What do your health stats have to be like to get a surgery date?

I have my consultation on Thursday. So, this surgery is supposed to help diabetes and high blood pressure. Obviously I can have these conditions. Under what kind of control do they need to be in order to get a date? At my last Joslin appointment my A1C was a little high. Not high enough to be put back on meds, but not perfect... and, I'm sad to say, that I haven't improved much of anything since then. We just got off a 9 day cruise where you know I didn't skip the midnight buffet, etc. I just got my glucometer fixed (just needed a new battery) and it looks like I'm hitting about a 205 peak. I'm supposed to keep it 140-180 post meals. Plus, I had a hard time remembering to take my blood pressure meds, so I'm in the borderline hypertension range. I'm back on them and it is going down once again, but I doubt I will be in normal range by Thursday. Possibly high normal. I have to pay my retainer before they set a date, and I don't want to do that until after my Thursday appointment anyway. But, how does this usually go? Under ideal conditions, assuming you are self-pay or have insurance approval in hand, do they make a tentative date at consultation? He pretty much said at his seminar that under ideal conditions, if you saw him in the next few days, that you could be in by late August or early September... So, I'm guessing they set a date? I wonder if he won't set a date for me until these BP and BG numbers of mine are in the normal range... or is there a little leeway for that being that a good number of patients have these conditions? Someone told me... Stayce was it you?... that if your BG is too high, they will not operate since wounds won't heal as quickly. I'm not tooo worried, because even if he says "get these numbers down and come back then" I can knock em down in a few weeks time. I just want to get this surgery overwith before the snow.

Vicky - having comorbidities is what qualifies you for the surgery so (no pun intended) we can't sugar-coat them. When I went to the docs I had the same fears as you. Relax...I have docs office hypertension so no amount of BP meds in the world would have calmed my screaming BP on the day of my consult! I'm not sure about the diabetes piece but I know with the BP issue the doc would at least want the number under control with meds before surgery. I was on BP pills until my surgery and have taken one or two since then but nothing after the first month and I'm now almost 10 months out. What's the retainer you're having to pay? I didn't visit your webpage so I'm not sure about your type of insurance. I didn't have to pay a retainer...are you self pay? I remind everyone that is considering having this surgery that loosing weight won't make you happy, no it won't. It makes you healthy and boosts your confidence because of the fact that weight problems cause so many insecurities but it will never solely, make you happy. Don't beat yourself up when you do eat...it's going to get a lot trickier once you have the surgery. Stay positive...Good luck at your appointment and know that so many people are routing for you. We all remember what it was like to be in those pre-surgery shoes! Blessings n' care, Jennifer

Ok... I am quite certain that I responded to this... but I cleared my cache and still don't see it. I don't think I wrote anything that would be worth pulling. Do they notify you when they do this?