Well, Here we go! Gonna start this thing and use it as sort of a blog for my journey, which I have dubbed Allen's Magical Mystery Tour. I guess Ill start off telling you guys what Ive already done and what is coming up. First, the stats -

I am 5-6, 327.5 pounds as of today (6-18-15). This is my all time highest weight. I am 49 years old and always have been a big boy.

I started this journey about a month ago at my PCP's office. We had mentioned before, in passing, about me doing the surgery, but she looked at me and asked me if I thought it was time, I thought about it a few days and asked her what I needed to do.

• Called insurance company to see if I was covered - CHECK
• Attend a mandatory seminar - CHECK
• Met with the psychologist to have a general psychology exam performed - CHECK (Done on June 18)
• Meet with Surgeon (coming up on June 22)

I met with the psychologist today who told me that she thought I was mentally "surgery ready" and she would make her recommendation to the surgeon sometime before my appointment on June 22. That appointment with Dr. Paul Macik will be my initial meeting with him, as I took the seminar with another surgeon (that is a whole other story).

Now, a little backstory...I initially met with another surgeon and attended his "seminar" last Saturday. This whole thing was a debacle to say the least. We were supposed to be there at 1 and at 1:30 the doctor strolled in snd looked at us sitting in the lobby and asked what we all were doing there. We told him the seminar and he said out loud "I thought that damned thing was cancelled". Apparently he was just coming in to his office to pick something up. He went ahead and went with the seminar "since we were all here anyway".

This whole thing left a bad taste in my mouth. I mean, if he can't even coordinate a seminar, how do I know he can perform the surgery right? I mean, I may end up with half a leg or worse. Yeah...no!

Then and there, I decided to do some more research and found another surgeon in my insurance network that could do the surgery. I researched him and have read nothing but good things about Dr Macik, He has performed more VSG surgeries than any other surgeon in the state of Georgia...That was good enough for me.

I called and spoke with Tiffany at his office who was very nice and assured me that this would be fine and wouldn't take long to get to my surgery date as long as I got the required paperwork in to the insurance company in a timely manner. I started making appointments with whoever I needed to see that same day.

Knocked out the psych evaluation today. Not much to it...except a lot of paperwork and tests. That took me about 2 hours and I met with the Psychologist for about 45 minutes and she told me I was approved through her! I was nervous that she was going to think I was a nut...but she didn't.

So, that is where Im at...waiting now in the 22nd to go meet with Dr. Macik and hopefully get a surgery date. This is gonna ge rough, but SO worth it!

More later guys...

Good Luck on your journey!