Jean M. - PLEASE DON'T BE DISCOURAGED!

There are many of us who genuinely feel your pain and only want to hold and encourage you.  I know you are strong but sometimes those sucker punches can get at you when you are a bit sore.  Come to us!  Keep moving forward! Find shelter only where there is healing and positivity - the rest will fizzle out.

I personally hope you go on to write the most successful book of your career - I don't care the subject!  If it happens to be a band book altered for the sleeve and that journey (if you take it) I will be the first to buy.

May God bless your path Jean.  I know the angels have carried me!

(((BIG HUGS)))

Leila

Thanks, Leila. Yesterday I felt like telling certain members, "Yeah, go ahead, kick her when's she down." But I'm not down, and I'm moving forward, as you sensibly suggested.

Jean

Jean if you ever have any sleeve related questions I'm just a message away!!!  Forward my sister in the struggle!

Ms Shell

Thanks, Shell!

You know what...I really have to give Jean ALOT of credit!!!! 

Jean has written a book about the band, has educated people on the band through this forum, and defended the band against so-called "band-bashers."  And to now have the band removed due to complications that are constantly complained about on this site day after day from others who have also experienced pain, suffering, and complications from the band aka "band-bashers"...is in my opinion, absolutely humiliating.  Talk about eating crow.

I commend Jean for coming forward with her issues and being totally honest about her situation.  She did not have to.  Jean is better than me, cause if I were her I would have never told anyone my band is coming out.  I just couldn't give the naysayers the satisfaction. 

Can you imagine how many people are sitting back and saying "I told you so."  Absolutely humiliating and devastating...in my opinion. 

By the way Zee...I thought that was really nice of you and Pumpkin to reach out to Jean like you did.  You two didn't have to do that.  And Maria, I am not bashing you at all, but you definitely came off as a little disingenuous.  Ok...I not a little...alot. 

It's only humiliating if the people who don't support you say "I told you so" when there are no "I told you so's" needed. Jean certainly has never been one to say that complications don't exist and the band is perfect. There's no crow on her plate that needs eating. Rather, she has modeled good band habits and been supportive to everyone here. She has suffered a complication, as some do. Some because they failed to follow the rules and some simply because ALL WLS have a risk of complications. Jean is a big girl who educated herself before getting her band and continued to do so after getting her band. I don't think she should feel "humiliated" at all. Just as say, a person with a sleeve who did very well and loved their surgery choice but suffered a complication or a person with a bypass who did very well and loved their surgery choice should not feel humiliated by having a complication either!

Well said, Dev. Thanks!

I agree, well said, Dev. I agree, totally!!!

You're very kind, but....

I acknowledge that I have objected (and still do) to the way some band-bashers deliver their message, but I don't recall ever denying the reality of the pain, suffering and complications of any OH member of any persuasion. People like Maria F. (whose only pain, suffering, or complication I know of is disappointing weight loss) may feel that my karma has come around to punish me, but that says more about her than it does about me. I don't feel humiliated or punished about my current band problems, and there's no crow on my plate.

What I don't understand is why Maria or anyone else here would feel that my own band problems somehow invalidate everything I've ever said or written about the band. My book includes a long list of possible side effects and complications (except for achalasia, which I'd never heard of until my gastroenterologist mentioned it a week or so ago), and contains no guarantees (good or bad) about weight loss or complications. Everything in that book, and anything I might say about the adjustable gastric band from now on, is still valid.

Let me put it this way. I have a dear friend whose daughter died when she (the daughter) was in her 20's. Does that terrible loss invalidate my friend's relationship with her daughter, her feelings about her daughter, her approach to childrearing or her ability to parent other children? No, it does not.

Jean

To answer the question you posed in the last paragraph of your post, no it does not. 

Also, as someone mentioned in another post (I think Maria, I may be wrong), I also don't think your band failed you, as the band did assist you in losing 80 something (correct me if I am wrong) pounds.  So just for that alone, your band is not a failure. 

The issue that I now definitely see with the band is the re operation rates, which some people may have absolutely no problem with.  Some people (maybe even alot), may be ok with losing all of their excess weight and then having their band taken out to then "go it alone" or revise to a different surgery.  I just didn't realize that the above described scenario was to be the regular course of things.  I guess I am just now realizing, complications aside, that banding is not a permanent solution to weight loss, as I have seen it advertised on commercials. 

I don't even have a band, and I find the news of your band being removed devastating.  You are the band guru...well at least around these parts.  You even wrote a book about the band for gawd sakes!!!!  So the fact that YOU are losing your band kind a nails a coffin into the argument regarding the issue of whether banding is a viable solution for permanent weight loss.  It's kind of like the marriage counselor getting divorced (not really, but it's the closest analogy I could think of).  We know it happens, but it's kinda like damn...this marriage counselor couldn't even keep her marriage together, how am I supposed to?

You losing your band should not be the end all regarding the above referenced argument, but it is definitely a huge blow to the lap band community...here that is.  I would feel the same if, for god-bid, Kate or Naomi loss there bands.  They are two other band pros.

So it's kinds like, if the band didn't last for Jean, the woman who successfully lost her excess weight and even wrote a book about it, how do I expect for the lap-band to last in "me?"