Fri Nov 06 2009 - the bill arrives!

I got the hospital bill for my gastric bypass surgery yesterday. This is just the hospital bill and does not include any inevitable discounts that the insurance company will apply to the final settlement. I had my surgery at the NE Georgia Medical Center in Gainesville, GA, by Dr. Robert Richard of Obesity Solutions. I was very impressed with the hospital, and with Dr. Richard as well. In the documentation I reviewed, they cover expected costs for this surgery if it is "self-paid", meaning no insurance benefits are available.

the estimates were
$15,500 facility fee (Hospital)
1,200 anesthesiologist
8,000 Surgeon
700 Surgical Assistant
---------------------------------
$25,400 total estimate

I have just rec'd the Explanation of Benefits for the hospital. Here is what they billed

$ 1,312.00 Room/Board (2 full days, 2 nights)
4,642.57 Pharmacy
27,547.12 Supplies
1,360.00 Lab
1,276.38 Radiology
231.78 Cardiology
16,928.97 O.R. Services
46.45 Professional
----------------------------------------------
$53,346.19 total patient charges

The insurance company, United Healthcare, applied a "net discount" of -$39,922.04 to the hospital bill, leaving a net of $13,377.70 for the Hospital portion of the procedure.

Dr. Richard charged $9,225.00 for his services, the Surgical Assistant charged $2,244.00. Those charges are "under review" by United Healthcare.

More to come!

Thu Nov 05 2009 - two weeks Post-Op!

Well, here I sit two weeks since my Gastric Bypass surgery. I had a good day, enjoying a single serving of Mom's Taco Soup for lunch. After work (still WFH for the rest of this week), Laurie asked if I would like to go with her to hit a few stores, and we left! We stopped at Sonny's BBQ for dinner, I thought I could find something there I could eat. I ordered one of their specials: a half-rack of Baby Back ribs with a baked potato and corn bites. Water to drink. I mashed the baked potato up real well and ate about 1/2 of the potato, no skin. I also ate about 1/2 of the half-rack, peeling the meat from the ribs and very carefully chewing up each bite. I brought the other half of the meal home in a to-go box. I could feel the food on my stomach, and knew when to quit. Looking back, I probably should have just had their soup, but damn, I wanted a taste of the ribs and those corn bites are great, too! The meal was $7.99, and I in effect ate half of it.

Afterwards we roamed Hobby Lobby and toys-R-Us looking for Christmas decorations and presents for the current grandkids and Bridgette's soon-to-be-born baby, our future grandson Jonathan. By the time we finished at T-R-Us it was 7:40pm, and we were just exhausted. Funny how early I hit my limit energy-wise. But that is to be expected.

When I got home I looked up the calorie and protein count for Sonny's BBQ food and found a great site, www.thedailyplate.com . You type in a restaurant name and nutrition data is displayed. The half of a half-rack of ribs came in at 207calories, the corn bites 300calories / 4 protein, and the baked potato 150cal, 4 protein. Lots of calories! I think back to a month ago, where I would have eaten the full rack of ribs, a baked potato and the corn bites, and a serving of bread, too. Over 3000 calories, easy. My oh my.

Tomorrow (fFri) is my last WFH day, and I am looking forward to returning to work.

Wed Nov 04 2009 - A Chili Dog?

Today even the cofeee was unpleasant. I did get 2 scoops of protein mix into the coffee pot before the end of the morning, but it just wasn't the same today. Not sure why. I laid low through lunch time and called my Mother around 2:30pm to see when she might be ready to meet me with her Taco Soup! Mom graciously made me single-serving containers of Taco Soup, and it sounded tasty. We met around 3pm and on the way home I thought about a thread on ThinnerTimes that I had read last night about processesd food.

The thread talked about "processed foods" like hotdogs and balogna and how they were actually easier on a "new" stomach like mine, since these meats were already partially processed (pre-digested?). While I was driving home that got me thinking about a hot dog, and there was a Sonic right on my way home..... so I stopped and bought a Sonic Coney Dog and a small tater tots.

I sliced the Coney dog into very thin portions and ate one, with the bun, chili and cheese. It tasted good, but I could tell that the bread was not going to "work". So for the next few bites I gave the bun (with chili and cheese) to Koko - he was in heaven! I did eat the entire hot dog - just the hot dog - with no discomfort. The tater tots were a different story, but when I slowed down and thoroughly chewed each Tater Tot and made each tater tot two bites, things got better.

Mom's Taco Soup will have to wait till tomorrow! And, BTW, I am down 27 pounds!

Grandkids Halloween costumes - a Bat and a Kangaroo!

