Insurance is a go!!!

Blue Cross has given me a go for the insurance payment, although I have to pay upfront for the surgery and they will reimburse me Thank you all sooo much for sending me helpful hints of what to have on hand after surgery, and a big kiss for Arlies for emailing me the entire booklet from Kessler. It is sooo helpful! Just wondering, can any of you eat green veggies after your surgery? I eat quite alot of green veggies here in Hong Kong, I love peas and beans but only get them when I come home. We have tons of kinds of greens here and mushrooms of all kinds too. Lots and lots of fruits, including many rare tropical varieties. I should be up for surgery on the last week in June. I got my medical leave request ready to turn in for leave, hopefully they will accept it but if they don't, then I will just quit my job. My husband, Don says this is much more important! He is a bit anxious, but totally supportative! I am so excited reading about how well everyone is doing, Arlies had a post about how much everyone had lost at the meeting in Hattiesburg and how well everyone was! It is so encouraging! I am keeping my fingers crossed for all of you making this journey. I am on my way now too. Started taking vitamins, gave up the hormones now having hot flashes again.... and no celebrex. Soooo Ive got to sweat this out. Thanks for being so supportative!!!! You are all s

Hey, LOVE your picture. It just gets me all these folks that are so cute BEFORE surgery!! I eat salad!!! LOTS AND LOTS - well, lots is relative!!! I also eat spinach, turnip, collard, and mustard greens - they give me a bit of gas, tho! Even tried some poke salad my aunt made, but tho it tasted wonderful, it was TOO greasy and made me sick. I can eat MOST anything if it is not greasy. In my salads, I eat lettuce, cabbage, carrots, onions, bell pepper, radishes, sugar snap peas, etc. As long as the onion, carrots, etc are chopped real good, I have no trouble with it. I remember going to the Hattiesburg luncheon at about 2 months and watching Christine, Missy Lissy, etc eat salad and HATING THEIR GUTS!!! I craved salad for ages, and they kept telling me I could eat it. I braved up and now I usually eat at least one salad a day (my "big" salads are usually less than 1/2 a cereal bowl). They had told me in Jackson that I'd never be able to eat baby carrots again, but they were wrong! So yep!! I betcha you can eat the greens! Smoochies Arlies

Cheryl, That's great! I guess! LOL Paying upfront? YIKES! I'm SO glad your hubby is very supportive. Sounds like a pretty amazing guy! Keep us posted! HUGS Kimberly

Well, I will use my savings, and I have decided that if I die without surgery, I wouldnt be able to spend the money anyway! But, if I do the surgery, lose my weight and am feeling fine, I can work a couple of years more and replace the money. So, maybe it is a good investment for me! By the way, my husband Don is really the best!

Definately a worth while investment!! Hopefully the reimbursement will come as planned and you can replace most of the money before you have to work a few extra years! HUGS Kimberly

Congratulations! I am so happy for you and I know you are getting excited. I hope everything goes smooth and you have a quick recovery. I am able to eat veggies and greens. I eat salad with broccoli and cauliflower and tomatoes. None of that seems to bother my stomach. I am sensitive to lettuce at times depending on where I eat. So I mostly eat the other veggies and stuff out of the salad and leave the lettuce alone. It was several months out of surgery before I could do the veggies and fruits. So if you can't eat it right off, don't give up just try it further out. Good luck and best wishes, Melissa Taylor Lap Rny 1/15/04 277 to 136 -141 pounds

Cheryl! You must not have blue cross / blue shield of MS?? Because they are just non compliant with any of the requests for surgery around here. Bless you!! As for the veggies. YES! You just have to get them started again one at a time to make sure you tolerate them. I was able to eat pretty much anything at six months out. I ate the salads and green beans and broccoli probaby around 4 months, and never had problems with it. I only have problems with grapes hmmmmmm I eat them anyways, even though they make my pouchie grumble. I don't dump. Just lots of noise I'm crossing my fingers and toes for you that you get your leave approved, if you have to quit, well, take time to recover and there's bound to be another job out there for ya. Nothing's as important as ensuring that you will live long rather than a job. I know I would have quit to do it in a heartbeat. Thank goodness my employer has excellent benefits. Good luck to you!! keep us in the loop on your progress! ~Andie~

I do have Blue Cross Blue Shield, but it is in Asia. They have not dealt with this kind of surgery before, so I think that it is not a problem for payment so far. Later, like most insurance companies who like to avoid paying for anything, they will probably get wiser and deny it. I am just glad that they agreed to pay, although it will not be all of it, only a part. Now my job will be to argue them into a reasonable payment. I even avoided contacting them for a long time because I thought that they would turn me down. My primary care doctor took a long time before she recommended that I have the surgery. She finally realized that no matter how much I worked at it, I could not go below 200 pounds, and that was with lots of walking, no carbs, and total effort, plus diet pills which are dangerous things. I am considered severely obese for Asia!

Cheryl, That is great. Do you have any kind of time frame of when you might have surgery. Good luck with everything. Becky

Hopefully, at the end of June or the first of July. I am trying to have all the tests done here in Hong Kong and the results faxed to the doctor there. Hopefully, they can put me on a fast track schedule since I have a limited time. Doc wants 10 weeks of recovery time, I will have a lap RNY so hopefully I will do well, since I do not need an open surgery (I hope)!!!!!!