New here & trying to get my support group stuff in for approval

Hi Christy. Welcome to the TN board. I hope you get a speedy approval for your surgery. I live in White House, TN also and used Vanderbilt for my surgery. It sounds like you are on your way and are really informed about the surgery. If there is anything you need to know or have questions about, please feel free to ask. This is a very supportive bunch of people.  The only advise I can give is to make sure that you follow the program - especially right after surgery. Fluid, protein and vitamin intake are extremly important. If you skip any one of them for any amount of time/days, you will know real quick why it is so important. And when you do get approved (if not now), it is a good idea to stop any habits you have that you can not do after surgery. Primarily smoking, drinking sodas (carbonated drinks) and drinking from a straw are all hard habits for people to break so start working on weaning off of that. Also, something I like to let everyone know up front is that there is a possibility of having to have your gallbladder removed within a year after this surgery. I don't think they prepare people enough for that. They will give you actigall or some sort of medicine to try and prevent it and it will be important to take it regularly. About 90% of the people I know who have had RNY surgery have had to have their gall bladders removed within a year. It was a shock to me when it happened to me so I like to prepare everyone for the possiblity so you can be prepared if it does happen.  Good luck with your approval and let us know if there is anything you need. Since you are in the Nashville area, you should try and make our get togethers. We usually try and meet once a month for lunch and once a month for dinner. Keep looking out on the board for when and where and stop by. Everyone is welcome.

Thanks for the very warm welcome, all. I was lucky thus far that I haven't had any extras to do in addition to all the regular hoops to jump through to get the insurance approval. I had already done by 6 month, physician-directed weightloss attempt on my own before I even thought about doing the surgery. My only real worry is that it wasn't documented as minutely as insurance requirements want. I saw my pcp regularly every month and had my stats taken. We discussed exercise & diet, but my physician's handwriting is very difficult to read, and not every time was it documented (at least from what I can make out) that we talked specifically about how to diet and exercise. I know we did discuss them, but he usually put that I was complying with the agreed-upon course, etc. There is a detailed work-up at the beginning of my treatment, and after that, he just made brief notes each visit. Has anyone else run into a problem with this? I don't know that it will be an issue, but it's a worry I have.