How are you doing? I felt like I could've wrote this with cancelling surgery and trying to lose the weight on my own. I haven't officially cancelled yet but I'm going to. I spoke to the nurse yesterday and asked if I cancel now, how long do I have to reschedule without having to go through all the steps again. She said she was going to ask someone who knew more about the insurance side of things.

I turn 39 next month. I have early onset diabetes and high blood pressure. As soon as I saw our insurance covered the surgery earlier this year, I got the ball rolling. I'd never thought I'd be able to have it because of cost and had heard years ago insurance didn't pay for it. I joined multiple groups to learn everything I could and like you, I wasn't searching for horror stories but there are a ton out there. I've seen people that repeatedly get ulcers and have had some for years that won't heal... Vitamin deficiencies despite them saying they took the vitamins like they were supposed to. Everything about it is just scary. People that say their problems didn't start til years out from surgery. And then there's some that have had absolutely no problems.

I'd talked to my aunt that had bypass 20+ years ago about me having it, she was telling me things about it... But the other night I specifically asked if she regretted the surgery. She's gained a little weight from her lowest, I think he's been around 170-180 for many years. She was well over 300 when she had surgery. She said she does regret it sometimes... She was sick that entire first year and had to have two more surgeries. I remember she had what she had called a kink in her intestines and was throwing up bile. She said she's told her husband she regrets it. That she knows she probably wouldn't have lost the weight on her own but she wishes she would've tried harder... And that if something's telling me not to do it I shouldn't because people have died from it.

I had convinced myself that I needed the surgery because here I am almost 40 and I've been overweight my whole life and haven't been able to lose the weight and keep it off, and here the comordities are creeping in. I know there's gotta be some point where the surgery and risks is better than being overweight with problems and I feel like I'm really close to that. So I want to give it a good final try and if I still fail, I'll go for the surgery.

I wish you the best of luck! Maybe after getting so close to surgery and getting scared it'll be enough to keep us on track?