I am starting the process......

I set up appointments today for later this month to start the process. I think the further I go along in the process the more I'll know if I REALLY want do have the surgery. I am not taking the decision lightly.  I have tried and tried on my own with many diets and diet books and even eating when hungry and stopping when satisfied but still I don't see much success. I am 59 and I don't have much longer to decide!! My father lived to be 83 and my sweet Mother is 86 so I could God willing live another 20 years. With this weight on me I will end up in a wheel chair if something doesn't change!! I've weighed 285 for two years now and have arthritis in my knees so I hurt. I still get out but not like I use to. I have energy but can't do much with it!! Many of my friends have had the gastric bypass and all were happy. Two had complications due to doctor's work but they are fine and glad they had it done.  So time will tell if I do it or now.

How did you know for sure that you'd go through with the surgery??

How did you know for sure that you'd go through with the surgery??

I was sick and tired of feeling sick and tired. And after an ER doctor told me he thought I was having congestive heart failure (false alarm, as it turned out) I decided that I needed to do SOMEthing. My PCP was one who suggested I consider WLS.

I know for me it was the fact that in January I had knee surgery and the surgeon told me that I had the worst case of ortheoarthritus she had seen in someone my age. I am 40 and weighed 290. When I returned to work, a flyer crossed my desk saying that our insurance now covered weight loss surgery. It seemed like fate. My surgery is scheduled for next week (I had to wait 6 months per the insurance company) and I'm so ready.

I feel like we can be crappy knee buddies.  I hurt my knee in January, and when they went in to repair it, they found osteoarthritis so bad the orthopedist told me if I don't lose a significant amount of weight I'll need a knee replacement in five years--when I'll be 40. I'm also 290 lbs, and that conversation is what made me decide to get WLS.

I was tired of sitting and watching others live life. I was tired of always having back and knee every day. The last straw was when I had a cardiac cath and was so big they had to tape my stomach up to do the procedure.

WLS isn't one size fits all - so thankfully, there are different procedures to fit different  needs.  I too was inspired by my coworkers that all had the gastric bypass, but in my research, I discovered the duodenal switch, which looked to be the perfect fit for me.  Give the other procedures a good hard look and compare that to your own weight history, for you know best how your body reacts to your efforts (my body fought me tooth and nail with every diet attempt).  The last thing you want is to be needing a revision down the road.

I thought about it for many years but didn't know until recently that things had changed regarding insurance. When I first looked into it you had to have co-morbilities. I never had any major illnessed like hypertension, high blood pressure, heart disease, etc although all of them are in my family. When I looked into it recently not only did I find that I met the criteria with BMI alone but that my insurance only requires 3 months of supervised diet/exercise with my primary care. The stars aligned and now only have less than a month before my 3 month visits end. My timing was perfect because my doctor is leaving his practice the end of October, right after I'm done with all of what I need to submit to my insurance.

The instant it hit me (and I was 59 as well!) that surgical intervention was the most realistic choice for me, I never once looked back or questioned my decision.  I was on 8 pills a day, all due to being overweight and that was just totally unacceptable.  I never cared about being skinny; I was motivated to be healthy.  I thought "it's not too late - I have this opportunity to change my life and I'm going for it".

I decided to tell everyone about my decision; friends, family, co-workers.  Their support was important to me and I let them know that.  I remember making my pre-op shakes in my magic bullet here at work and people saying how yummy they looked.  For me, telling people about my surgery allowed me to deal with the process in an honest way.  I didn't have to make up fake stories or have people concerned about me needlessly when they saw me losing weight.  But, that's an individual decision, to tell people or not - and I realize some people may not be as comfortable sharing as I was.

So, I guess I'd say "you know when you know - and when you do, YOU KNOW!"

Good luck to you - Sandie