southernsoul

June 19th, and I'm ready!

That's awesome!!! Good for you!

I love olive oils and try different ones all the time. A recent great discovery is the brand California Olive Ranch. I read about a bunch of awards they had received & I was thrilled to find it at my local grocery store. Each bottle includes a harvest date, and the pressing technique they use is exceptional. I've never been much into avocados, but now I'm going to work on that. Thanks so much for this post!

I now have a new NSV goal on my list. Yee-haw!!!

Congratulations! I just got approval this week, too! Woo hoo for both of us!!!

I'm going to lay out some thoughts I've been having. My intent is not to minimize the experience of anyone else, but simply to offer my own thoughts and beliefs. I know this journey is different for all of us, but I am always saddened when I see a post about how a pre-op person can't wait to "be skinny" or "look hot" or "feel good about myself again". Skinny does not equal happy. Skinny does not equal hot. Skinny does not equal feeling good about ourselves. There are just as many skinny people who are unhappy, unattractive, and down on themselves as fat people. Happiness, feeling attractive, and feeling good about oneself are characteristics generated from within, not without. A few years ago, at a very low point in my life, happiness seemed to me like a foreign concept. I could not remember the last time I had felt genuinely joyous or happy about anything. Intellectually, I knew that there were many things in my life that were desirable. I had a good job, a comfortable house, a dependable car, some money in the bank, food in the fridge, etc. But despite these things, I was unhappy. Now, I had good reasons to be unhappy, or so I thought. My marriage was failing, I was coming to grips with the fact that I would never be a mother, I wanted desperately to change my life but felt completely stuck, and so on. I remember reading somewhere that happy is a verb...it's an action, not a passive condition. I began to wonder...if I truly felt that there was no spark of happiness or joy in my life, who's fault was that? Who was responsible for my happiness? The answer, of course, is me. I was failing myself. I was not loving myself, or being kind to myself. I decided that if happy was an action, I was going to try and exercise my happy muscle. I was going to try and find one thing to feel happy about for a few minutes every day. My goal was 3-5 minutes a day of active happiness. I thought that would be super easy. After all, I had been able to identify good things in my life, so how hard could it be to think about them for a couple of minutes every day? Well, it was actually harder than I expected, but I stuck with it. I had to set a timer in the beginning, but I made myself do it every single day. Gradually, I noticed it got easier. Some days all I could come up with was something like the weather, or the fact that my bills were paid on time, but damn it...if that was all I had, then I was damn well going to focus on it & feel happy for 3 freakin' minutes. I eventually began to notice that I felt happier overall. I'm not sure why, because by this time I was just divorced and trying to figure out dating at 270 lbs & maintaining my new house, etc, but regardless, I felt happier. After meeting the man who has become my 2nd husband, he said that one of the things that attracted him to me was that I always seemed happy. I'm not saying that this is somehow a magic bullet against bad stuff happening, but holding happiness in my mind for a few minutes every day helps me to deal with the inevitable downs of life. It seems to me that consciously taking time to feel happy each day has somehow made a state of happiness more accessible in my brain. It's been almost 7 years since I began my happiness quest, and I can honestly say I feel happier today than I ever have in my life. To quote Charlotte in the Sex and The City movie, "I feel happy every day. Not all day every day, but every day I feel happy." In choosing to have the sleeve, I absolutely do not expect it to make me happy, because I'm already happy. I feel pretty good about myself today, this minute, at 300+ lbs. Yes, there are things I want to do, but I can't right now. Yes, I have pain every day & difficulty walking, but I still feel good about who I am and what I have to offer in my small corner of the world. I am aware that I am probably judged negatively by some people because of my weight, but I don't even really notice that. Today, I find it so much easier to find things in my life that make me genuinely happy. I am definitely looking forward to weighing less and seeing an improvement in my mobility, but I don't think it will make me somehow better or more acceptable or a more worthy person. I am enough, right now, just as I am. We all are, and we are all so very precious. Today, right now, at this very moment, we are beautiful, and we are valuable, and we are enough. I believe that with all my heart, and I hope you do, too.

Yes, I've been meeting with my surgeon monthly since Feb. He's monitored my required 3 month physician diet, which has just been monthly weigh-ins & a quick face to face with him. I have to do 2 weeks of low carbs, <20 per day, lean Protein & veggies mostly.

I have both my cardio & gastro clearance appts on Tuesday! Then pulmonary on June 4th & surgery on the 19th.

I recently tried Click Espresso Mocha protein powder & it was good! I used mostly water, but added a splash of half & half & a little bit of cold coffee. I'm still pre-op, so not sure it will work post, but it was good & gave me the coffee hit I wanted.

Hey, everybody! Just a quick update...I got the call from my surgeon's office this morning that my insurance approval has come through. I'm officially booked for June 19th. I go for cardio & upper GI clearances next week, then at the beach for a week, then pulmonary clearance on June 4th. Hooray!!

Just got the call from the surgeon's office...my approval came through!! My date of June 19th is officially booked. Yay!!!

I just got the call from the surgeon's office & my approval from Aetna came through. Approval took about a week. I have appts next week for cardio & upper GI clearances, and then pulmonary on June 4th. I am officially on the surgery calendar for June 19th. All of a sudden, it's gettin' real up in here!

Good luck...woo hoo!!

Crack up!!

Close, I'm in Athens. Having surgery next month at Northside with Dr. Macik. How about you?

Same here, Michele...my stuff was submitted last week. I called today, but no word yet. It took me since early Feb to get everything done & I never once thought about being denied or not getting approved. Now that it's out of my hands, it's all I can think about. What if, what if, what if...

Hooray!! Congratulations!

I have just been submitted for approval to Aetna & I'm sweating out the wait time. My BMI is over 50, and I have bad mobility issues. I have my mind set on a June date, but all of a sudden I'm panicking that they won't approve me. Arrrggghhh...the waiting is so stressful!

Good luck!

I haven't, but I'm thinking about it. I have lots of mobility issues and it might be do-able for me, or at least a modified version.

My pre-op diet will be 2 weeks of this, basically. Lean protein...fish, chicken, etc., lots of veggies, and < 20 carbs a day. I'm trying to shift over to that before the 2 weeks begins, just so it's not a shock to the system.

Hi, gab & welcome! I also have Aetna and I'm planning surgery for June 19. I was (wow...past tense!) also a smoker, and my doc told me that I would have to quit smoking before surgery. I am not one of those folks who was always trying to quit, so I had not made a serious quit attempt in many years. However, once I found out this was a requirement to have the surgery, I decided that the time had come. I quit successfully on March 1st using a combination of Chantix and a rechargeable & refillable e-cigarette device for when the cravings got bad. I have been surprised at how smoothly it has gone, given that I smoked for close to 30 years. Best of luck to you!

Double congratulations to you...wonderful news on both counts!

Congrats & best of luck tomorrow!

I'm nervous & excited & anxious & all that, too. It's such a big step, but I feel like I'm as ready as I can make myself. The 5 or 6 people I know who have had some type of WLS are sick to death of me pestering them, and I'm sure they just want me to shut up already. But I have asked every question I can think of, and searched all over these threads for tips, advice, and giggles to make it all easier. Everybody's process seems a little different, but the support is so great & very much appreciated.