bufedwards
I guess I have been on here long enough now that I should start telling people a little bit about myself. Well, I am married with two awesome step-sons who both act just like me in many ways. I am a licensed minister in the Church of the Nazarene denomination but the Lord has not seen fit to place me in a pastorate just yet. I make the money to pay the man by working for the State of Kentucky as a social worker supervisor (child protection), which I have been doing for almost eleven years.
I have, like many, been overweight my entire life and have a long family history of obesity and obesity related conditions. My first true attempt to lose weight came in my college years, when I began to work out and see a nutritionist, which worked for the short-term but no long lasting effects. I then moved on to the fad diet scene trying everything under the sun (I have probably wasted enough money to pay for two DS surgeries out of pocket)! I shy-ed away from weight loss surgery for several years thinking that "I can do this on my own," and "that is just too risky," but within the last few years, it has become painfully apparent that I cannot do this on my own and the issue is much more than a lack of discipline. I had finally reached that point when enough was enough. I had began to suffer from many different co-morbidities, including sleep apnea, etc....
So, I took the first step and through my PCP, who is very supportive, contacted Georgetown Bariatrics and went through their pre-surgical program. I have to give G-Town props, they were really good to me. However, I was not educated enough or informed enough about the different types of weight loss surgery. I take blame for this but also think my surgeon shares some of the responsibility. I elected to have the Lap-Band proceedure (with a BMI of 89-stupid choice) and in January 2009 was banded.
Between January and June 2009 I lost approximately 60 lbs, though all the vomiting, food getting stuck, and being miserable, but in June suffered a major diet set-back after having to have a kidney stone surgically removed because it was too big to pass (7MM). Between June and September I gained about 20 lbs and my surgeon's office decided that maybe I should change my diet. They performed a BMR (I think that was what it was called) where you blow in a tube for 20 minutes and then they tell you how many calories you burn resting. I completed the test and they sent me on my way with a print out of how many calories I should be eating, and never scheduled a follow-up with me. Actually to this day (August 16, 2010), they have never contacted me.
So, here I was out here on the Lap-Band boat floating along. Needless to say, a low calorie diet alone didn't work and I have gained the rest of the weight I lost on the band back and have become fed up. I had began researching having a revision to an RNY, when low and behold my cousin comes along and starts telling me about this DS surgery that she had and how well she has done. So, I think I need to check this out.
I begin to research information that she sends me and begin to realize that hey, an RNY EWL is 50-60% , no asprin, dumping syndrome, and you still have to take a truck load of vitamins every day. However the DS EWL is somewhere around 85%, NO dumping syndome, you can take your asprin and you have to take vitamins. Also with the DS you can eventually eat almost a human portion size. Also, the more I researched this, the more I learned that the mortality and complication rates are comparable between the RNY and DS.
This convinced me, so I began to search for a DS surgeon who would perform a revision from a Lap-Band to a DS. It took three tries but I think I have found one. Dr. Hugh Houston in Nashville and I will be consulting on September 13, 2010 for an initial surgical consult so stay tuned!! 
