What to do with 2 diff surgery dates RNY or DS?

Seriously?   And I'm saying this with the utmost of kindness, not blasting you?  You're putting up too many roadblocks for yourself.  Your kids are going to do just fine without you for a couple of weeks.  You obviously sound like an excellent mom, your kids will survive a couple of weeks away from you.  As a teacher in an extremely low income district where my students come from absolutely the very worst of living conditions with parents that enter and exit their lives with incredibly sad frequency, I guess my perspective is a bit different.  Your older kids especially know you are doing this for YOUR future and for THEIRS, just as they know that their dad is away fighting for THEIR future in a safe and free country.  I went back to college full-time, as a single parent, when my kids were in their early and late teens.   They knew it was going to be a sacrifice of four years on my part, and it was hectic to say the least.   I'm still tired from it!    But, my oldest went on to graduate from MIT and is now a grad student at UC Berkeley, my next oldest went on to be salutatorian of her class, and is a senior at U of Mich and my youngest is doing well in HS.  They all survived and still talk about how proud they were of mom going back to college.    Your kids will be proud of you for taking your health in your hands and doing something good for you, and they will be proud to take their skinny mom to their school events - trust me!   The difference in post-op lifestyle from RNY to DS is enormous.    Read the revision board, read the RNY board, and I think you'll see it.   We don't want to see you on this board in a couple of years asking about a revision!  They're tough to do!

Julie R,
wow. I am not putting any roadblocks at all, I am actually pursuing the steps to get across the country for this surgery, and also planning on Not leaving my children without a parent over the holidays. If I have to reschedule the surgery I will. At this point I am going to be there, but you don't know what our family has or has not gone through, so I was a little put off by you bringing up your district children. I have done plenty of the 'single parent' stuff. In just deployments my husband has been gone for 6 years of his military career being gone for both of our oldest children's births, 2 wars & 7 deployments. Not including schools, training or other academy or police training away. I'm glad your kids are proud of your choice to go back to school and that they are successful in their college and education, but just because hardship causes growth in many situations, undue hardship is not necessary when it can be avoided. And my kids love me whether I am skinny or not. I am proud of them, and already have heard of them telling others how strong their mom is, and proud they are of me and their father.

I am sorry that you misunderstood my intent in my post - it's just that whenever any of the those responding had a suggestion as to how you could accomplish getting a DS, you had a reason as to why it would not work.    I in no way intended to suggest that you leave your children ALONE for two weeks, but that if you were able to leave them with a trusted friend or caregivier, that the hardship would not be that undue.   I was unable to read into  your posts that you were reconsidering rescheduling for a later date.  Furthermore, I also did not at all insinuate that your children did not love you obese or thin, or that they are not proud of you now.   I simply state that they would be thrilled to see you healthy and able to do the things with them that you are perhaps hampered in doing now.     Your children sound like remarkable, fantastic, unselfish children, and you are, of course, justifiably very proud of them.   I understand that military life is not easy....some career choices do provide much hardship on families, whether it's a parent that has to work a midnight shift, travel with business, or having a position with a great deal of job stress.   Again, my sincerest of apologies if I have offended you.   

Can I ask why everyone has to go? Is there not anyone who can help you out for 2 weeks or so that lives closer to you? Sometime we only consider family as our only option but sometimes a good friend will help much more than a family member would.

I've had both RNY / Gastric Bypass and DS; I had the bypass done in 1980 when I was 28. It did help me lose the excess weight, but after about a year, it was useless; no help what so ever and in fact hindered me in trying to maintain my weight loss. I would dump on any kind of milk product, couldn't eat any kind of steak or roast because it would stick in my pouch, couldn't eat foods like salad or celery or they would stick etc. It was the pits; I hated it, but I exercised every day and tried as best I could to eat right and managed to keep most of the weight off for about 15 years. Then I got sick and couldn't exercise; lost control of my weight and it all came back; all of it.

I tried to lose it with diets etc. for another 10 years or so then decided to see what kind of options there were for me in getting some kind of a revision. I knew I didn't want any more RNY / Gastric Bypass and that I wanted to eat more like a normal person, but had no idea what options were available. When I found the OH site and discovered the DS, the more I learned the more I liked and I decided that's what I wanted to get a revision to. The next problem I ran into was that every DS surgeon I spoke to didn't think I could be revised safely to the DS because of the very old bypass. Also if I wanted this surgery, it would have to be self pay because my insurance didn't cover any kind of WLS. It was depressing, I knew what I wanted, but couldn't find a surgeon that would take my case.

Then I found Dr. Rabkin in San Francisco; 650 miles from where I live. He had done a number of revisions like mine and said it would be a difficult surgery, but that he had ever confidence he could do it. The cost would be about $35,000.00 all told; if I didn't have any complications, I went for it. He had a opening in 12 days and I got busy and got all my testing done so I would be ready to go. The surgery took 8 1/2 hours because my insides were so screwed up and I was so full of scar tissue and adhesion's from the old bypass. But I came through it without any real problems at first. Then we discovered that nothing could get through my new stomach / sleeve. We waited a day or two and tried again, still nothing could get through; so it was back to surgery again. Dr. Rabkin found a scar tissue flap inside my new sleeve that was blocking anything from getting through and he had to take my new stomach apart. remove the flap and the reconstruct my stomach / sleeve again. This surgery took 4 1/2 hours, but it did fix me.

Because of the extended time in surgery and under anesthesia I did have a more difficult recovery than most, but after about 6 weeks, I started feeling good and things just got better and better. Now it's like I'm in heaven, I can eat like a normal person, I've lost pretty much all my excess weight, I can take Advil / Ibuprofen or any NSAID, my cholesterol which was 210 is now 117 and I feel great; like I'm 30 again.

I would go through the whole ordeal again, I would pay the $40,000.00 again I would crawl to San Francisco to get the DS; you couldn't pay me enough to get a pouch again.

I'm sorry if you think I'm being harsh, but I lived with that damn RNY pouch for 28 years and there is no way; no way in hell I would let anyone cut up my stomach again and make it into a pouch.

It's your life and you have to live with your choices, but from my perspective this is a no brainer. Do what ever you have to do to get the DS, do not settle for RNY and have to live with a pouch for the rest of your life.

Kerry 

PS: you can read more about my experiences on my profile if you want to; it's public. And you can also read and see my 1 year post here:

 www.obesityhelp.com/forums/DS/4024505/One-year-ago-today-who -could-have-known/action,replies/topic_id,4024505/page,1/

Kerry wow, you have an amazing story, and great testimony to help others not feel alone in this journey. Thank you so much for your information, link, reply & words of wisdom.

 Here's what you do...look at the Revisions board and the RnY board and the DS board.

I know you will find RnY people who have revised to DS and perhaps some who are considering revising from RnY to DS. I don't think you will find anyone who has the DS and is looking for a revision to RnY.

If so...that would do it for me.

she lives near ft dix, McGuire that has multiple flight daily to Mcchord AFB where madigan is doing the ds,  since her hubby is deployed she can fly conus with out him and would get cat 1 space after mission load . and would be able to get tlf lodging on base now instead of the usual reservation restrictions.   she has no issues except caring for the kids.

Walter, One issue is the timing for having the kids out of school for the space A And from what I understand since my husband will be stationed in Germany by then - If he is stationed overseas - we can not fly stateside at all except from or to an overseas location?
thanks for your replys

Ms Cal Culator, haha that is so true, that is one thing I also noticed, that helped with my choice for the DS being the procedure I hoped for. Now to just figure out how to get from NJ to WA state by 13 Dec! thanks for your post :)