleveland Clinic or University hospitals. Now that Parma hospital is part of the University system it really was the best decision for me. I do know the rusian or eastern european nurse on the bariartic floor at the Cleveland Clinic is very nice. She will take good care of you.