Brad E. Snyder, MD

Just want to give you a little background about myself. I am 29 yrs old, mother of 2 beautiful girls. Married to the most supportive man in this world for 4 years and counting. Height 5'7' , Weight 256.
I have always been the chunky girl in my family. It was never really an issue because I could manage my weight with a simple diet and exercise. However everything change for me once I had my first daughter. I worked out and tried dieting but it wasn't as easy at it was before to loose the weight. Over time I gained 50 to 60 lbs. A couple of years later God blessed us with our second child. This pregnancy was a little more difficult for me. My baby spent her first month in the NICU it was a very hard time for me and I gained an additional 50lbs.
I finally made the decision to have surgery. So in October of 2016 I made my appointment with True Results. They helped me with the whole process. On December 13, 2016 I got approved by my insurance and finally meeting with my surgeon on Jan 11th to set my surgery. If everything goes well I planning my surgery for February 2017.

Updated on 31 Jan 2017:
Had my last appointment with my surgeon on the 11th. I honestly thought it was going to be a quick visit, in and out 30 minutes the max. My appointment lasted a little over an hour. My doctor made sure he went over everything with me from pre opt diet to recovery. I love my doctor he made sure I had no concerns with my surgery. So the date is set for February 21, 2017 !!!!

Now that there is an actual date set my emotions are all over the place. Before it seemed like no big deal. Everyone would ask me are you nervous, excited, scared, etc.. But now I'm all those things and more. One day I'm super excited and cant wait for the surgery. Other days I'm scared and worried I'm going to regret my decision or its not going to work for me. The worst feeling is something is going to happen where I cant have my surgery. I am constantly check my insurance to make sure they haven't changed their decision from approved to denied. I think of the worst things ever like the doctor saying he cant do the surgery, or they raise the out of pocket cost and I cant afforded it. I hate it.

Count down starts now 21 days left !!!!

Greetings. Like many of you I am currently going through the process for WLS by having the Sleeve Gastrectomy. However it has been an extremely lengthy and emotional process and I'm still fighting to get to the finish point.

As a child I was tall and thin, then I became a preteen and got boobs. Then I started getting thicker! In high school I weighted about 170 (I'm 5'7) and I was fine with that. Once I graduated and got on birth control well it was no going back. Over the years I was slowly climbing that weight latter. In my 20's I stayed around 250. I was still unaware or believed that I was over weight and at some point I just stopped weighting myself all together. I mean why worry about it? I was young, confident and always had a boyfriend. Nothing was wrong with me, I was this advocate for plus size women.

Fast forward to January 2014. I was done with school (Culinary Grad) I was promoted to a Director with my own account, moved to a new city, new house, about to get married life is good. I went in to see my doctor to talk about fertility and he asked me about my weight. I asked; Uh, what's wrong with it? Your 279 pounds and borderline diabetic. And that's when the tears started flowing. He then asked me if I had ever considered Weight Loss Surgery and I said no I didn't think that I would qualify. After leaving the doctors office I went into a bit of depression and was terrified. My grandmother passed in Dec 2010 of Congestive Heart Failure and Diabetes. A couple of days later I started the process.

So step 1: I went to the seminar.
Step 2 pick a surgeon. Paper work was sent to my insurance provider and that's when I found out that the hospital did not have the Blue Certification needed for them to cover it.
Back to step 2: find a surgeon who has the certification. Found one, who by the way is an hour away in another city.
Step 3: consultation with new surgeon and blood work. (End of January)
Step 4: Psych Consult (2/25)
Step 5: Nutrition Consult (2/28)
Step 6: EGD with surgeon, but then I received a lovely call stating that I was required to do 6 months of Weight Management with a dietitian and a Cardiac Consult.
Step 7 & 6 months later: EGD which is when I found out that I had a hernia (8/15) Step 8: Cardiac Consult (9/12)
Pause, Now let's go back to Step 6 weight management for a second. Because my last two appointments were in the same month I had to reschedule another appointment with the dietitian and get a letter on why I missed a month.
Step 9: Today I received a call from the cardiologist stating that my Stress Test came back abnormal and get this. My appoint to see the doctor isn't till Friday. So I have to wait 4 days the hear my results.

I'm Completely on edge at this point but I can't get down. God is in control. I hope that my story tonight has possibly has helped someone who is going through the same hurdles as I am. Nothing worth having is easy, right?