Monday, July 16, 2007

Don't much feel like blogging


So the Brit is away, the kids are off camping, the cats and I are on our own and I spent the majority of my day trying to get straight answers out of my insurance company (which they do not specialize in) and scaring myself half to death over the idea of surgery.  I'm not sure today has been productive.

My insurance requires six months documented "structured diet plan" but they cannot give me a defination of "structured diet plan".  Last week, they told me Curves would count because it showed I was exercising and trying to lose weight.  Today, I was told it did not count because it was not a diet plan.  So, I asked them about TOPS and was told yes, it would qualify, but when I told them I wasn't sure it followed a specific food regiment, then they said, no it would not qualify.  Okay, does it or doesn't it?  Thus my frustration.  So, I reached my second supervisor of the day, and am waiting for a callback tomorrow as she needed to call the clinical department to get specifics.  If getting a definition is this difficult, I can't wait to see what happens when I ask for stuff in writing.

Then, one of the websites I've been doing some research on, I decided to explore a bit further than just the message boards today and ran across a part of their site titled "Memorials".  I'm not so much morbid as curious, so I had to read them.  Granted, there were maybe forty people who had been members of this site since the year 2000 who have died, and many of them died from weight complications before they had surgery.  38 year olds dropping dead of heart attacks, etc.  But there were people who had the surgery and then died of complications, a couple days after or one even a year after due to a bowel problem that was not caught in time.  Several died as a result of blood clots and in looking at their information, they had VERYhigh BMIs like 70+, so it makes me wonder if they were even able to walk prior to surgery.  As if not, they were probably not able to walk right after surgery either.

Either way, it was a bit disconcerting.  So now, while waiting for concrete answers from my insurance company (don't laugh...i'm really hoping for concrete) I am also weighing the pros and cons of gastric bypass vs lapband.  Thankfully, I have plenty of time as I need that six month documentation of something that has yet to be clarified.  Such a process.



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