Miss Mac

So, clearly it wasn't the gastric sleeve that nearly killed him, since he never got it. He lost his legs due to the ineptitude of the surgical team. If I had been their patient for so much as a tonsilectomy, I would be lucky to be alive. I hope by the time his lawyers are done that this guys owns the hospital! I have even heard that sometimes a doctor will be opeating in one room while a student doctor is doing a similar operation in another room while the surgeon with the creditials monitors via closed circuit TV. Several years ago, it was exposed that this was happening at a teaching hospital here in Chicago when one orthopedist was doing knee replacements. The one thing I hate the worst about surgery (and I have had many in my 62 years) is not being in control of my body for a period of time. But if I totally freaked out about that, I would never allow myself to fall asleep. Unless one decides to be a hermit and never seek medical attention of anykind, the other options are blind faith in a higher being or cautious optimism with the medical profession. Mobid obesity (300 - 400 pounds plus) runs in my family. My parents and most of my aunts and uncles are now gone, and my cousins are dying way too young from the afflcations that come with obesity. My mother died just four years older than I am now from complications of her obesity. I was so quickly stepping onto her path that I could not bear to do nothing. So, I went ahead and opted for a sleeve gastrectomy. I count my blessings that I emerged a couple of hours later with a new lease on life. My heart goes out to those with horrendous complications. Had this man's physicians been exercising due care and best practices, his result would have been totally different. I would suggest that even if you have to travel an inconvenient distance to get your surgery at a Center of Excellence, it is well worth the trip. Many insurance companies require this before they will approve the surgery.

You may as well get one that will fits now and will be loose later. You cannot count on the pounds happily dropping off per your own timeline. I lost 65 pounds easily and then everything came to a screeching halt with 35 left to go. In my closet are some new things the next two sizes down and just waiting on my body to catch up. I went crazy thinking these things would fit over the summer. Now I have sleeveless tops and shorts that will probably fit me in February, and I live in freezy - a** Chicago, which from November through March may as well be Alaska! It's a good thing that I kept last winter's coat. It is loose right now, but wearable.

Pre and post op, my sleepy friend is hot chocolate made with a sugar free cocoa packet and milk, not Water. If I do use water, then I add a little sugar free whip cream. However, making it with milk gives me more Protein.

After transitioning to phase IV, I was instructed to try to get all of my Protein from foods. At my three month visit I was cranked up to 70 grams of protein. At six months, it was 80 grams. Most days that has to include a shake, but I try to get it in by chewing.

For me, it is walking away from the peanut butter jar.

OK, here is a group hug from friends on the forum. As a nurse, I am sure that your advice to a patient presenting the symptoms that you have would be to get hydrated and contact both your primary physician and your bariatric team. Then you would pick up that patient's chin and pat them on the back and tell them "There, there, there, it will be allright in a minute. You will come out of this......just follow your plan and trust in the process." But following your plan means to stay hydrated and start getting some Protein and nutrients in. I don't know if there is any the scientific support behind the curative properties of Grandma's chicken Soup, but maybe you could just boil a chicken with some very tiny veggie pieces, and throw in a little boullion and a bit of salt and pepper in there. And if you are totally dragging, add some pastini or very thin noodles for a few carbs. Please get well.

One of my pre-op questions for my surgeon referred to what steps does he take towards post-op pain relief. Specifically, I was concerned about all of this sharp shoulder gas I was hearing about. In case you have not discovered yet, the surgeon pumps your abdomen up with CO2 in order to create extra working space and to facilitate the movement of his instruments. He promised that he would extract as much of the gas as possible. Guess what? I had zero pain from shoulder gas. I had three tiny incisions held together with steri-strips (not stitches or staples) and one other a little bit bigger (and just below my navel) where the excess stomach was retracted. That one also was small enough for a steri-strip. The only pain that cramped my style was from the underlying muscle near the largest incision. I was on a morphine pump the first day and the hydrocodone the second day. I came home around noon on the third day and only used the hydrocodone at bedtime for two days. If you can, prop yorself up in bed for a few nights to make getting up and down easier without pulling on your abdominal muscles. I have a lift recliner because of some previous back surgery and thought I might need to sleep in that for a few nights, but did not need to use it. Just go easy on yourself and don't be lifting laundry baskets or kettlebells. My biggest incision was tender for about a month, but given that I had just had surgery, that was to be expected. Actually the hardest part of my surgical experience was to just move over to the surgical table. My recovery has been uncomplicated as far as pain and discomfort. The biggest challenge overall has been manipulating a delicate dietary balance to meet all of my requirements. You can do this. In no time you will be able to encourage those who follow behind you. Beyond the professional expertise of your team, you will find great support here on the forum. I hope that your surgery is uncomplicated and that you will enjoy the new you that is about to emerge.

