So here is a funny thing that happened to me. This past Monday morning at 4 am I awoke from a sound sleep with pain in my chest centered just over my heart. At first I thought something that will just past perhaps, but it didn't. So to make a long story short, me and the wife headed to the ER. Now I will spare you several details like how many time they missed my veins etc.

now the first ER nurse I had asks me about my history and she sees my medic alert necklace and asks about it and I of course say i had WLS on December 16th etc. SO she says, "Oh i had a gastric bypass in October." So we hit it off talking about all things WLS etc. Just a weird coincidence right. So onward, I gt scheduled for a nuclear stress test. and the nurse in the stress testing room says" oh you had the sleeve done, my sister and my mother both had it done a year ago." then a nursing student who is there watching the whole thing says" my mother had it a year ago as well." Now I'm like huh, this is a very very big coincidence. However it gets worse. Before I was discharged I was discussing my symptoms etc with a very thin nurse practitioner who says" i had my gastric sleeve done 1.5 years ago at the same hospital you did by the same doctor."

WHAT ARE THE ODDS HERE PEOPLE?

Seriously, out of like the 6 nurses and staff i had almost all had either had wls or had a direct family member who had. I know WLS is more popular etc. But lets face it, i did not expect any of this. It certainly made this experience easier, and i certainly did bond with these people a lot more than any other nurse etc. My when the last nurse practitioner said she had had WLS with the same surgeon i did and the same hospital, ( which is not close to us at all, so its very weird) My wife looked at me dumbfounded.

Now just as an FYI, It turns out i have an inflamed area of my rib cage muscles centered just over my heart, due to stress and exertion ( all that spring cleaning and lifting bags of old clothes and tubs of books etc, plus i had stepped up my workouts a bit kinda pushed it too hard evidently.)

What a weird set of coincidences.

How many people have you met, outside of here or weight loss places that have had WLS? any of them surprise you?

I think WLS is much more common than we all realize because many people tend to not talk about it, especially once it's old news and they've lost most of their weight. After I had my surgery, I found out that several people I've worked with for several years had some sort of WLS in the past.

Also, it seems to run heavily in different career fields - long hours, high stress, sedentary.

I know of three people who have had it. I'm currently going through the insurance hoops

I only know one other person who has had WLS. She was not banded

And she is happy also????