Happy Thanksgiving

I hope everyone had a great Thanskgiving. Ours was really nice. The boys did great and we had a small gathering with my side of the family.

I was feeling pretty good all weekend until I got the letter from my insurance company saying that my abdominal surgery would not be covered. Evidently it doesn't matter to them that my muscle separation is the size of a entire hand rather than the normal 1 or 2 finger gap that you usually see in abdominoplasty patients. Nor does the fact that you can see my intestines moving just under the skin whenever I'm laying down. Because I don't have a "true hernia" (at least not yet), the surgery is considered cosmetic. Yeah, because having your intestines bulge out is just about looks...

Oh God.

I have three doctors willing to write letters to my insurance about the medical neccesity of having my muscles sewn back together, but somehow I don't think it will matter. So I now have to save up about 8 grand to pay for the procedure, which will be done in an outpatient surgical facility. This scares me to death. As much as I don't want to be back in the hospital, I'm really scared about having such a serious surgery done and going home the same day. But that's how cosmetic surgery is handled. If insurance would cover it, they could insist on a hospital stay.

I just feel so torn about what to do. Clearly I can't spend the rest of my life with my intestines putting on a show for me every evening after dinner. I need the surgery. But I'm so afraid of the complications. Some pretty bad stuff could happen to me as a result of the surgery, including death. Even though the odds of complications are low, I've managed to be one of the "lucky" few twice now (Only .08%of women experience HELLP and only a very low percentage of people require IVF with ICSI to conceive, while 16% of abdominoplasty patients experience complications.) Do I push my luck a third time? I've met two surgeons who seem cautious to operate on me, and one who is ready to do it tomorrow. (It seems to come down to experience--two of the docs just weren't qualified.) I'm going to seek a few more opinions yet seeing as I have to wait now to save the money anyway.

This sucks.

I feel like my life is finally moving on, but the stomach issue is holding me back and can't be ignored. I just wish there was a simple answer.