i hate a date

Ok, not a surgery date but still I'm excited. I called Dr Schweitzer's office back, after he finally called me and I was out. I was able to talk to Debbie and schedule my initial consult. I was pleasantly surprised and I have my appt on May 22nd. I thought it would take longer to get in. Unfortunately I have to repeat my physician supervised diet. I saw a nutritionalist the first time I was looking into WLS but then found out my insurance didn't cover it. So, I had done the 6 months. But, it'll be 2 years next month since I started seeing her. I'm still going to get copies of those records but Debbie said I"ll have to repeat the 6 months. I called my PCP and I have an appointment with her on Wednesday. I can get the diet started and by the time I see Dr S I'll have 3 months done. If she can include the appointment from last month when I got the referral I'll have 4 months done but I doubt that appointment will "count". I figure since I"ll be seeing her every month I'll also get a complete physical so that is done in case I need it later. Might as well, since I"ll be there anyway. Luckily my PCP has several patients who ahve had WLS and she's very supportive. I dont' think I'll need a sleep study done since I don't have any signs of sleep apnea. I don't snore and I've never had a problem with anesthesia. It's funny, one time I had surgery and the anesthesiologist was asking hubby all the sleep questions LOL. He confirmed I don't snore or gasp or stop breathing. So, hopefully I won't have to do the sleep study. Does anyone know of anything else I should have done when I go to see Dr Schweitzer? I'll have 3 months of diet history, my letter of medical necessity, copies of the records from the nutritionalist and all the paperwork that I have to fill out from his website. I'm hoping that since I"ll be seeing him in May but will still have 3 months of the diet to do, once I get the diet done everything else will be in order and we'll be set for surgery. I know, high hopes, but a girl can dream LOL. I just want to try to make the whole process as smooth as possible. I've already gotten derailed once. I want this to go off without a hitch (don't we all). Oh, and I did call my insurance and specifically ask, before I even got my referral, if I was covered for surgery. Sorry for the rambling. I'm just so excited to be making progress with getting in to see Dr S and seeing my PCP this week and getting everything moving along.

Tina, I am so excited for you! My initial contact with Dr S's office was in late April and I got my appt for late Sept. I started doing the physician supervised diet in early May. After I saw my PCP - I started entering everything I ate into fitday.com. I printed out reports to take with me to each appt. and asked my PCP to put those reports in my medical chart. She saw that I was being compliant with the diet (after 4 months I gained 4 lbs despite only eating 1000 calories per day). When it came time for my appt with Dr. S, the only things I needed to get were a Letter of Medical Necessity from my PCP (I wrote it for her and sent it to her via fax and she put it on her letter head and signed it) and my diet records (whi*****luded the fit day stuff). Good luck to you! Keep me posted on your journey! Email me if you have any questions or if you just need to talk. Dawn S. 12/1/05 303/256/150