I would like to tell everyone a little bit about the contest. This may be very unique to the area and am very ignorant to whether if there are other municipalities that offer such opportunities. I live in the Tampa Bay area and locally we are fortunate enough to have this contest offered by the Palms of Pasadena hospital in St. Petersburg. They have a nice Bariatric center and are affiliated with some of the best surgeons in the field. Their website has a lot of great information on it including info on the contest. You can access the site at http://obesitynomorefl.com/ . The contest has been offered yearly and starts in January for a sign up period. The contest is a great opportunity especially for those of us who are insurance challenged such as myself. If it wasn't for the contest I wouldn't have had this opportunity to change my health and my life. Thanks again to all that are involved.
The requirements were simple; I had to attend an informational seminar on the procedure, which is a no brainer as you better understand what you are signing up for. In fact it was at a seminar that I first heard about the contest. The only other requirement is to sign up on the website consisting of some personal questions on how obesity affects your life and what it would mean to you to win. My best advice on this part is to be honest with yourself and spill it. As much as we have been programmed over the years to be ashamed of our obesity by society, you need to open up. It is a medical condition and should be treated as such. It was a difficult chore, but I felt better afterwards. I'd like to believe that it was this frank honest approach that got me to be a finalist.
Once the period for entry submission closes, there is a committee at the hospital, which will go through all the entries to select six finalists. I never heard an exact figure, but I heard estimates of upwards of 3000 entries were received. This waiting period was tense as I'm not a patient person plus had a solid no from my insurance already. This was my only chance and a recent diabetes diagnosis weighed heavily. I was very fortunate that on Friday afternoon on March 8th on my way back from the Strawberry Festival ironically enough, I received the call from Dr. Jessee's office. I didn't know what to say. It felt like I had just won the lottery. I may have even shed some tears. The feeling was amazing!
My next steps were to fill out lots of medical forms to become an official patient of Dr. Jessee. I had to have these forms completed prior to an appointment on Tuesday March 19th. I got a brief intro to the process plus a photo session. This photo would be used on the website for the voting period. Along with this photo, the site would contain a small synapsis of your story. This was compiled for me from my answers to the questions on my contest entry. I also needed to schedule an appointment with a psychiatrist that they are affiliated with, which I scheduled for the same day to take advantage of being in the area. As part of this process, I had received a 500 question questionaire,which is to help Dr. Baum(the psychiatrist affiliated with Dr. Jessee's office), evaluate me as a good candidate for the procedure. My interpretation of this step is to make sure you are in a mentally good place to have the commitment needed for the lifestyle changes required.
Lets talk about what it means to be a finalist and how the actual winners are determined. As a finalist, I had come a long way, but I hadn't won anything yet. Out of the six finalists only two would receive free Lap Band surgeries. Those two are determined simply by votes on the before mentioned website http://obesitynomorefl.com/. The voting period was from March 29th through April 14th. Let me tell you, this period of time was very exhausting and stressful. You have no idea how you are doing. There isn't a running total some where that you can check and you have no idea what your competition may be up to. The whole process gave me new respect for some of these politicians who spend months campaigning for a position and in the end may have nothing to show for. It's not easy to leave it all on the line without any though of chance of success. Of course they at least have periodic polling. I tried to say positive as my chances were one third and those odds are pretty good compared to what my insurance was offering, which was 0.
My advice if you find yourself in such a situation is to go all out. You don't want to lose in the end and feel like you could've done more. That would be the worst. You need to get creative with your outlets. Of course there is the usual friends and family aspect as well as Facebook, but that won't cut it. The way I look at it, everyone will do that, so if that's all you do, you are going to lose. You win on the strangers you can mobilize and those voting circles can payoff big as they are reaching out to whole new sets of families and friends besides your own. My biggest push was through business cards. I didn't want to do the usual impersonal thing as just leave them on car windows as through experience most of those would just get thrown away. Instead I walked the parking lots of malls, shopping centers, and the like and physically spoke to each person I handed a card to. I handed out thousands! Let me tell you this was no easy task. I'm not a social person and am anything but comfortable talking to strangers, let alone asking them for their votes. I felt I had to do it; I had to get out there and try; I owed it to myself. This was my life we're talking about after all. If you can't do it for that, then when could you? The reception was better than I expected. Of course I got some no's or just plain walk aways, but I also got a lot of positive responses. People are very sympathetic if you can get your point across and convey that you aren't asking for any money. I had a good percentage say they would vote and even get others to vote as well. Sometimes I would even find someone who was willing to help campaign, maybe by taking some of my cards to pass out, sometimes by putting it on their Facebook pages. Again this was extremely beneficial as this got the word out to whole new voting pools, that were way beyond my knowledge or reach. I imagine some of these are what won it for me. My other windfall I believe was my global reach. I have friends and family world wide and it is my understanding that I received votes from Brazil, Japan, Portugal, Israel, etc. I was able to mobilize a greater portion of the globe as a potential voting pool than perhaps others did. I'm very greatful to all of those who helped in my campaign and will do my best to thank them in another post as this one is already getting long. Suffice to say that I owe you my life as I view this surgery as my one way to reclaim my life. No longer do I have to wage the losing battle against obesity. I now have won the tool, Lap Band surgery, that gives me the upper hand or should I say upper stomach? As the upper stomach is where the Lap Band resides in my body. I also already had a trip scheduled at the tail end of the voting period to visit my family in Connecticut. I used this trip as a campaigning opportunity. I passed out cards along the way and when I got there. I ended my campaign on the last night when I was actually asked to leave a Stop & Shop parking lot by the police. Apparently there was a complaint that I was intimidating the customers. I think you always feel like you could've done more, but I was spent and freezing. My hands had gone numb in the cold wind of New England and I was almost greatful to the officer for sending me away. I was proud that I overcame my fears and took my campaign on the road and was hopeful I had taken it to victory. Now I had to just wait and see.
Luckily I didn't have to wait too long as they were to be officially published on Friday April 19th. To not keep the finalists in suspense until then we all received personal phone calls on Wednesday April 17th. I was at my honorary niece Heley's dress rehearsal for her upcoming recital. I confess that when I received the call, I was so nervous I had to run out of the theatre to take the call. Unfortunately I didn't quite make it and had to call back and play a small version of phone tag. I got the word from Dr. Jessee's office to schedule my free surgery. I had won!!! My surgery was scheduled for May 15th and I cried. How could I not? It was a big relief. I was about to change my life. I confess to being nervous as well. For so long I was focused on the contest and campaigning that I nearly forgot what I was doing it all for. After all of this work and effort, what do I win? I get to have someone cut me open! Yeah! I had nearly a month to adjust myself to this new reality and prepare myself for what lies ahead. I'm so thankful, words cannot express.
Just a footnote here, but all that I've detailed here represents my experiences and in no way guarantees anyone's future success with the contest or even whether the contest will continue in future years. That is all up to the Palms of Pasadena and the participants who have donated their time, talent, and materials. Please check http://obesitynomorefl.com/ to stay up to date on information on future contests.
Thanks again,
me
No comments:
Post a Comment