Is Weight Loss Surgery for YOU?

It's OLD NEWS that I had Weight Loss Surgery in 2007.
Yes, I had a Lap Band implanted 7 years ago.
Since then, I have lost over 100 lbs...give or take a pound here and a pound there.  
So, yes....my weight loss surgery of choice was an excellent tool to give me back my life and my health.
If you have been following my blog for any length of time, you know that my  journey has been filled with lots of ups and downs and lessons learned and lessons learned again...and again and again.
And, in between all of that, I have lived my life and shared my stories and moaned and groaned a bit and gave recipes and paraded my pictures for all to see....and then some.
Because that's what living with a Lap Band is all about....
The Lap band was not and IS NOT a magic bullet but it has been and continued to be my saving grace. 
It gave me what I needed to do the work that I needed to do....for me.  
Today, I sit here a far cry from the woman I was a little over 7 years ago.....a 250 pound woman who was unhappy in her own skin and feeling the daily tortures of being morbidly obese.  
My story before that fateful August day in 2007 is not any different from any other person who has battled weight.
I did all of the programs out there---Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Bariatic Weight Loss, the pill mills, the diet doctors, the OTC stuff and on and on and on......yes, I did it all.  
Getting my Lap Band was the only tool that helped me to lose the weight and keep it off.
IT CHANGED MY LIFE.  And, that's no small thing....
Yet, I often wonder--especially when I think of others who didn't have the same success-- if I would have been as successful with it at another point of my life? 
Was it just my time?  Was I just so ready for something to work for me?  Was I stronger?  Was I more devoted?  Were the moon and the stars just aligned perfectly for me? 
I will never know the answers to those questions.
What I do know is that seven years ago I got a Lap Band and I was able to make it work for me.
I'm thankful and to be perfectly honest--I'm pretty damn proud that I did it.
Because seriously folks.......knowing myself as I do, this was a huge accomplishment.....

Every once in awhile, someone will stumble upon my blog and send me a private message asking me a list of questions about weight loss surgery or about my Lap band.  I'm always very happy to share my views and provide the answers that I have found along my journey.  Sometimes they come back to tell me what they eventually decided to do or to let me know if I helped them or they come back with more questions.  But, more often than not, I am never really sure what happened to them.  I just always hope that I helped them in some way....
About a year ago, a woman who I have known casually in our neighborhood for many years asked me if she could hitch a ride back and forth to work with me for a few days since was attending a conference on our campus.  Our daily trips through traffic made for some welcomed conversations.  As typical with most woman-to-woman conversations, we found ourselves talking quite a bit about weight and diets.  Naturally, I told her about my Lap Band surgery.  At the time, she didn't ask many questions but about a month later, she reached out to me to tell me she was "looking into weight loss surgery" and she asked me a few questions.  That was the last I heard from her or saw her until I ran into her early this summer at our local farmers' market.  As we chatted about nothing in particular, I wondered if she ever followed through on anything with the surgery.  Of course, being the polite girl that I am, I didn't want to ask.....
Fast forward to a few weeks later.....when I ran into her again at the farmer's market.  We were both standing around a demo on drying herbs.    When the demo was over, we chatted a bit about the herb demo and other food-related things.......when, all of sudden our conversation somehow turned to weight loss.  That's when the woman said...."you know, I looked into getting weight loss surgery and it wasn't for me....".    
So, it got me to thinking about how you know if weight loss surgery is a good choice before you even do it.  Because, damn, I only figured out it was a good choice for me AFTER I had it done.....!!
So, I throw this question out into the blogisphere---how do you know that Weight Loss Surgery is for you?
Anyone?