Andrew

I bent over to pick up my infant son from his crib and I felt a disc pop in my back. After I blew my back out everything became very very difficult. I was a fairly active guy, I owned a home at the time, you know did all the usually housekeeping kind of stuff, yard work, lawn work that kind of thing. But boy after blowing my back out it got very difficult, and over the next 10 or 11 years the weight just started to pile on.

My father was 65 when he died. He actually came home on his 65 birthday, didn’t even get to retire from work or enjoy any of this older life, came home and about a week and a half later he was gone. He had been diabetic for many many years, and I knew of the struggles he’d had with it and I knew I had to do something about my own weight because I didn’t want to wind up with the same complications he did. After I got home just going through all that experience I just shook my head and said I’ve got to do something about this. I don’t want to end up dying like he did.

Dr. Baptista and I had discussed all the various options, and we decided that the vertical sleeve was the best choice for me. It’s been about 4 months; I had the surgery about 4 months ago. It’s weird because as of now I’ve probably lost about 100 to 110 pounds*, and I just had the surgery at the end of April. In a way I feel like I’ve almost cheated, like it shouldn’t have come off this quick and if I don’t watch it the shoe is going to drop and it’s all going to come back on.

My insurance company actually paid for most of it, and I’m so happy with it that if they asked me to pay all the money back tomorrow I would pay every penny back. If that’s what they wanted. Yeah it’s worth it. Absolutely, I’ve probably added 20 years on my life. I just helped a friend of mine move into a new apartment 2 weeks ago, I wouldn’t have been able to do that a year ago. No way, I would have carried three boxes and been done.

One of the things I think is really critical to the success of this, do exactly what he tells you. Follow everything to the T. If you’re going to go under, if you’re going to get operated on for something this drastic, follow through and do exactly what he says.

Now I’ve had no back pain since having this done, I guess the pressure is reduced both vertically on my spine. When you have a big belly pulls on all the discs in your back that’s gone now. It’s kind of weird because a couple of weeks ago when I helped my friend move I kept thinking okay when’s it going to start, and it never did I moved all day long. I can tell you that Dr. Baptista cares about his patients greatly, he cares about his patients so greatly that after I had my surgery my wife came in and said look I’ve had the band it’s kind of working, kind of not at times, I want the sleeve. And he said no, I’m not going to cut on you, you’ve had one surgery I want you to make this band work for you. I don’t cut people open just to collect money; he goes I treat people because they’re people. And he’s really worked with her and coached her a lot. So I don’t know what higher recommendation I can give.

For More Information on Weight Loss Surgery.

For more information on bariatric surgery, or to schedule a consultation with Dr. Baptista, please contact Florida Surgical Physicians today.

*Results are not guaranteed and may differ from person to person.



Andrew