Post Op info class

Tonight I had an appointment at Lahey, well I thought I had 2, but it turned out into being a class with a few other ladies there. It hosted by the other bariatric nurse & nutritionist (we get assigned a team, but I've met the other "team" during these group meetings). It was an overall good presentation with some good to know info. It started off with the nurse giving an us an idea what to expect on the day of surgery & how to best prepare. The 2nd portion was the nutritionist going over our after surgery diet & supplements.

I thought that I already knew quite a bit from reading other folk's posts, but I did learn some things tonight:

• No driving for 1 week after the surgery
  
• Prior to the surgery, no vitamins for 2 weeks & no pain medications other than Tylenol
  
• Breathing exercises 40-50 times day (to help prevent pneumonia)
  
• No gas-x strips required, they'll provide some if needed (after I just ordered some, of course)
  
• Prilosec for 1 month & Actigall (gallstone prevention) for 6 months
  
• Bye Bye steak & pork for about 3 months. Also raw veggies other than lettuce & tomatoes
  
• If a food gets stuck, DO NOT TAKE A SIP of something to try to fix it (get up and walk around instead)
  
• Being full is not going to be experienced the same way. Hiccups, burps or a runny nose could be the signal
  

I had been growing a little concerned seeing people posting about dealing with their insurance companies & with approval/denial forms. It seems Lahey took care of all that, and if an issue does/did come up they try to resolve it. Pretty nice

Overall, feeling pretty good. Next week has a total of 7 appointments for me (groan) but I think some of them will just kinda slide into one another (hospital admissions to the nurse examination, etc) so it shouldn't be too too bad. The reality of all this is starting to lurk back into the picture, but I'm not freaking out again (yet).