After a great deal of soul searching Hubby and I realized we both had a lot of weight to lose. We also considered the fact that dieting and exercise only would take years to lose the weight and that's ONLY with us being a customized diet and workout routine and sticking to it no matter what.

We decided to have a consultation with Dr. Robert O. Powell in Dallas, TX. We went online and checked his medical license with the states he had worked in and all was well. I searched and read references from others who claim to have been succefully banded by Dr. Powell and were happy. We found no negative posts. Our first consult was with a Physician's Assistant and he showed us a demo band and answered all our questions. Then we submitted to insurnace. Months past and still no word from the insurnace people he was using at the time. Finally after several months I decided to call one last time and the company had forgotten to submit our paperwork to our insurance. :thumbup: Dr.. Powell's Office Manager who also turned out to be his sister submitted the paperwork and Hubby and I were both approved in less than 24 Hours! This was back in August 2005. I had my surgery first. It was in the day surgery part of a regular hospital. All went well and I was discharged a few hours later as planned on my clear liquid diet. I developed an infection at the incision sites that laid immediately under my breasts. Dr. Powell blamed this on me. Simply because he had NEVER had a problem with infection and I must have picked it or something besides the fact that my boobies were laying on it. He placed me on an oral antibiotic and sent me home. About a week later I noticed a clear hard, yet flexible string outside of a few of my incisions. I called the office and they said it was normal and to pull them out. YUCK! Like someone waiting to be shot, I relunctly pulled the little strings that ended up being dissolveable sutures. It didn't hurt but was worrisome at the time. The exact same thing happend to Hubby so I believe it's common but not anything to worry about even though I think it's freaky and they should have warned us about it potentially happening instead of freaking us out.

After losing around 100 pounds, I began to develop pain around my port area. Take into consideration I was banded in 2005 and they used a larger port than the ones they use today.I believe the no longer place the ports on the lower left side as much sas the use to. I spoke with Dr. Powell's office and he suggested that I have a Port Revision done under local anesthesia. He stated it would be day surgery and it would be simple and easy under local. I said sign me up and made arrangements with a co-worker to help me with more of the bending/heavy stuff for a week or so afterward. One Friday afternoon at work I get a phone call from Sandy at his front desk asking me to go to Lab Corps to have my blood drawn. I asked why and she informed me that whenever a person is placed under General Anesthesia they must have current labs and blood available in case they need it. I told her no, that there must be a communication problem with what procedure I was to have the coming Monday. Come to find out that instead of me being put down for a simple port revision under local, Dr. Powell had decided to do a full blown exploritory surgery with general anesthesia. The only problem is they forgot to inform me, the patient who had a 10 month old and a full time job at the time. Needless to say I was upset and I cancelled the surgery.

This was the beginning of the bad experiences I had with Dr. Powell. I have another blog with dates and more precise issues that I faced in dealing with Dr. Powell at another one of my blogs. This blog is intended to hopefully document a new start in my life, not ponder over the many ways that Dr. Powell screwed all his patients. Let's just say that eventually EVERY LAST ONE of his patients were handed out to other physicians based on insurance. None of us got to choose who we went to. Which made for many unhappy folks. Dr. Robert O. Powell currently operates in California. He left his Texas patients high and dry and has moved onto another state to start the same old routine. I figure there are only 50 states and hopefully some day he will move on and find some obese Terrorists that pose a threat against America.

In closing, you may ask, why did she chose "Meeting Pamela" as the title to this post. Well, my band is named Pamela. Just like a famous actress we all know named Pamela. She is full of saline with a little silicone and has some crazy mood swings, she can be quite the litttle b1tch if you know what I mean!