MY BARIATRIC JOURNAL

Day 1
July 27, 2008

Hello Y'all;

My name is Roz and on August 19th, just 23 days from now, I will have Rouen Y-Gastric By-Pass Surgery at, at Northwestern Memorial Hospital in Chicago. I am going to keep this journal for me and for you. Today I weigh 240 pounds and am 5'5" tall. I am 52 years old and have struggled with weight my entire life, but I will get into that later. I would be delighted to hear from you and answer any questions about my experiences.

I started this journey for bariatric surgery more than 10 years ago. I heard of Lap-Band surgery and went to a seminar about it when it first arrived in the USA. (For those of you who are unfamiliar, or new to this scene, Lap-Band surgery stands for Laprascopic Stomach Band surgery, done through 4 small incisions on the tummy. Then, a mold-able band is placed around the upper stomach). I found out that at 230 pounds, according to insurance I was not a candidate. A person needed a BMI (Body Mass Index) of 40 and mine fell slightly short of that. So, I put aside my thoughts of getting surgery and went on my way. And continued to gain and lose weight.

Fast forward to February, 2007. After receiving the diagnosis Diabetes, Type 2, I felt, once again, the urgency to find out about weight loss surgery and to see if insurance would cover it. I am not in a fiancial situation that would allow me to pay $17,000 out of pocket for this out-patient surgery (Lap-Band). So, this left me between a rock and a hard place, as they say in the Midwest.

I had, by then, developed problems with my formerly healthy and functional knees. Having been an athlete in my youth, my knees were somthing I took for granted. Then once day about 4 years ago, while walking up a set of stairs which I did daily, it seems that someone had placed a whole bunch of nuts and bolts in my left knee and without any oil to grease the nuts and bolts. What a wake up call. Now, each day, my knees hurts. The right knee caught up with the nuts and bolts brigade about one year later. My knees were buckling under the weight, so to speak. Perhaps, you have experienced this? Not fun.

The asthma had arrived about 4 years prior to the knee meltdown. Still, I continued to go up and down on the scale. The sleep apnea, oh yeah, do you know about that little thingy, was discovered by accident. Since I am a newly single lady, I sleep alone.... So, what does that have to do with it? I did not know that, at night, in the later part of my sleeping, I stopped breathing about 59 per hour. Good grief, no wonder I was always exhausted. I had formerly just chalked it up to age. Sleep apnea, I have subsequently found out is a related to heart conditions and heart attacks, as well as, Attention Deficit Disorder (ADD). I was wondering why I was having difficulty focusing on just about anything....they call it ADD.
When the doctor's nurse called me to schedule and appointment to treat sleep apnea, I said I would come in after Labor Day. It was then about the first week in August. The nurse said that she thougth that I should come in the next day and not wait three weeks. Hmmm, they were beginning to catch my attention. It seems that during the sleep evaluation, not only did I wake up 59 times per hour, I on occassion stopped breathing for 2 minutes at a time. Wow.

I went an Ear Nose and Throat doctor because my voice had dropped about 2 octives. He diagnosed my with acid relux. I did not have indigestion which usually accompanies acid relux. My acid relux attacked my vocal cords, instead. This was a bit of a downer because I had always prided myself on my no longer available singing voice. Acid reflux in doctor's terms is called Gastro-Enterological Reflux Disorder (GERD).

So, what started as a change in my voice which led to GERD diagnosis, then I went to Sleep Apnea diagnosis, plus an ADD diagnosis. I was fitted with three different CPAP machines. This machine is like a sleep machine that first you are fitted with a face mask, think Darth Vader. Very charming and difficult to sleep with. Some people never adust. Thus far, 2 years, I am still adjusting. Sleep Apnea is caused by gaining so much weight that the palate of your mouth is heavy due to fat accumulation and collapses onto the throat causing the person to choke. Oh, that is so much fun. Since I sleep alone these days, I did not know I was awaking and choking all the time. Except one time I did remember about waking up choking, which I find out is a symptom of Sleep Apnea. So, if you are waking up choking or snorting, go get a sleep evalution.

So, as of the beginning of my quest for bariatric surgery, which started 10 years ago, and intensified in February of 2007; I had accumulated 4 diagnoses: GERD, Sleep Apnea, Asthma, and Diabetes, Type 2. Since I did not have a bad enough BMI, I now qualified for bariatric surgerym what insurance companies call "CO-MORBIDITY". This is the golden gate to insurance coverage. And, here my story begins to steam up....more tomorrow.

See you then,

Roz 240 on 7/27/08