julielle

Oh grrrr I just realized I'd have to do customs twice in one day (US and then Canada), that's gonna be a bundle of fun. They always look at you like you're shady, I want to break down and confess all my sins whenever they stare at me. I guess it works.

I'm in the process of transferring movies and tv shows to my laptop and ipad! I have 5 movies and the last few weeks worth of shows that I follow so I should be good!

Well I'd love to have BOTH! I don't even know if I can chew gum... I didn't ask. I have lots of different flavors of yogurt so at last I can switch it up, I do miss actually biting into something though! It'll be a while before that happens again I guess!

My pre-op diet is only yogurt I asked if I could have broth or other clear liquids and was told no, I would kill for a big hot bowl of broth right now, I'm really not so much into sweet things so a little bit of yogurt is fine, but all day only yogurt has gotten old and it's only day 2.

ERp yeah, I'm in Canada so we got Dell Voice, I have it on my iPad and my smartphone, it allowed us to make calls from anywhere using the wifi (or it lets us text too). Google Voice would be the equivalent for americans but I think you need to set it up while you're in the US? Can you download the Skype application onto your smartphone using wifi?

Yes, I'll have my ipad with me and I'm pretty addicted to the internet so as long as I'm awake and the wifi is up I am sure i'll check in!

None for me, I booked the surgery 3 weeks ago, and I'm having it on sunday Purposefully booked it fast so I wouldnt' have time to second guess myself too much!

I'm at like 49.5 or something, I'm squeaking in just under the line.

I'm hungry too! It feels like I could eat all the yogurt in the world and I'd still be hungry because it doesn't feel like it has any substance. I want to chew on something! I don't even know if I'm allowed gum so I'm just dealing. Hoping the hurricane/storms don't impact my flight sunday morning, my layover is in Newark So I'll be super stressed if the storm is near, and then i'll have surgery after landing, yay!

Guys, I am a real internet psychologist (no I'm really not), but this is what I figure: People are more likely to join a message board to talk about a horrible experience than a good one. Or a neutral one. Verticalsleevetalk is a pretty big forum, along with ObesityHelp they'd show up at the top of any Google search for someone looking for a chance to tell their story. If Dr Alvarez had a lot of complications in a lot of patients, a % of those would surely have come here to mention it. Instead you only see good (or maybe neutral) posts. Since we know people are less likely to talk about the good than the bad, this alone would tell me that the Dr knows what he's doing. But let's say that I don't do message boards at all, I don't use the internet much, and so I don't feel I need to come here to give a negative opinion. I wonder where that person would have found the Dr to begin with, I mean I doubt American surgeons would be telling their patients "If you can't afford me, I know this guy in Mexico...". Anyways, totally not saying that a person can't have had a bad experience with him. It's surgery after all, it's not a vacation, we don't know what their bad experience was either. For one person, a bad experience could simply be "He cut my stomach and it HURT! I was in pain for DAYS!". I don't know what their experience was, so I can't judge if it's something that would personally bother me. If after talking to these people who won't come online and post their experiences, if you feel they have legit reasons, then just cross this doctor off your list. I mean you don't want to be going into surgery thinking you've made a bad choice. It's not like there are not many other qualified surgeons to choose from.

Good luck toda free@last In other awesome news, EVERYONE in my household is sick right now. My 3 year old son is not so bad, just some sniffles. My 6 year old daughter though, I was up half the night with her because she'd have non stop coughing fits, a stuffy nose, just miserable. I would take her into a steamy bathroom, propped her bed up, attempted to unclog her nostrils with saline, rubbed Vicks all over her, ugh. And my husband started coughing and feeling like crap last night. So I'm sure I'm already infected and just don't know it yet. That'll be super fun having coughing fits with all those fresh incisions, ugh ugh.

Whew good news the Dr will fit me in on the sunday so all is good and my date remains unchanged What a load off my mind!

I'm with Jaime Ponce de Leon, this is no error of his though, this is a breakdown in communication with the coordinator I guess! I would honestly rather be at home recuperating too but, we're talking about the difference of a night in a hotel and a night at home, not a night in the hospital and a night at home. I'd still be doing the 2 nights at the hospital, I'd just get no hotel stay. It would have been nice to have a stress free day in a real bed to recuperate before having to spend all day flying (Leave San Diego at 11am and get home at midnight, blech!) My issue is that If they felt it was safe to let everyone go home after only 2 nights, then why wouldn't they do that to everyone? If they make everyone stay an extra night in a hotel it must be for a reason, that's what worries me.

