My Journey - Orlando, FL

Well I actually have been obese all my life. But here goes, I actually looked into weight loss surgery with Dr Jawad abt 3 yrs ago and I was looking to get the lapband. Upon my initial visit he advised me that I may want to look into other surgeries that are available, I said I would but I chickened out. So I never went back to him anymore.

Well I then went to a diet clinic and I was prescribed Phentermine & Zonagran which didn't work ouy like I thoughg it would the weight loss was very slow I thought. So I met a co-worker who advised me that she had previously had the lapband surgery and she looked great she said she was a size 24 before surgery and now she's a size 4-6 and she looks wonderful. So of course I was back at wanting to have the lapband surgery because of her results.

Well I contacted the same surgeon she used Dr Timothy Hipp and I met with him May 2012 and even after meeting him I lolly gagged abt getting my requirements done..so I got serious abt the surgery again in Oct 2012 and I went back to see Dr Hipp again he advsd me of the Gastric Sleeve and he advsd me to do my research on the sleeve, so I started working on my requirements I had to do a Pysch Eval, blood work, Nutrition Eval & a letter from my PCP, then upon doing all tht I found out that I was also required to do a 6 month supervised diet, so then I got discouraged but my family support urged me not to give up so I didn't which then pushed me into completing my 6 month diet in April 2012.

Well after my 6 month diet was up they submitted all the paperwork to my insurance carrier for approval, then 2 weeks later I rcvd some devastating news tht they could not approve my surgery since Dr Hipp nor the hospital were on their COE list.

Discouraged again I prayed abt it so they provided me with another Dr which was Dr Jawad again so I spoke with him again abt the lapband then he advsd me of the sleeve and he asked me to research it because he said he taking out more bands than putting them in...so I had to partially start all over so with that being said I received a call from the Dr office saying all I needed to do was do my bloodwork, do a ultrasound of my gallbladder & meet with a nutritionist which I got completed within 2 weeks and upon getting tht done the Dr office called me and told me tht since I had those things completed that we could go ahead and schedule my surgery date she advsd me of the first available date and I took it which was Nov 20th.....

Hey I am today almost 1 week post op and doing great...I had surgery on Wed the 20th then I releases Fri the 22nd and I can honestly say I have been pain free just sore...but I do have trouble getting in my fluids but I'm working at it!!!!!!!!

Well my preop was on Nov 8th and I weighed 377 & I had my 1st post op appt yesterday and I am down to 353 which is a total of 24lbs...I'm well on my way now..