If you pay cash for the surgery you wont need to wait 3 months or worry about the insurance. I usually use the initial visit weight when submitting to insurance companies, so that way if they lost some weight during the medically supervised diet it shouldn't be an issue.
It sounds to me that you advanced your diet too fast. You should be on a puree or soft diet at the most. My patients are not allowed to eat meat or regular consistency food for 7-8 weeks after surgery. You should not be eat bread at all. Hot dogs are junk food. Hope this helps.
There is always risk with anesthesia specially at older age or with many medical conditions but for the most part the likelihood that a patient will not wake up or die during or immediately after anesthesia is very low.
Not every surgeon uses blue dye on the balloon so you won't see any changes on the urine. The classic symptoms are weight regained, loss of full sensation or early satiety.
Congrats on your current success. It is very normal to see the protrusion of the balloon through the abd wall specially after weight loss
