A Successful Wait
I am not in Warrington, either but I did have to go through a year and a half of "hoops" as everyone calls it. I am a student at Salford Uni, I started in early spring of 2007on this weight loss surgery quest. I knew long before that I wanted the surgery but I had a devil of a time getting my regular doctor to refer me. She put me on Acomplia (I promtly gained 5 lbs.) then she agreed to refer me to a dietican. It took months to get an appointment. Then I was told I had to spend 6 months there before I coud see the consultant for surgery. Finally, when I saw Dr. New at Hope Hospital, he said I was an ideal canidate, age 34 with a 44 BMI with diabetes, hypertension & PCOS. That was March 2008. I had lots of tests done, sleep apnea, cortisol, blood work. Then I had an appointment w/the surgeon Mr. B. Axisa at the end of May and he said I was good to go, just needed funding. I heard nothing for months, except I was refered for a psych eval. Then, when I was just starting to believe that I had been denied and never notified, I received a call to meet with the new surgeon, Dr. Ammori on the 15th October. I came to find out that Hope hospital had done only a few of the bypass surgeries over the summer and Mr. Axisa had stepped down doing them, as he was not very experienced. I now have my surgery date for the 30th of October with the most famous local surgeon!!! I am relieved that my surgery was not earlier because now I know my surgeon knows what he is doing. A funny thing is that I was never notified that my funding had been approved over the summer...
I hope that my story helps & wish you all the luck, I have a feeling you'll find that it was worth the wait when you are approved.