I suppose I can talk about what led me to the decision to get my surgery. My friend (girlfriend at the time) had been talking about getting the surgery for a couple of years and she went to a seminar for the surgery. When she came home, she had made the decision to go ahead with the surgery but she also told me that my insurance was listed as covering the surgery. I went to the next seminar myself and discovered that my insurance did cover it. The following Monday I called my insurance company and the told me that yes, the surgery was almost completely covered by the plan we have at work. I did some...well, a lot...of research into the various surgery options and I discovered that the sleeve was the option that stuck with me as far as being the best option for me. For me, the fact that it requires no maintenance and it is irreversible was the best for me. It's said that a strong man knows his strengths, but a wise man knows his weaknesses. I know that I would let maintenance of a band slip because of time issues and if I have a way out, I wouldn't have to make changes I didn't want to. By going with the sleeve, I had to change everything. For me, that was the way to success for this surgery.
I then talked to my doctor about it and he agreed that this was the best thing I could do for weight loss. Two weeks later, I heard from the insurance company and I was approved for the surgery. I then embarked on a 6 month process to get everything needed for the surgery. Lab work, EKG's, classes, meetings. Whatever I needed to do to get ready for the surgery. I had a weigh in about two weeks prior to surgery, and in the year prior to that point, the scale in the doctor's office hadn't budged by so much as an ounce, and then all of a sudden the scale dropped by 7 pounds. I took that as a sign that I was finally on the right path.
Two weeks later, I was in the hospital being prepped for my surgery. My parents were on one side of me and she was on the other. Once I had the date, she asked me if she could be there. I discussed it with my parents...if you call "She wants to be there and I want her there and that's the end of it" a discussion and then I told her when to be there. The last thing I remember clearly was getting on the table in the OR and them putting a mask over my face and telling me to breathe deeply. I took one deep breath and that's the last thing I remember prior to waking up in recovery in an extraordinary amount of pain and nausea. I remember waking up in my room after that and wishing they would let me get out of bed so I could walk around and start relieving the gas pain. I remember having no real concept of the passage of time, either. At least not for a while. She left awhile after that and my parents left later and all I wanted to do was sleep, but even that was coming fitfully. It took several days after I got home before I started sleeping normally again.
The next day I had to eat my (now tiny)breakfast and lunch before they would release me. I finally got released at about 2 in the afternoon. So from the time I checked in until I got out was 30 hours. I healed remarkably fast and when I went back to work 3 weeks later, I was already down 38 pounds since the surgery.
Now here I am, almost 5 months later and I'm down 111 pounds since the surgery and 138 pounds overall. She just had her surgery done, and now we're both on the same path. It's very exciting to see someone I really care about start this path and be ready to lose their weight. I hope she does even better than I have so far.
Tschuss!
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