Kat Crowder

That's great that you're not nervous. I'm curious how they plan the pre-surgery prep stuff when you have to fly to get there, because my bowel prep is the day before my surgery. Are you on water only, or fasting?

Yay, one week! I have a week and a half, it seems so much farther away than a week!

That's kind of how I expect it to be - tough but worth it. I've never had any sort of surgery except wisdom teeth extraction with twilight anesthesia, so I'm a bit nervous about that, but I'm trying not to be too anxious. I'm glad you're home and on happy pills!

Well, user BlackBerryJuice sure has abs!

Good luck! There are so many little hurdles that we encounter - even if there's a delay, you'll get there! *hugs*

Good luck!

I'm May 21, too! I didn't realize there were a couple May threads on here. I moved away from Seattle in 2005, I miss it a lot. Soooo beautiful!

Yay for the benign-ness of cysts! How soon after the surgery did you wake up, and where were you? I realized I haven't seen that mentioned elsewhere.

So, I had all my pre-surgical testing today, and apparently I have an abnormal EKG and gallstones. After briefly panicking and then doing some research, both of those seem pretty common. My primary care doctor will look at the EKG tomorrow and either consult with a cardiologist and clear me for surgery, or have me go in for something else. I'll talk to the surgeon about the gall bladder, but I think I'm going to choose to keep it in for now and only deal with it if I actually have problems in the future. Since we're planning a single site surgery and the gall bladder may require a larger incision, I'm just as happy letting it stay in place until (or unless) it becomes a problem. I went to The Melting Pot for my last meal before going on the 2 week liquid diet, and I managed to put on 7 pounds overnight! It must be mostly Water retention, but golly! I have a Withings scale which automatically sends the weight and body fat calcs to my computer, and decides which subscribed user was weighed by the weights in the system, and I was too far off from any other weights for it to believe it was me - I had to manually assign it to my weight line. Anyway, that's how things stand with this upcoming May sleever!

I'm pre-op, so I don't know what I'm going to think afterwards, but I absolutely love the Bariatric Advantage vanilla meal replacement shake that I'm using for my pre-op diet. Blended with water and ice, it really tastes like a vanilla milkshake. Yum!

I'm a little leery of this, since a lot of folks have said this is the hardest part. Plus, tomorrow I have 2 tests that require food-and-drink fasting, so after my first day of 600-900 cals I go without food and water for 14 hours, then quick squeak in a shake before fasting for another 6 hours. Kinda tough. Going to make it, though! :-)

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Thanks, all - today is Day 1 of 14, with my surgery on May 21. I'm very excited! I get 4-5 Bariatric Advantage shakes + other clear and sugar free liquids (Jello, popsicles, too). My last unsleeved diet, a great way to look at it. I'm wondering how I'm going to feel about working out these next two weeks before surgery. I'm going to miss my pole dance classes while I'm recuperating, I hope I'm up for it while I'm pre-op, but a lot of folks have mentioned being really weak. I probably can throw another Protein shake in if I'm exerting myself in class - extra protein shouldn't be too bad. I'll talk to the nutritionist.

What an awesome story I love the way primal eating makes me feel, and that's my ultimate goal for eating, after I go through my surgery (2 weeks from now) and get to the point when I can eat that sort of food again. Primal was my last ditch effort to lose weight before deciding for sure to do the surgery, and I managed 6 great weeks before I got back on the nasty carb train again which just compounds itself with my carb addiction. I'm looking forward to having the sleeve as a tool to keep me on track, and starting and keeping my new food habits. But, I first need to go through liquid pre-op, liquid post-op, and go through all my mushy steps until I can eat real foods again. One step at a time, as well as long term goals!

I'm May 21, also - but it will be done locally in the Chicago area!

After all the run around they gave me about not being able to schedule the surgery until I finished all my appointments, and at first not having an opening for a dietary class until June 26th (!!!), I just got my date! I'll be starting my pre-op diet next week, and I have to admit that I'm having a Farewell to food meal at the Melting Pot on Sunday. Super excited! -Kat

Hi, Carrie! Good to hear from you! I'm in a similar boat to you, and deciding that it really is necessary has been a big weight off my chest. People here are great and supportive, aren't they? The surgery is going to help us improve our health, and it's so important. It's disappointing that your mom's not being supportive, but you need to do it for you, not anyone else. *hugs*

