During the year of 2010 I started to pay a lot of attention to one of my customers that comes into the bank I work for. She had the gastric bypass surgery done. Her and I were/are about the same size in pants. She looks amazing right now from a size 24 down to a size 10. She has been a big inspiration to me. My oldest sister had the gastric bypass surgery back in 2000, then she had a revision, hernia, and tummy tuck all at once in 2002. Although she had the surgery, she hasn't kept the weight off. She was almost 500lbs and once she got down to a size 18 in pants, she didn't look healthy at all. She is now in a size 24 again, but she says she is happy.

With that being said, my sister is a good person that I can turn to for support. Not because she has gained weight back, but because she has been there and done that. I have watched her go through her journey with the WLS and I have a good idea of what to expect. From watching the two of them and seeing their outcomes, it made me think "what if?" So I kept telling them that once I got insurance (I am 24 years old, and I have never had insurance of my own) that I would start to see my doctor and start my journey. After the first of the year, I made an appointment with my doctor for January 12. I went in and talked to him, and from reading posts I learned that I needed to put weight loss down for the reason for my visit and I did. I had my sister go with me so we could both talk to him together, since he is also her doctor. He told me to basically watch what I eat and exercise...well duh I know that! So we left and I pretty much didn't get anything out of that appointment with him. Then I made a 2nd appointment with him in March. This is when I told him that I wasn't getting anywhere, because he really didn't ask me to follow up with him. At the time I was really into walking, my normal walk was 2.5 miles around my town. I love walking. So after the 2nd appointment, he put me on a 1200-1500 calorie a day diet, plus keep walking.

I really tried hard to keep with this diet, and I kept fluctuating with my weight no matter what I did. I kept going from 312lbs-329lbs. He asked me to just come in and weigh the following month, so I did. Then I heard nothing more after that. I have had a lot of different problems this year, Healthwise. I had three of my wisdom teeth pulled(the 4th was pulled a year prior), and one of the teeth had to be surgically removed, I had gotten shingles, then shortly after that I had a mole removed from my back which required 2 stitches (never had stitches before). I have been going to a prompt care because it isn't convenient to see my regular doctor because of my work schedule. So I have seen the prompt care doctor a lot. I then went back to him because two years ago I was at work and I fell on my knee. I didn't think it was a big deal, I scraped up my knee a little and it was bleeding some. It wasn't until I bent down to get some coin out of my coint vault at work that same day that my knee popped really loud. It was the worst pain I had ever felt. With my weight my knee hurts a lot more than it should. So here I am two years later and I finally went to see the doctor about it. He sent me to the hospital for x-rays (this was because I was too heavy for their x-ray table in the office). It turns out that all I have is Fluid on my knee which is causing all of the pain. I have been on Tylenol with Codeine for about 5 months. I made an appointment for the orthopaedic surgeon, but I had to cancel due to my work schedule. Let me tell you, it is VERY hard to take time off from a bank!! They couldn't get me in while I was on vacation because the doctor was booked. So I cancelled the appointment and tried to make a new one. Now here I am, this was in June and now it's September and I have an appointment Monday!! So anyway, doctor told me to not go to the ortho surgeon because my knee pain is because of my weight. I basically made the decision myself to go ahead and go because 1. I don't want to get addicted to a controlled substance and 2. I don't want to have to wait until next year to be smaller and not have to worry about my knee. During one of the many many appointments I went to, the doctor put me on phentermine (diet pill) because he said the surgery was too extreme, and there was no reason for my weight. I told him that I knew that and that was why I was trying to get the surgery. I later found out that the diet pill caused shortness of breath, so I instantly stopped taking it.

All that time I thought that the gastric bypass was the way to go for me. I hadn't heard of any success stories from anyone about any other surgeries. So when I went to my visit with Dr. Salimath at the Methodist weight loss and surgery center in Peoria, Illinois, he told me that since I still want to be able to have children in the future that the sleeve was for me. I had waited for a very long time for the surgeons office to call me to let me know my next step. So I finally got a call August 22 to go and have my testing done. Mind you I still haven't completed my 6 months of pre-op supervised diet. I spoke to the prompt care doctor about my 6 months supervised diet, and he said that since he prescribed me a diet pill, and we talked about weight loss for those two months, that would count toward my 6 months. Which I hope he is right. He also told me that when my regular doctor referred me to the surgeon would count too. But I have another appointment with the doctor on October 24 to talk about weight loss. If my calculations are right, then I have 3 months of the 6 that I need. I just feel like this is all too good to be true! I keep reading everyone's blogs on here and I am so anxious! I really hope that the doctor is right and I am already half way there. My downfall right now is that I have to come up with $420 for the nutritionist, dietician, and exercise specialist out of pocket because insurance will not cover it. When I went for the testing, I did an ultrasound, I drank barium which I believe was the Upper GI test, and I did a chest x-ray. But while I was preparing for the Upper GI I mentioned that I hadn't even started my 6 months diet yet, so I was pretty sure that I didn't need all of my testing done yet. So they called the surgeons office and I didn't get the EKG or blood work done. I haven't heard anything about any results yet from those tests that I did, so I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not.

So, tomorrow is my ortho surgeon appointment and I hope they do something to take away the pain which will in turn take away the meds! I don't want to have to keep taking these meds anymore!!

I just want to wish you good luck on your journey. Having the sleeve was the best choice i could have made about my life. Only 3 months out and I already feel like a different person - no headaches, no back pains, no knee pains!!!

It sounds like you are heading in the right direction. Stay diligent in talking with your physicians and insurance company. Things will work out and the surgery will happen.

Good luck on your journey!

Stay encouraged and get as much of the testing done as early as possible!!.. I'm still a little over 3 months from getting my sleeve, but I have all the consults, egd and ekg stuff handled... Some of the care stations are open late on saturdays and they can do e'thing from x-rays to blood work.. Good luck!!!