Having been fat my whole life (well, the parts I can remember) I knew that at some point my run of good luck on the health side would run out. I had been fortunate to have only Sleep Apnea as a co-morbidity so I enraged my Doctors by being over 400 lbs and still maintaining great BP and blood work (and being surprisingly cardiovascularly capable according to a trainer I worked with).

Well, as life does, things changed. My wife and I had a son and as he grew I realized that what was somehow acceptable to me (being this large) would not be acceptable to me with and for him. I gave myself a deadline to get this done by myself as I had lost in excess of 100lbs previously (through WW and Low Carb diets in the past). January rolled around and I had not gotten the job done. I had already done research on the procedures and had recently watched a friend's father have laproscopic gastric bypass and enjoy tremendous results.

My wife and I went out and attended a few seminars to narrow our Doctor choices and then moved forward. I was to go first and if I did not die (that is a joke) she would go next. We chose Dr. Tiffani Jessie for the procedure and were self pay so the lead time was minimal. I had only ever been through one surgery (emergent appendectomy) but that experience had tainted my view of surgical procedures. That fear crept in but I knew I was doing this so that one day my son's friends would not comment to him about how fat his dad was and so that I could obtain life insurance that would help protect my family in the event of a catastrophe. These goals were more important than anything.

With that as the background, the team in Dr. Jessie's office prepared me. I went through the mundane nutrition seminar, the useless (for me) psych eval and the required pre-testing. The event was upon us and I was scared.

Fast forward 2 hours (of which I believe only 45 minutes was actual surgery time) and my band was installed! I felt fine and was ambulatory within 30 minutes. The procedure was amazingly simple. In fact, had I know it would be that simple I may have made what I feel was a life changing decision years earlier.

My weight loss has been outstanding. Recovery was simple and straight forward. This process, even with the goofy bits, has been a life changer so far. I am now eligible (and will soon have) life insurance. I am nowhere near my long term goal but am headed in the right direction and have every confidence that I will get there. Sooner rather than later.