Good Morning!

I am hoping I could get some advice from this group. My surgery is scheduled for May 14th. I am 30 years old, and have a BMI of 43.6. I have no co-morbidities. I have had one previous abdominal surgery (gall bladder) and the recovery from that was very easy for me. I was back at work 2 days after surgery.

Now, the reason I am telling you this is because my husband had a heart attack last week and is in the hospital waiting for a bypass. Heart Disease runs strong in his family. His surgery is scheduled for Monday, April 30th. The recovery for it is pretty freaking intense. As a result, I am considering pushing my surgery back a few weeks. My husband and family are adamantly against it. My mom works part time as a school bus driver, and my sister is on Maternity Leave, so they said they will take care of the kids (8 and soon to be 5) and us for the first week after my surgery.

My main concern is this: My husband can't drive for at least the first 6 weeks to allow the sternum to heal. I won't be able to drive right after surgery (according to my paperwork at least). Does anyone know how long that is for? How soon were you driving? I just feel that with him only being 2 weeks post op, it seems insane to go in for another surgery!

My concern with pushing the surgery back is work and insurance. For work, I've already got the leave approved, the STD in place, and have started to train my coverage while I am out. I took 3 weeks off post-surgery since I have a 1.5 - 2 hour commute each way and my thought was seatbelt + incisions = not fun. For insurance, my insurance came out with that pesky 6-month clause right at the end of my time that said any approvals submitted after 4/13 for approval needed to include 6 months of supervised weightloss. The original approval is good for within 30 days of the originally specified surgery date (They originally approved for April 16-20, and my surgery is May 14 so if falls within that 30 days). So I am afraid that if I request to push it out to say June, they may decline and make me continue with the 6 month and not have my surgery until August/September, which is the start to my busiest months at work (Not to mention the 2,000 person 4 day conference I am hosting the first week of September, AND the first week of October).

In truth, I probably won't be able to make a decision about this until my husband is post-op and I can see how he is healing. Due to his age and general health, they consider it to be an extremely easy recovery but one can never tell. However, I would welcome your thoughts especially as it pertains to recovery from VSG while caring for another post-op person or if you had more insight into the recovery of bypass (Doctors can tell us what they expect, but I find people who live through it usually have more insight into the actual day to day).

Thank you in advance for any advice you can give.

Kind regards,

Kay

P.S. One last tidbit I forgot to mention, I have no issues with making dinners and such for my family while post-op. I don't have uncontrollable food cravings, nor do I have binging issues with food so am not concerned with feeling stress about being surrounded by food I cannot eat.

Edited April 29, 20188 yr by Kay07

8 hours ago, Kay07 said:

Hi Everyone,

Thanks for checking in! My hubs is doing GREAT! Well, he's getting on my nerves because he is home and bored and whining. LOL. His recovery has actually been easy. The first few days were chaotic as he needed help with a lot of things, but he is completely independent minus the driving. He feels much better and is not handling the "being cooped up at home unable to drive anywhere" stage of this recovery very well. I think its actually a good thing I will be going for my surgery since it will mean I am off for the next few weeks with him and he won't be as lonely.

So yes, my surgery is still a GO! I go in at 2pm on Monday

So happy for you and your family that everything went so smoothly.

I am sure we will all be thinking of you on Monday when it is your turn. Best wishes that your surgery is a success as well.