Caden
Peirce




Peirce is a bat, Caden is a Kangaroo. Granddad is having a ball with all this!

Tue Nov 03 2009. Slow down, I'm moving too fast...

Today was an odd day. I had a uneasy day yesterday with my meals, and today I have just not been hungry. I kept and eye out on my stomach (well, literally) and I just never got hungry. I did get my protein in - 50g of it anyway - with my coffee this morning. It was about 4:30 before I felt like I could eat something, and I had a serving of homemade chicken soup that my sis-in-law Lisa Jones made. It really hit the spot. Afterwards I had 2 fudgesicles (low carb made with Splenda)... but that still is less than 1/2 of the calories I need, and about 2/3 of the protein for the day.

Laurie asked me to fix her a grilled cheese sandwich for her dinner - she says she cannot make a GCV sandwich near as tasty as mine are :o) I wondered the entire time I was cooking it if I would ever be able to have a grilled cheese sandwich again. Any kind of processed bread is not going to go over very well, though I did start to think about maybe a tortilla or some of those smaller bread offerings I've seen in the store recently. I'll hit my web resources and see what options some of them have tried out. And I did all this while closely watching the grilled cheese "grill". My mom can relate to burning bread (hi Mom!) and I still have to smile and laugh when I think of those childhood memories. Most of my grilled cheese sandwiches involve scraping off the over-cooked (burnt?) exterior! I think they taste better like that anyway.....

I enjoyed my day at work (from home) today, though I did have a real scare when reviewing my health insurance choices for next year. I had three plans to choose from and instinctively went with the highest priced one offered. I thought for sure it would have the most flexibility, and with Laurie and My issues, we need flexibility. But a good friend from work called and warned me to be absolutely sure..... so I called my gastric bypass surgeon and sure enough, he is not under the "most expensive" plan! All of Laurie's doctors and our family doc are under the "middle" Aetna plan offered, so I quickly changed my election choice just under the final-select wire as dictated by LexisNexis. Whew! The middle-tier plan has out-of-network benefits while the top-tier plan has none. How odd is that?

That is enough excitement for one day. Now to go get a drink and keep my liquids up. Have a great evening! Steve

November 01 2009. Monday.

Today was "not so good". It started out well, with my egg and a small serving of grits, but for the rest of the day I just felt unsettled. I returned to work today, working from home for a week. That was nice, cleaning up email and taking care of projects new and old. For lunch I had a bit of crab meat with a spoonful of mayonnaise. I did get my calcium and iron in, but fell short on my protein for the day.

At 11am I started on a beef stew recipe that was recommended on ThinnerTimes - puree it of course prior to eating. It was your standard beef stew recipe, with a can of cream of chicken, a dry onion soup packet, 1/4 cup of wine, a onion sliced into rings, and one hour prior to completion add carrots and green beans. It came out excellently, but even before I took the first bite I knew it wasn't going to work for me. I used my hand mixer to get a 1 cup serving to the correct consistency (see pic), and it was indeed tasty, but the moment the first forkful hit my lips, my stomach started feeling funny. I ate about 1/2 a cup and stored the rest.

Listening to the new Barry Manilow Christmas CD. Great music. Olivia Newton John has a new Christmas Cd out, too. It is never too early to get started on Holiday Cheer!

Ah, November first. It is cool outside, and I am cold enough to use a small space heater back in my office. I had every intention of getting out today, but found other things to keep me busy around the house. It was another good food day, with me adding the new Peanut Butter powder to my protein drink mix for my morning coffee.

I swear I am going to get out tomorrow and buy material to make the cottage cheese pancakes and the no-noodle lasagna - tomorrow! But tomorrow I start back to work, though the week will be "working from home". Many thanks to my director, Ed Musgrave, for working with me to make that happen. I will actually be back in the office one week from tomorrow, Nov 09, 2009.

One thing I will miss is being there to participate in the Gator v Bulldog football game talk. Oh well, there is always next year - for the Bulldog faithful :)

I found a fellow RNY post-op patient who has the same blood-pooling bruise scenario I do. His father is a surgery and he said that in some circumstances, blood can seep out after the surgery and it heads towards the lowest point via gravity - and inn my case, that is at the bottom of my abdomen. He said his Dad said it could take up to six months for the bruising to be reabsorbed into our systems. six months!

I've attached a photo of Laurie and I that was taken in Cancun several years ago - my first glance went straight to the plates of food we are holding. The restaurant, La Habichuela, has the best Sunday seafood buffet I have ever seen. Lobster, shrimp, ceviche, all kinds of seafood and pasta.... eating there now would be quite different, but just as tasty!