Is all finally happening!!!

My orientation is next week (finally) the lady who called to schudule didn't really give me much information just that it would be 2-4 hrs and they would discusses all the different types of surgery! She was very vague about my other questions. If anyone can offer and advice on what I should expect from the orientation? Will I be meeting with a surgeon? Or do I pick one? Are they going to be telling me all the stuff I need to do, in order to have surgery from that day on out? I believe my insurance doesn't require the 6-9 month dr supervised diet, so does anyone know how long I should be expecting to wait to receive surgery? Oh and lastly I'm using OH from my iphone and I don't know how to find specific forums to post on, it only shows me the general discussion forum to post in. Please feel free to add me as a friend although  my profile doesn't have a lot on it I am very active on here and I'd love to have people who can support me and me support them as I begin my journey thanks! 

At my orientation/seminar they explained each procedure offered, statistics of obesity, etc... I chose what surgeon I wanted to have my consult with. My insurance didn't require the 6 month supervised diet but did require a 5% weight loss so for me it was about 4 months from orientation to surgery. How exciting for you!!! It is a very emotional and intense journey but well worth it all! Do educate yourself on all of the side effects and pros and cons of each surgery. I also use OH on iPhone. There is a thing you can click with 3 lines, then it says forums, then you can narrow down to either general discussion or by surrey type or location. Hope that helps! Lastly...good luck!!!

My surgeon actually performed the orientation. He explained all the different types of surgery and what he kind of does different from other doctors. He talked about risks and benefits of the surgery and gave us statistics on what the outcomes were from the surgeries that he personally had performed, which were really good (he hadn't ever had any leaks occur and only a handful had gotten infections none of which were bad enough to even require antibiotics) so that made me feel really good about going through the process with him. After the orientation seminar though I was kind of at a loss as to what came next. I had filled out information about my insurance and they said they would call me. I figured it was gonna be like 6 months or more before anything came of it. So I didn't tell anyone other than my husband that I had started this process. Then a week later they called, they had gotten in touch with my insurance and verified that they would cover the surgery but didn't tell me much more and I had my first appointment with the surgeon within 2 days. I went in to meet with him, nervous bc I didn't have any paperwork to give them, I didn't have any proof that I had tried weight loss programs before. What with relocating so much in the past several years and not having insurance for most of that time I didnt have any doctor records showing any weight loss attempts. When I spoke with the surgeon he pretty much just asked me what thoughts I had had after the orientation and which surgery I would like to go with and then he explained all the steps I had to take to have the surgery done. There was an endoscopy that he would perform himself, I had to have medical clearance from a primary care physician and a psychologist, and I had to meet with a nutritionist, etc. We still hadn't talked about how long it was going to take to do all of this and what the insurance was going to require, but he only required 2 weeks liquid diet pre-op with the goal of shrinking the liver which minimizes risks of damage to the liver during the surgery. No weight loss required. No crazy self-punishment. He walked out of the room and was gone for about 5 minutes and came back in and said "if you can have all these clearances done by then, your insurance has given the good to go, we can do the surgery in 3 weeks" I was so happy I gave him a high five right there! And here I am now almost 1 week post-op. Most of my family still don't even know I had the surgery as we live out of state. So thats gonna be fun visiting them in several months and seeing thier reactions!

Hi! Curious about what insurance you have.  Hoping mine is approved just as fast.

I have Molina California I'm surprised things are finally moving along so quickly hopefully you get good news soon as well!

Thanks everyone I really appreciate you guys sharing I'm hella impatient so not having info or a time frame of how long things take is driving me insane! I'm hoping I will be as lucky as you guys and be having a date for surgery set before the end of the year (wishful thinking) or by the beginning of next yr, but thanks again I'm going to go blog so check out my blog and please add me as a friend if you haven't I still fairly new to this site and it won't let me add people idk why!