Lap Band Surgery: Don's Success Story

My name is Don Adams. Ihave been a large person my entire life. I can remember being a fat little kid. I was always self conscious of it. As I got older I guess my parents noticed it was becoming a problem and started trying to get me on diets. I remember diets from as early as 10. I remember taking my lunch to school so I could be on the diet and drinking diet drinks instead of regular drinks. I don’t think any of these diets were ever successful. The only time I ever really remember losing any weight growing up was the couple years that I walked home from school everyday carrying my Trombone. (I was in Band from the 6th grade on; I didn’t really realize I was losing weight till my mom took me to get pictures made and didn’t take either of my sister or brother. Not really sure how much I lost at that point as it wasn’t really an issue to me.

As time progressed I gained all the weight back and continued to gain as I got older. By time I was in High School I remember getting teased by others from a distance as they would not say it to my face. Not only was I way over weight but I have also always been tall. In High School I stood 6’2” weighing in at about 300+. That’s when I realized how hard it was to sit in school desk. It was becoming a very tight fit. 

I continued to gain even after school and I started life in the real world. I guess I started protecting myself as I would stay clear of places that were hard to “fit” in. For instance, I wouldn’t go to specific restaurants that only had booths, or armed chairs. This made it easy to ignore my weight problems. I have always been into cars and fixing up hotrods. When it got to where I could not fit in the normal hotrod, I realized it was becoming quite the issue. I was still in denial at this time I think though.

As I got older I became lonelier. I had a lot of friends to take up my time till they all got married off or moved on in their lives. By time I turned 30 I had decided I would always be alone so I decided to just purchase a home and move on with my life. In all honesty, all this did for me was give me some walls to hide behind. It basically turned me into a hermit.

I seriously started looking into getting weight loss surgery when I was in my late 20’s and my insurance would not pay for it. I fought them on it for a few years. After multiple rejections I then decided I would probably never be able to be normal. The timing was probably good as the surgery I was fighting for was the Bypass. Really glad I didn’t get it approved.

Once I heard about the Band Procedure, I was hooked. Never again would I even consider the bypass. I read about it ALOT over the next year while I once again started fighting the insurance company. I couldn’t for the life of me figure out why they would not approve it since it was about one third the price of the bypass. I thought about it all the time. I knew that I could afford this one if insurance would not cover it. After getting the final rejection from them I started checking into loans. I knew I could make payments I just wasn’t interested in the interest to where I would be paying on it for the next 10 years so I had to figure out a way to pay it off on the fast track.

As I looked for ways to pay it off my knees started hurting a lot. My mom had both her knees replaced and I didn’t want to go thru that so I stated getting creative in ways to pay for the Weight Loss Surgery. I was talking to my parents about ways I could do it and I brought up renting out my house. They said I could stay with them rent free if I decided to do this so that’s exactly what I did. Once I found the renters I was in my parents home about a week (at age 33, imagine!!!) when I called and scheduled it with Judy. It was scheduled for 2 weeks after that call. I did some work that night to get my plane tickets and such. I had it all scheduled before I even asked for the time off from work. My mind was made up, I was going regardless. My work was not a problem, and they gave me my vacation with no hassles.

Surgery was October 20th, 2003. I had surgery at 3:30 in the afternoon and by 8:00pm I was up walking the Hospital. Surgery in Mexico was almost like going on vacation. I was treated like a king from time Sady picked me up at the airport till Sady and Alma walked me to my gate when I left. The Hospital in Monterrey (Santa Engracia) is a very nice place. The room was very nice and the nursing staff was exceptional. I was never nervous and enjoyed getting to know the Doctor’s entire staff.

It has been 17 months now since surgery. The day of surgery I weighed in at 451 lbs. Today, I weigh 281 lbs. I am down 170 lbs. I have about 60 to 80 lbs. more to go. My life has changed in many ways. I think I have gained much more then I have lost. I have gained mobility, tons of banded friends that feel like a new family. I have had several NSV’s (non scale victories) such as last October when I flew back to Monterrey; I fit in the plane seat no problem and didn’t even need the seat belt extender. This was a first in my entire adult life. I am smaller today then I was when I was 16 so it is like I am getting a second chance, and I am!

Life gets better everyday. I am finally starting to feel normal. Thank You Doctor and your entire staff!!

Don Adam

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