Romie
I had a lap-band at Kaiser Fremont on 11/8/06. It failed me; slipped with multiple complications, and had to be removed in January of 2009, after a full year of having it unfilled. I wanted my surgeon to revise it to a vertical sleeve gastrectomy in that same procedure but he was unwilling and later renegged on all offers of a later sleeve revision. I was then convinced I would have to resort to medical tourism to get my sleeve. After meeting with several good surgeons, I thought I would go with Dr. Aceves in Mexico. Around this same time, I had also been dealing with multiple local facilities, and finally found a Kaiser surgeon who *IS* now willing to do the sleeve for me. So I dropped the Mexico plans and have been struggling for the last year to lose the required pre-op weight for Kaiser's approval, which is extra challenging due to my Diabetes II and increasing insulin dosages.
I attend the Kaiser Fremont WLS support groups and occassionally the San Leandro OH (East Bay WLS) group meetings. Meanwhile, my daughter Melissa is getting her VSG outside of Kaiser on 1/03/11. Her OH alias is roxyroad.