kamala

University of Washington does not have a three year waiting list, not anywhere close. I went to their seminar in September, finished my preliminary appointments last month and am scheduled for lapband surgery on March 10. The staff is great and very helpful. Let me know if you have any other questions about UW and I'll help if I can.

Sounds like a good week for banding! I'm March 10.

Have UHC as my secondary insurance and had no problem getting approval once they had the denial letter from my primary insurance, which excludes WLS from coverage. (That's a fun phone call to make to an insurance co: "could you please send my rejection quicker?") UHC only required a five-year weight history since I have a BMI over 40 and have been above 40 for five years.

My next phase starts in earnest today! We're having a Biggest Loser challenge at my gym and first elimination date is March 7, right before my surgery. No day like today to get going.

I'm scheduled for March 10 unless I get moved up. Just got my insurance approval in the mail on Friday.

The Lance Armstrong Foundation is once again sponsoring the LIVESTRONG Challenge in four cities this year: Seattle, Philly, San Jose, and Austin. There are walking, running, and cycling events, with a variety of different lengths for different skill levels. The events are six to ten months away, so plenty of time to put your band to good use in training to stretch yourself for a great cause. I'm getting banded in March and already training to complete the 100-mile bike ride in Seattle this coming June. A favorite bike blogger of mine is a guy who knows the challenges of being overweight and has put together teams in all four LIVESTRONG cities in honor of his wife, Susan, who is fighting cancer herself. His blog is at www.fatcyclist.com and the post on Team Fatty is here: Team Fatty Livestrong Challenge. You can go directly to the Team Fatty page for the city in which you would like to participate by following these links: Austin Philadelphia San Jose Seattle Any other bandsters interested in taking the LIVESTRONG Challenge in 2009!?

Awesome! We're happy to have everyone on the team!

Land use and municipal governance attorney. All desk, all the time. Tentatively scheduled for March 10 banding pending insurance approval.

I'm at least 3-4 months from surgery. I've gotten back into exercising and eating properly over the last few months, consequently the weight is falling off at a great rate (395 to 366 since September). I feel like I'm eating healthily rather than "dieting" and I'm really enjoying my exercise program at a small gym in town. I'm still going through with all the lap-band appointments for now, but I feel like I will be very conflicted about having the surgery if I'm still doing this well after another few months. Has anyone else had this experience? Thoughts? Questions I should be asking myself to resolve decision one way or another? Past threads that might shed some light?

Just hit the belt extender on the planes in the last year or so. Haven't even considered going to an amusement park in about 10 years despite the fact that I love rides. What really kickstarted me into considering surgery though was my last scuba diving trip. No longer fit into my very expensive gear and had to thumb the dive (end the dive) on the surface because I couldn't catch my breath after struggling to get into my gear and it not fitting properly around my chest. Scuba is my favorite thing to do and even if I got bigger gear, I would consider myself a threat to my own safety right now. Going to some band seminars this month and starting the process of picking a doc.

Having once been a fairly healthy and very active outdoorsman, a big part of looking into the band is to return to a weight where I can safely participate in the outdoor activities I love. For example, at or near goal weight, two of the trips I would be planning are to climb Mount Rainier and Kilimanjaro. Both are extended duration trips at altitude where the average person might be burning around 3000-5000 calories per day while needing to consume large amounts of Fluid to remain hydrated. Not exactly optimal conditions for having a narrow stomach. Has anyone here done any activities like this after banding? What does one do to accommodate the band? If you are completely unfilled, is your stomach completely unrestricted? Any thoughts or guidance to other resources would be greatly appreciated.

Anyone had surgery performed by one of these docs at the UW Bariatric Surgery Center in Seattle?