Since I just had my 2nd colonoscopy (yep, one of those more medical posts) in December, and it came back precancerous (which is not horrible, it's not cancer) it's like it lit me up in taking some more significant steps regarding my health.
First off, I'm fat. It is what it is, I know what's caused it (thank you PCOS/insulin resistance and now perimenopause) and I've done a lot of different things over the years and have yo-yo'd the weight back and forth. My lowest was in 2013 when I weighed about 214 lbs. When my dad died, for about 2 - 2 1/2 years I drank more than I should have. The fact is, when you have PCOS/IR, you're fucked. Everything is a fight to lose weight and then a harder fight to keep it off. PMS? There goes the 5 lbs you've lost back with some extra. It's a vicious cycle and it can take some more extreme measures to get it under control (seriously, at one point I was working out 5 days a week, sometimes twice a day and using Fitbit to track my food/calories/carbs AND IT WAS STILL IMPOSSIBLE TO LOSE WEIGHT). And yeah I looked good but my weight did not decrease. Egg fasts accomplished that more than working out ever did.
Anyways, so now I'm getting old and I'm tired. I'm tired of everything being a mission impossible and not having any of the fun action scenes.
So I started researching the gastric sleeve. My insurance wasn't the most intuitive to understand if it was covered how much it costs, so I was seriously considering Mexico. And honestly, would totally do that if my insurance didn't cover it - but a couple web chats later it was confirmed and when I hit my out of pocket max, they cover all of it. Honestly, that will be cheaper than Mexico so that's a win.
How my insurance works is this:
$1500 deductible
They then cover 80% - until...I hit the out of pocket max of $3000 - they cover everything else.
So essentially I have to pay $3000 for this (and they only cover bariatric 1 time, ever).
I've been all over Reddit, there are so many different forums there. I've been researching medical papers, medical sites (their info on the sleeve and the bypass) and just trying to get an idea of how much this is going to change me and life. I don't think I fully understand it all - some things you can't really know until it happens. But the overall pieces are that I will lose a shit ton of weight, my stomach will be the size of a banana and it's like a hardware reset for my PCOS/IR. Which means, a whole lot of good things I hope.
It's a start. I still need to remain focused on the end goal, being healthy. This means to continue doing weight training and walking more. It means to look at food differently, yet again.
It's one step forward, a happy excited step for better things!!
