MADIGAN ?????

I went and met my case manager today at Brem. Naval Hospital, and was told I would have the surgery at Madigan.......is this a good or bad idea...need some insight please. I have to attend 6 classes and meet with a dietician 3 times then they will run all my tests before I can meet with the surgeon, excited but nervous.

Hi Cindy, I am currently going through the process at Madigan myself.  All I have left is my psych eval tomorrow and then I meet with the program coordinater, Meg.   Madigan does quite a few of these surgerys and the people that I have met are very happy.  Yes there are six classes the first is one that explains what other classes you have to take, what the surgery is etc.  They like you to bring a support person with you too if you can. The other classes are weight loss 1 & 2  and then the RGB nutrition class. After that there is the occupational therapy class , a support group meeting and your psych eval.  The whole thing take about a month and a half if you time it right.  Good luck!! Jill

Hi Jill,  I have a quick question, or two maybe.  I go to my very first class on the 19th, the 2 hour information class I assume.  My question is...after this first class, do they help you make the other appointments or do we make them ourselves?  I want to be proactive as possible so I can get this to the point I can finally get a date, but with the way appointments go lately, it's hard at times.  I've been going to appointments not related to the surgery and it's like pulling teeth sometimes to get them.  Thanks for any insight, Fran and I both from this board are going to be starting our first class together and I know any info would be great for us both.

Thanks again

I see you're way over THERE, but we have support group meetings here in PUyalup that include Madigan (or anyone) ppl.

Tonight and Wed night. My closest Madigan (is also my neighbor) will be coming to the one tomorrow night and she is an excellent resource. 2-3 yrs out now, lost her wt, in fabulous health. In other words, she'd be a reall good mentor for you, even if you communicated by email or phone after a meeting. Ideally, you could actually SEE a stunningly healthy Madigan person as your model and go from there.

Hi Cindy, I am going there also, but for a revision and 2 hernia repairs, I have an appointment in the morning to talk about surgery. So is that going to be a pre-op or what? They really don't give you the info you really need. Army is so different then Air Force.   I came out to this base, because I didn't want to have this surgery done in another state with no family and since my daughter is here it workd out perfect.    Good Luck and Cindy this is a tool to help please think about it really good, it will change your life for ever and it can be good or bad, its how you look at it.  If a person is 100 pounds over weight and can lose weight in 1 year with the surgery how long will it take to lose the weight just by eating smaller and healthier?  The same...and without the pain