(Be sure to read Part 1 of Larry’s Story first…)
My wife Beth and I discussed having weight loss surgery in early 2008. We had heard good things, and bad things about it. As far as I know, we only knew one person who had actually had weight loss surgery. That person was not very compliant, and didn’t receive much education about her procedure and follow-up. She didn’t have a very good result, in fact she ended up having her band completely drained and is living with no restriction at all… and consequently little to no weight loss.
We didn’t want to be like that. We didn’t want to fail. From our research online we found that people who have gastric bypass surgery lose weight! Compliant or not, they lose weight. Not saying that a person couldn’t drink milkshakes and eat cake and ice cream, and defeat the surgery, they can. But, a large percentage of people who have gastric bypass surgery lose a significant portion of their excess weight. We knew that we aren’t the most compliant folks you’ll meet, so our only choice was gastric bypass surgery.
Prior to that time, our insurance company didn’t cover any “elective” surgery, such as weight loss surgery. One day I was going thru the insurance companies website and found that they had changed their policy!!! They had some stringent guidelines, but it was possible to get the surgery covered!
We started talking to our primary care physician about weight loss surgery in earnest in about July of 2008. At the end of July, the company I work for announced that beginning January 1, 2009 our insurance was going to change. We were being forced to change insurance carriers, to one that didn’t cover weight loss surgery. We had about 5 months to jump through all the hoops and get the surgery done! During this time we discovered the YouTube WLS community. Going online and watching people tell about their trials and tribulations made ours a little less stressful. Just to know that someone else had already been down this road. We started our own YouTube channel.
It was a hectic couple of months. We both were denied for surgery, but our surgeon personally called the insurance company and we were approved. We ended up having our surgery at the end of the year with time to spare! December 16th, 2008 was our rebirth day. Our Surgeversery.
I think Beth and I are a little special. We’ve been together since late 2001 and when I say together, I mean together. We are basically inseparable. There are other couples who have both had weight loss surgery, but I don’t personally know of any other couple who had their surgery on the same day. It was pretty cool.
Because we both “deflated” together, she has lost over 100lbs and I’ve lost almost 150lbs, we didn’t have many of the issues that people who have the surgery alone do… If someone flirts with Beth now, it tickles me almost as much as it does her. And when some woman shows me a little extra attention, most of the time Beth has to point it out to me. She loves it… ( I’m oblivious to that sort of stuff… I never had it before so I guess I failed to learn how to detect it!!!)
Weight Loss Surgery has been the best thing I’ve ever done for myself in my 54 years of life!!! I’m totally prescription free… Other than the vitamin supplements I take daily I’m done with meds…
Oh! And I had those damned eyes fixed!!! Laser surgery! I haven’t tried yet, but I wonder if I could catch a baseball now???
