I attended an information seminar, my first of many, with my husband and the info I�d gathered in Melbourne, FL. The surgeon was Dr. Teniwitz and he was amazing. He told me everything I wanted to know about the procedure and what to expect both before and after. Then he dropped the bombshell on me�He was not covered by my insurance. If I wanted him I would have to pay 7500.00 out of my pocket. Well as you can imagine, I left there more then a little down. I loved him, I loved the program, I wanted the surgery, and yet there seemed to be no way he just cost too much. On the drive home we talked about what we had learned and the feelings of sadness that I couldn�t do it. The Idea was still in my head but it kind of took a back shelf for a while.
We went on a cruise October 2003 with a large group of people, one of them being a friend also interested in having the surgery. This cruise ended up being not only a good times with friends but also �the straw that broke the camels back� if you will. Here I was on this great cruise with a lot of our friends and every time I looked in the mirror there was this huge, fat, ugly person looking back at me. I didn�t feel comfortable going around the ship in my shorts, the pictures I would normally have taken somehow never got took and heaven forbid the day at the beach in my swimming suit. I spent most of the day in the water so no one could see my cottage cheese legs or the protruding stomach. I love the beach, but on this day my love was over shadowed by the shame. Because I spent the entire day in the water and ended up with the worst sunburn I�ve had in a while�Guess you have to give to get, my giving was being humiliated to be on that beach, but this started me thinking again about the surgery. During this cruise I talked to my friend about the seminar (she too is wanting to have the surgery�we figured we do it on the buddy system, together) and what I had learned. I made a promise to her and myself that when we got home I would get busy and find surgeons in our network. After I got home things were a little hectic so that was shelved once again for a bit, but one evening I walked by a full length mirror and guess what. That huge, fat, ugly person that had been on the cruise had followed me home. There I was, but was the vision in the mirror really me, so I decided right then and there that there had to be a changed. I got busy and found all of the surgeons that perform this surgery in the state that are covered by our insurance. The list was not a long one and there was no one in our immediate area, so the road trips were planned.
