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It was 10 days for me, which seemed like an eternity at the time. But I was in very bad shape and was in the hospital. They let me go home until the surgery, but I could not eat any solid food and was drinking an elemental diet (terrible stuff).
Good luck with your consult!
Jan 
For me it was a period of 3-4 months, the reason being my surgeon told me no way he would cut me until I lost 10 pounds (he was very particular about this), and then when I lost that weight, there were scheduling issues, due to his then immense demand as perhaps the pre-eminent J Pouch surgeon in NYC, and quite possibly the entire USA (this was 1992; unfortunately Dr. Gelernt passed away in 1996).
In those several months, I deteriorated badly, and while the operation was ostensibly elective, Dr. Gelernt later admitted to me that my colon was dissolving in his hands when he removed it, and the surgery could not have waited any longer. I was on a very high dosage of Prednisone at that time and it was not blunting the progress of the disease.
My surgery was in April of 1989 and I remember being on 60 mg. of Prednisone and other stuff for u.c. and the surgeon needed to wait about 2 months until they could taper me down off of preds. But then all kinds of crazy stuff happened to me, mostly because of was on preds for 10 years and on very high doses so my ability to fight off infection and to heal well just didn't happen. Hang in there...it may seem like forever when you are not feeling well and you just want to start feeling better.
It was only a 2 week wait for me from surgical consult to operating room. It will just depend on what your surgeon's schedule is like. I was really, really sick going in but I wasn't on prednisone at the time so that was a big help for me getting in quick. Best of luck!
I was on high dose prednisone at the time of surgery AND overweight. But, I was deteriorating and my blood count was dropping, so waiting for a perfect scenario was not going to happen. Yes, I had complications, but I shudder to think what would have happened if I had to wait.
Jan