Ugh yep, she has me down for the wrong day. I'm not sure what to do. I have several emails from her where she confirms that I'm having surgery on the 28th, and now suddenly she's basically saying that we always agreed on the 29th. So I have 1 less day to recover which just makes me feel oh so much more secure in my decision to fly to Mexico for surgery because I have to come home a whole day early

I read the book he wrote, I think you could find most of the same information on his Youtube channel. I can't say if the town he practices in is safe or not, but I know a lot of people rave about that surgeon. I know what you mean about waiting times, in Quebec where I live it's a 3 year waiting list for the surgeries, that's not because of pre-op testing that's just because so many people want the surgery. I wasn't willing to wait, hence I go to Mexico. I had to fill out a pre-op questionaire where I had to disclose any issues, so that's where you'd tell them about your asthma etc. They do bloodwork and some pre op testing the day (or the night before) your surgery but I'm not sure how extensive. I know that they told me that if I had a CPAP machine that I should bring it. I guess it's assumed that you'd have kept up reasonably well with your own preventative screenings with your doctor at home and things like apnea would have come out by now? I guess the best way to get an answer for your questions would be to send him an enquiry, I'm sure he (or whoever he uses to help him book surgeries) would be able to answer you and advise what they do for higher risk patients. I do know that as a higher risk patient, I think Dr Alverez is a good choice. Another that I hear very good things about is Dr Aceves, maybe look into him as well, they have similar prices I think (they're both around 9k?)

The surgery has been done for a long time as the first phase in the duodenal switch surgery. Also it really is a simple surgery, less than an hour... I mean yes it's a major surgery but it's not a complicated one, there's no bypass and doctors don't really need years and years of study to know how to do this. That said, dr Alvarez has a lot of Youtube videos here that might help you with your decision: https://www.youtube.com/user/Endobariatric?feature=watch

Erp kind of stressful when the coordinator doesn't seem to remember booking you on a certain date! Hoping it was just a misunderstanding and I'm all set to go on the 28th, if not then I guess I might be going in for surgery on the 29th... which isn't a huge deal but my flight home is the 31st and that's one less day to recover before flying, argh! Hope it works out.

That would be contrary to every post I've ever read about him, I didn't choose him myself because he was out of my price range, but I think 100% of the reviews and notes I read about him were quite positive. If you have spoken to "several" people who've had serious problems with him I think they probably have an agenda and are trying to sell you on another surgeon, it would not be the first time that someone badmouths someone else to try to steer some business away. But honesty, just do a search on the forum, I don't think you'll find anything bad about this dr, he's probably just as good or better than a good percentage of the doctors in North America, I'd have zero qualms choosing him. I chose a different doctor because in the end price was important to me too, if I could find a doctor that was safe and had a good rating and a better price, that's what I chose.

Alvarez is a great doctor, not sure where you've read that he's not.

Good to know. The Unjury ones I ordered all have a ton of the RDA, they're optimized for gastric bypass so they have even more than we need, and it's all the good kinds. It's just that their calcium chews is lacking a bit since it would only give me 1250 and the recommendation is 1500-2000. I suppose I could also just eat an extra chew, but they're pretty expensive vitamins, it's about 20$ a month for the calcium alone.

I booked my tickets 3 weeks out. I decided to have surgery and I wanted it NOW, so 3 weeks out was the soonest that had affordable tickets. I wish I could have booked it for last week because it would all be over and behind me now but the price was about 3 times more Normally I book about 2 months out for regular tickets. And I try to travel on tuesdays and wednesdays because those seem to be the cheapest days, sundays too.

I ordered the

Mine are 400$ round trip Burlington (Vermont) to San Diego. That's booked directly with United, and booking Economy Plus on the flight home. I checked the prices on Farecompare.com first and then usually book directly with the airlines. My parents had some really bad experience when they booked through Expedia once, one of their flights got cancelled and they got stuck at Newark airport, and Expedia would not help them, and the airline would not either because they hadn't booked directly through the airline. Anyways, for my flights I connect in Newark on the way there, and Chicago on the way home. If I had the choice I'd book Virgin America because they're just a lovely airline, but they're not convenient for a San Diego flight.

I understand the wisdom of having a pillow to press to your incisions when you cough or need to get up or do something like that, it was a real lifesaver when I had my c-section. I guess I just figured that hospitals would let us have an extra pillow for this use if we asked them, I guess that's not the case? I'm only packing a carry on and a pillow would take up half of it.

I don't actually own any bras without underwires, do you think I should invest in one or can I make do with the underwire bras? They're so expensive, I'd hate to spend 50$ on something that I'll wear a week and then never again. I work from home so I don't even really need to wear a bra when I'm at home. I was thinking of bringing some saline nasal spray, I'm afraid that without Water it'll get dry, dry mouth, dry nose! Hopefully they let me rinse my mouth out a lot, I think the dryness will be the worst part for me. I'm bringing my iPad and I'll make sure it has a lot of tv shows and movies on it, and I also have Netflix so if the wi-fi is fast enough then I can watch that too.