Question of the day

I'm sure you are all relieved I haven't posted one of these in about a week  But I do hope it helps everyone here so I'm hoping to be back on track this week. The question today is how long did you consider WLS before ultimatly deciding to have it done? Was there something that pushed you over the edge to go ahead with the surgery and if so what was it?

For me I knew I needed to lose weight but have always struggled.   I went into my doctor for a routine physical and he mentioned WLS since I had gained so much weight in just a few years.  I decided to look into it and went to a seminar about a month later and started the process. What pushed me over the edge was just feeling drained all the time.  My mind says I can do things but my body won't let me.  I want my mind and body to agree that I can do whatever I want.

My parents scanned an ad from their local newspaper and emailed it to me. This was in the fall of '04. The ad concerned a seminar put on by a bariatric surgeon for the purpose of promoting the lap-band. Talk about your subtle hints. I'd never heard of a lap-band before, but it sounded interesting. A couple of days later, when I hadn't responded to their email they called and asked me if I'd be willing to come up where they live and attend the seminar. I did, just to placate them and get them off of my back. We ended up having a long conversation about my weight and basically they were scared that they'd outlive me. And I had to admit that they might be right. I didn't pull the trigger then, because of the cost. I almost went ahead and had a lapband done on two additional occasions between the fall of '04 and the fall of '06 but just didn't have the guts to do it.  Last May, I'm at my daughter's graduation ceremony and see an old card playing buddy  of mine who's about 5'10" and 505. He was wearing a very nice suit which is totally out of character for him, and so I went up and started giving him a ration of **** about how much that suit cost him considering it was the equivalent of three suits. He told me that not only did he pay a over $500 for the suit, but that this was the only occasion he would ever wear it cause he'd had "that surgery". I asked him what he's talking about and he told me he'd had a gastric bypass. I went all summer without seeing him, but I often wondered how he was doing. In late August, I went by where he works to see how he was doing. I was stunned. From mid-April to late-August, about 4.5 months,  he'd lost 168 lbs. I couldn't belive what I was seeing. A guy who's ass had always looked like two hippos fighting under a blanket when he walked was sitting in a chair that I couldn't fit in. He told me the only reason he was willing to do it was because they can do it laproscopically and he had the surgery on Friday, got out of the hospital on Sunday, and went back to work on Monday. That's the first I'd heard of being able to get an RNY without being cut from stem to stern and being stove up for 6 wks. I got my ass off of the fence right then and there. He gave me the business card for the Dr. he used and I called them the next day, got an appt for the next week, and put the pedal to the metal.