Obesity surgery

I live in Toronto, Canada can anyone reccomend a doctor in the
area.Look forward to someone’s reply.

16 days post-op
42 pounds lost
everything is great.
I am a true loser and I love it.

Thank you all for your prayers.

Dennis Warner (CA)
open-rny
12/12/2002
473/431
Dr. Milton Owens

Okay everyone. I have some queston and concerns. First of all I am
worried about this psych evaluation. A big part of me does want this
surgery to look better and to flaunt my new body in front of all the
A-holes that wouldn’t have anything to do with me because I was
overweight. But, I actually NEED the surgery to live a substaintially
longer life! I understand they give those psych evals to make sure a
person is not having the surgery for the wrong reasons. Will my
answers reflect my desire to have the surgery fr appearance sake?
Will they then turn me down for the surgery? And secondly, I have a
not so rosey past! I am a recovering addict. I have dabbled with just
about every drug you can think of. I remember reading in a post on
this site about a patient being asked hundreds of questions about
past drug use. Does a histry of drug use/abuse affect a persons
chances of getting the surgery. Does the fact that i have a life
threatening illness make me an exception, someone who will almost
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Hello everyone,

I will be going no mail until the first of the year.

I am going out of town to see our new granddaughter Chloe Ann, who was born on
Saturday. Thanks to this day and age we received a picture of her by way of P.C.
Saturday afternoon.

Talk to you all in 2003

Marie –San Leandro, CA

I have been here in the shadows since I had my consult with my surgeon on
November 13, 2002. At that time he determined that I was an excellent candidate
for open RnY. Since then I have been reading everything I could find on the
subject and have been very excited about starting a new life. I am 5′4" tall
and weigh 265, with comorbidities of sleep apnea and prior knee surgeries and
problems. Well, today my insurance provider, United Healthcare PPO, sent me a
letter of denial, stating that any surgery related to obesity, including morbid
obesity, was specifically excluded!!!!!! I am devastated! Anybody have any
suggestions? I cannot afford to pay for this without the insurance help. The
irony is that here in TN, anybody WITHOUT insurance can get this surgery - FREE
- through Tenncare…….GO FIGURE!!!!!!!!
Chris

Hi All,
I had my surgery on Friday morning and all went wonderfully. My
surgery took approx 1 and a half hours (LAP) I moved myself from the
gurney to my bed and the dr was thrilled I don’t remember but he told
my family. Got to my room at noon and by 3 was bugging them to
unhook me so I could walk, after that I walked everytime they came to
check my vitals. By the end of the day was disconnected from every
thing but my IV. The nursing staff was amazed. Sat. I started my
liquid diet and everything stayed down, hardly used any pain meds.
and continued to walk. Dr. came in Sat around three and said everyone
was talking about how well I was doing had even gone shopping in the
gift shop. Dr. talked to me and asked if I had any questions and I
said ya how long will I be here he replied how about until after
dinner. I went home Sat. night 34 hours after surgery. One of the
nurses came and thanked me for being such an informed patient and
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I am new to the group. I have a lung disease that coupled with my
obesity is a life threatening situation. Therefore, if I do not both
lose weight, and refrain from smoking, my life will be considerably
shorter. I have talked with my family Dr. about weightloss surgery.
He has referred me to a surgeon located in Wichita, Ks. about forty-
five munites away from where I live. I have medicaid and Both my
family doctor and the surgeon are aware of that fact, but neither has
said anything about it NOT covering the surgery. I pray it does!!!
Anyways I am at the earliest phase of the whole process it seems. I
have not even had my initial consultation with the surgeon. But, it
give me peace of mind knowing I now have a place to go and talk about
what is going on and posssibly get some answers from those of you who
have been there, done that. So would anyone out there care to give me
an idea of how the process goes? How long should I expect to wait to
actually have the surgery? I will be having the Roux en Y surgery i
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Please forgive the cross-post, but I’m going no-mail until after
Christmas. I’ll check in for private messages after I return from my
trip to New Hampshire on Sunday, and then I will be gone again to a
small town in east Texas (Marshall) until the 27th. Marshall doesn’t
even have an AOL phone number, so I can’t check my messages online while
I’m out of town.

I’m so excited about this trip I’m leaving on in 4 hours that I’m
bouncing off the walls <G>. The best part about it is that when the
lady said "Oh, there’s an upper weight limit of 250, I was able to say -
Oh, there’s NO problem with that." (For those who don’t know, I ordered
a Segway (Ginger/It) from Amazon.Com and won one of the early delivery
contest slots. I’m off to NH to learn how to use it and to meet the
inventor and tour his factory. <G>)

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Has anyone been successful with getting Medicaid to cover the cost for the
surgery?
I live in WV and know of folks in other states to get approved, how about anyone
here?

Hello everyone!

I finally have a date! January 16, 2003 and I’ll be on my way to a
new me! I am so excited and scared, well, you all know how it goes.

I have been working at this since July….funny it doesn’t seem that
long ago.

I have learned so much from you all. Thanks for keeping me excited
and wanting this!

lori