I am considering Hickory Surgical Clinic

Hello to all.  :)  My name is Shauna.  I'm a 39 yo (40 on the 18th!) married mother of 4.  I've been waging the weight-loss battle for 20 years.  At the recommendation of my family physician, I am now ready to consider gastric bypass surgery.   I've so enjoyed reading the posts here at OH the past couple of weeks.  Am really impressed at the many successes and what a wonderful difference WLS has made in so many of your lives.  :)  I'm ready to join the club!  ;) I called my insurance company today (BCBSNC), spent some time on their website afterwards, and found that the closest doctor to me on our PPO is Hickory Surgical Clinic.  I LOVE what I am reading on the internet about this clinic and Dr. Cook.   Have any of you had dealings with BCBSNC (ours is Blue Options PPO) and/or with Hickory Surgical Clinic?   I was on bedrest with our 8 year old son's pregnancy and found a support forum to be of immense help to me during those months.  I am so thankful to have found OH and warn you, I will likely have a gazillion questions for you all!  Will be very happy to return the favor to others as soon as I have more experience myself in this area of "expertise!"  ;)   That's all for now.  Thanks so much for reading my post and thank you in advance for any guidance/direction/experience you have to offer me! :)  Shauna

I had my surgery at Frye which is through Hickory Surgical and Dr. Cook did my surgery. I dont have the same insuracne as you though. I would recommend Dr. Cook, I loved having him as a doctor. He was very caring, sweet and very easy to get information from him! He and his clinic staff were very supportive and helpful. They gave so much information and they are always willing to help you with anything. If you have any more questions just let me know. Hope all works out!

Hello!  I had my surgery at Frye also and Dr. Cook from Hickory Surgical is also my dr, and he is the BEST!!!  Everyone in the office is wonderful!!  I would recommend Hickory Surgical to anyone and everyone!!!  Their whole WLS program is great!!! Andrea

Hello Jennifer & Andrea!  :)  So nice to "meet" both of you.  Took a peek at your profiles and wow...you both look *wonderful*!  Very glad to hear your positive successes with Dr. Cook and Frye Medical.  It's great to know that Frye is a center of excellence for bariatric surgery and that is certainly where I hope to go when it is my *turn*!  :)  I had to leave a message with the clinic this morning and am waiting for them to call back.  I saw online that the next education class is next Thursday, July 17th, so hopefully I will be attending then to get the ball rolling.  After contemplating this for years, I am more than ready now.  I guess I just finally reached that point where I felt I had tried everything in my power to do this on my own.  I'm tired of the yo-yo'ing!  If I do get the WLS (knock on wood!), I have a feeling I will mourn that I didn't do it sooner.  I really lost my 20's & 30's due to the obesity.  They do say that 50's are the new 30's though...so maybe it's not too terribly late?!  ;)  Thanks again and look forward to getting to know you better!  :)  Shauna

Update:  Very nice lady from the clinic called me back promptly.  :)  They are sending me a packet to fill out and send back.  As soon as they receive that, they will call me to schedule an info session.  She said they are doing them on Tuesdays and Wednesdays from 2-5pm.  I can hardly wait! Is there anything I can do to gather info between now and when the packet arrives to make things go faster?  I was THRILLED to find out, since they are a center of excellence with BCBSNC, they can have my approval instantly in-house.  I will not have to wait for my insurance company to approve me!  You all know how much that means!  :) Things are happening so fast, I said to myself I wanted to blog this journey, so I guess I better get started?!  ;) :)  Shauna