Our story (my side)

[Chairboy]

My wife and I have both been overweight since we were teenagers. We tried a bunch of things over the years. At one point, my wife was actively working to get the gastric bypass surgery. I was very concerned about it and worried because of the mortality rate. Eventually, she put it on the backburner (possibly because of my worried questions and pestering) but we both kept trying to lose weight.

After a while, my wife found about about the lapband procedure, and we both read up about it. I was skeptical, but after a week, I was ready to make a decision. My wife and I discussed it and decided to both do it. She called Dr. Ortiz and was able to schedule us for a few weeks later.

We transferred money down and headed south. We parked at the San Diego airport and got picked up by someone from the doctor's office and headed across the border. We got our tests done, met some others getting the procedure, then went and checked into our hotel. We spent a last day as 'normal' fat people and visited some shops, then retired for the night.

In the morning, we got picked up and went to the hospital/clinic. After getting into some lovely hospital robes and being hooked up to IVs, I climbed onto the surgery table.

(SCENE MISSING)

I wake up, all bleary, remember asking about my wife, then passed out again for a few minutes. A few hours later, I'm out of bed and walking to check on my wife. We're both sore, but ok. I walk whenever I can, and read other times.

That night, I'm comfortable, but not sleeping great. I end up figuring out how to use the music channels on the TV. Neat feature, after a half a minute, the screen blanks out. Find some good electronic music, the room gets dark as the screen turns off, then I fall asleep.

Next morning, we go back to the hotel and chill there for the day and night.

We do our weeks of clear liquids and so on. We both feel pretty rotten during this time (gassy, bloated, can't burp as well as plenty of stomach-flu type stuff, uh, not throwing up) but as time passes, we both get better. I lose 10-15 lbs during this time. By one month, I'm back on solid food. I'm never hungry, but I DO notice how psychological hunger is because I keep wanting to eat when I'm not hungry. Hard to fight, but the band helps.

It's been a few weeks since then. Since week 2, my wife has been gone on business, but we're both doing the same stuff. I've been walking a lot, eating sparingly, and we've both lost weight.

I haven't had a fill yet, but I'm down a total of about 25lbs in 1.5 months. We're both eating a little more then we should, but once we get our fills, we figure it'll speed up.

My wife will probably join soon and post her side.

[Anne]

Thanks for your insight. I am soon going to go through this myself and I am excited but nervous.