I know about the nerve part, I had been thinking of this for almost two years and finally attended Dr. White's seminar in July and things just kind of snowballed from there.   The seminar was on a Wed I think and had an appt. Friday with Roxi and the NUT.  I came back home and made an appt for my psyc. evaluation.  I was really luck with the psych eval.  My employer has a thing set up for employees where we  can go up to 4 times a year to see a physcholgist and they pay for it.  So that was paid for, I did go see the pyschologist  3 times and the last time she had my husband and daughter come in with me to talk about my obesity issues.  I did all the lab work right away too and made sure those were sent to Dr. White's office too. Finally I made an appt. with my local Dr.  I put that off till last thinking he would not be pleased with my decision to have surgery.  Boy was I surprised he was behind me 100 percent.  He sent a letter right away.   Anyway the Bariatric team sent me stuff in to the insurance company on a Friday and I got a letter on  Saturday which would have been either 8  or 15 days and I was approved.  I am still in shock I was told it could take up to a month to hear back.  I have the exact days wrote down on my calendar work. 

August 25, 2007 I am approved,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,,just thrilled beyone words.  .  It is Saturday so can't call the surgeon's office for an appointment.  This will be a long weekend. I have been reading all kinds of posts where people get deniend or have to wait 6 months so I was almost to the point where my insurance company would do that to me. I told my husband right away and he said we needed to celebrate!!!!!!!!!! Then called my daughter at work and she was even excited for me.  I left a message for my son to call me, he has no clue I have even been considering this.  So I am hopeful he is positive about it. Barb

Well, I have submitted everything to Dr. Anthone's office and Christy will be submitting to insurance later this week...I am a ball of nerves, trying to stay busy and not think about it. I have (in my opinion) jumped all of the hoops that BC/BS highmark PA (UPRR) has published in thier G-24 document relating to WLS. I feel comfortable
that my packet is complete, but still worry about what they have that is not published... . Has anyone else experienced this with rail-road BC/BS coverage or are they pretty straight forwared? Hopefully I will be posting that about an approval soon. Thanks for listening to my
ramble. On a good note Dr. A said that I was a perfect canidate for surgery, and should have a very successful outcome..... needless to say, I was very excited about that.

I admire your desire to join, and fully support it, but I do have a couple of questions that I simply don't know the answer to. How does your weight loss surgery affect your ability to go without food or drink for hours/days at a time? I know that my son says that meals can be few and far between over there.  Also, since your anatomy has been somewhat rearranged, wouldn't that make your chances of survival much slimmer if you were to suffer an abdominal injury? I would imagine most army medics are not familiar with gastric bypass anatomy? I guess what I'm saying is that I can certainly see a major difference between serving with a police department or the coast guard, and being assigned to a combat area. RJ

A VSG is a vertical sleeve gastrectomy, and Dr. Anthone in Omaha does them, it is step one in a DS surgery although it can be done alone. There is a lot of info on the DS board about both surgeries, and the VSG board will be able to give you even more info. I have also read posts on the VSG board about out of town docs and their prices. Those folks seem to be very happy with their choices, in fact, some people who have to do the DS in two stages for whatever medical reason do not always go back for part two since they are so pleased with just the VSG and if you have a "lower" BMI (<50) you may not want a full DS since you are self paying. Good luck.