I live in the woodlands and would love an accountability partner/encourager for this life changing journey.

Would be so appreciative even if it's just text.

Delila

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I also live in the Woodlands. I'm a little over 5 mos post op. Have you had your surgery yet?

Tomorrow 8:45 am

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I live off Sawdust Rayford road.

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How are you feeling?

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Good Luck! I'm close to Rayford and Kuykendahl in Augusta Pines. Who is your surgeon?

Dr. Dirk.

We live pretty close to each other

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I'm in Conroe, about two months out though. I'm seeing Dr. Howard. Would love to chat!

Hi @HunnyBlossom. I see Dr Balette.

@@kaitlynm, I met him at my seminar, up already had my first appointment scheduled with Dr Howard. He was so nice and encouraging that I thought hard about switching!

Where are ya'll/did ya'll have your surgery?

My insurance required me to go to Houston North West down on 1960. It was horrible. So wish I could have gone to Memorial Hermann.

I live near Rayford and Riley Fuzzel. My surgery is not until June 6th, though. I will be going through Houston NW.

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Welcome Roxanne! Hope everything is going well for you. Let me know if you have any questions.

My insurance required me to go to Houston North West down on 1960. It was horrible. So wish I could have gone to Memorial Hermann.

Oh no! That's where I'm supposed to go, as Memorial isn't a center of excellence. What happened, and how I can prevent it!!!?

You must have BCBS. I don't think you can do anything about it and I've talked to others and they had better experiences. I had trouble with the equipment and alarms kept going off. The nurses would take forever to respond and it just drove me nuts. They don't give you pain medication automatically so you have to ask for it. Again they would take forever from when I asked for it till when they gave it to me. The second day in the hospital I never got any and I didn't get released until 4 pm. At night they were doing something that sounded like shredding paper most of the night right outside my room, and it kept me up all night. Also their book says not to bring any of your prescription drugs, but they do not supply them either. I never saw the bariatric coordinator so I got no instructions about how much to drink. I got back to my room from the X-ray and there was broth, a bottle of Water, and some Jello I think. I just started eating all of it. I had forgotten about the 1 oz rule.

The only other hospital I've ever been in is Memorial Hermann and they treated me like a queen when I was there.

The operation itself was fine. That staff was much more attentive, and seemed much more capable. That is the important part.

It s your employer that makes the decision about whether you have to go to the center of Excellence. Dr Ballette told me that he had patients that went to their employers and tried to get that requirement removed. He said sometimes it works. I was on Cobra so there is no way my past employer was going to do that for me.

For me, everything turned out just fine. I would have just preferred to skip the overnight hospital stay.

Wow @@kaitlynm, thank you so much for your insight!

And you guessed it, I'm BCBS. I was told I could go to Conroe Regional or Northwest, but Dr. Howard doesn't have privileges in Conroe - which doesn't make sense as one of his offices is in that hospital. I don't know, I've heard really good and bad things about Conroe also though, so I guess it's a crapshoot.

There's little to no chance that I would be able to get the requirement lifted, as my employer is pretty huge. I'm just grateful to have insurance that covers batratrics, as it's been excluded from every other policy I've ever had.

Thank you so much for your insight! I'm really getting nervous about this and your insight helps greatly!

Don't worry about it. You have other things more important to worry about. The surgery part itself was absolutely fine and that is by far the most important aspect. Other people in the support group have been fine going through there. The only difference I notice is that the are Dr. Turnquest's patients. He is the head of the bariatric program down there so I'm sure the staff doesn't want to tick him off. I didn't know about Conroe Regional. That is a surprise that Dr. Howard doesn't have privileges given he has an office there.

@@kaitlynm, I keep finding myself staring at your stats. 85 pounds lost since October! That is simply amazing! I need to have the balls to post those numbers to my profile, in hopes that soon it will inspire someone else!

Do any of you attend the support group at Memorial? Or anywhere?