Oh, Louisiana Girl, that is great to hear! I didn't know what sort of weight loss profile I might get, starting at the lower end of weight to lose, and was trying to be very reasonable in my expectations, as faster weight loss is more likely in those with a lot more to lose, since they're going into a much greater energy deficit than what their body needs. I should be sleeved in June some time, depending on scheduling, but I need to get some classes done and an ultrasound before they schedule it. Would you mind sharing your personal recuperation information? There's such a wide range of anecdotal information, from the people going straight back to work to the people taking 4 weeks off work and wishing they'd taken more. I'm hoping the latter is more related to people who have more weight related complications. When were you able to start doing more exercise than just walking? I know everyone's different, and I'll just have to see, but I'm a nut about planning things. Thanks, -Kat

That's not the pre-Paleo kitchen purge you're supposed to do! Seriously, though, I think Paleo is a great way of eating, and if I did a good job of sticking to it presurgery, I wouldn't be getting sleeved in a month or so. My 6 month presurgical diet was Paleo, and I felt great for the first month, lost about 10 pounds, then the holidays came and I failed to follow it more often than not. Once I'm post surgery and back to real foods, I intend to follow it in a modified fashion.

What I wonder is, is there any downside to working my abdominal muscles before surgery? Maybe I'm just looking for an excuse to slack during my exercise class, but shouldn't weaker and thinner abdominal muscles mean less needs to be cut through and damaged? Or is it better to have good healthy muscle to encourage growth and healing?

Insurance approved, I'll be able to schedule my surgery after a few more appts. in May, so I should be sleeved in June at Alexian Bros. Who is your surgeon?

It was my results from my sleep study that scared me into definitely pursuing this. My oxygen levels get scary-low if I sleep without my CPAP. Like, potential-brain-damage-y low. I thought I was such a lazy loser for not feeling like getting out of bed in the morning for work - but I didn't feel like my brain was working because it wasn't! Sleep apnea can be a killer, please use your CPAP machine. It can make you feel like a new person. I had one of my best weight loss and maintain periods when I was first diagnosed with sleep apnea in 2004 - went from 230 down to 150, felt alive and like exercising and such. But I stopped using it when the apnea went away for a while, and my habits got worse and I gained the weight and the apnea back with a vengeance.

It seems like there's a wide range of pre-op requirements and sequences of events that different practices are requiring. What seems most common? Should I be frustrated by ineptitude or just think it's par for the course? I met with my surgeon for the first time in November, after talking to my PCP about getting surgery and being encouraged by her. After that meeting, they seemed well organized, set me up with appointments for my psych evaluation and starting my 6 month pre-op weight management program. In December, I ran across information that BCBS-IL was planning to remove their requirements for the 6 month program, and at a meeting in October they said the change would occur within about a month. I followed up with BCBS-IL, the surgeon's office, and the professional organization who had held the meeting with BCBS's parent company, and all said, "Hm, we'll follow up on that and let you know." So I went about my business attending my classes through March, when the surgeon's office called me and said "we've submitted you for insurance today because they dropped the 6 month requirement in early February." Thanks, everyone, for telling me! So, up until yesterday we've been going through stupid insurance loops because I'm convinced that the insurance coordinator at my surgeon sucks, and she said that she was going to wait to "send me my 'next steps' sheet" until I was approved. My next steps involve setting up more tests that need to be completed before scheduling surgery, and then they will schedule more pre-op tests after surgery is scheduled, but they have to be completed at least 2 weeks before the surgery. Today I tried to schedule the abdominal ultrasound and the "gastric sleeve dietary information class", which must be done before they schedule the surgery, and the earliest available dates were 5/15 and 6/23. WTF?!?!?!?!? So when I was meeting with the nutritionist for the past 4 months, how does that not meet the dietary information class? And regardless of any of this, why couldn't I get this scheduled and handled ages ago, and why does this need to be done before scheduling the surgery? And if I have to wait until the surgery is scheduled to do my upper GI, chest x-ray, EKG, and blood work, if this is how scheduling goes, how the heck am I going to be able to get in for the tests a whole 2 weeks before surgery? With none of these things being parallel-pathed, it looks like the end of July at the earliest. So many other people are saying "my insurance is approved and my surgery is in a week!" - I just don't understand why this is so f'd up. -Kat

I agree with the people who said to maybe look around for another psychologist, but someone who works with or is recommended by the surgeon's practice would be a good idea. There are an awful lot of potential psychological effects of having major surgery and being unable to use food as any sort of coping or comfort mechanism, as well as changes in your interactions with people as you lose weight and start being perceived differently. It's a big deal, and the idea is to make sure you're prepared to handle the changes now, or that you receive additional counseling and support to help you handle the changes. People do get transfer addictions when food's out of the picture, and it can be a scary ugly thing. I'm glad there are a lot of steps to getting insurance approval for this, and I feel I'm much better prepared for it because of it. -Kat

Congrats to you!