Raulene,
God Bless and good luck on your surgery. I loved reading your profile. I had to laugh about how you went from all sweet and grandmotherly in the beginning to being "pissed" about the insurance company "dicking around"! That just made me crack up. My doctor also does not transect, for the exact same reasons as your doctor gives. I was upset at first but he told me that less than 1% of stapled patients experience a disruption...he's only seen it once. I feel safer knowing that if I do have a leak it will go into my 'real' stomach rather than into parts of my body where it could do life threatening damage. I'll pray that neither one of us experiences a leak, I'm 6 days after you. Looking forward to hearing of your progress.