OK, here's the deal........unless your critics are willing to pay for your healthcare (which is surely going to get more complicated if you don't address the discomfort you are having with your weight now) they have no right to undermine your own efforts to get healthy. Enjoy as much of that trip to Mexico as you can. You might be sore on the trip back, but others have gone solo and lived to tell about it. I wish you good luck and good health.

Weight Loss Surgery Cookbook for Dummies by Davidson, Fout, and Meyers The Skinny Rules by Bob Harper

Anytime I go the hospital, I take a good sturdy teddy bear. I have used my bear for an armrest (to help support the hand or arm that has the IV in it) and a neck rest, For my sleeve surgery, I used my bear as a stomach support for coughing and to sit my phone on because it is difficult to reach over to the nightstand. When emotions hit, the bear is simply a comfort to hold. I may be almost 63, but I am still a girl. Thank goodness my family thinks it's cute and not weird. Also, I would have had a tough time of it without my Chapstick.

If I have a shake as Breakfast then I may add 1/4 cup of berries, or 1/2 of a banana. On any day that I have a banana that is my total carbs for the day. I do not eat them after high noon. I like the idea of putting banana in a chocolate Protein shake. When I was a teenager, my first job was at Dunkin Donuts as a donut finisher. Man oh man I loved that job. My favorite was the chocolate frosted banana cream filled, and somewhere along the line DD took them off the menu. Since I don't expect to ever step into a Dunkin Donuts again, the banana chocolate Protein Shake would be a good way to have the memory without 400 calories.

Until I get to goal this is a journey for me. Maybe when I get there I can start having some adventures that are a little more fun than this.

It varies. My pre-op liquid diet was ten days. For the original poster, please consider that I lost my oldest brother at the age of 47. He died of a heart attack and weighed over 420 pounds. He left a widow, a ten year old daughter, an eight year old daughter, and a six year old son. My mother died of an abdominal aeortic aneurysm at the age of 67, way too young for women in our family who typically live well into their 90s. Grandma made it to 98. Mother weighed 320 pounds and was 5'2". At some point in time, you will have to tell your children that not every circumstance in life is comfy and cozy. True, the liquid diet and first couple of weeks post-op suck, but are you willing to trade two weeks for possibly extending your life by years? Think of the liquid diet as a right of passage. If you are concerned about the surgery, here is the way it usually goes down. You are given an IV of something soothing before you go into the O R. After you get on the operating table, The anesthesiologist will ask you to count backward from 100. 100, 99, 98......wake up - wake up - you did just fine. When the nurse is sure that you are ready to go to a patient room, they wheel you down there and get you situated before the anesthetic wears off. Actually, I had a morphine pump all the next day, and then hydrocone before I came home on the third day. Yes, they had inserted a catheter after I was out cold. That was removed later in the day after I demostrated that I could walk. This is a quality of life situation. One of the reasons that we have the three to six month supervised diet is to get us used to making sound decisions about what we eat and drink. Going it on your own takes equal dedication to a plan, but the surgery literally is a tool to help you. Sure, a farmer can hoe a row with oxen, but boy what a difference a tractor makes! Indeed, your smaller stomach will be the boss of you, and that's ok. It limits the amount you can consume, which gives you time to get disciplined to the plan your team gives you. This is hard, but not so hard that it can't be done. I wish you health and happiness and a long life to enjoy your family.

Same warning here. I was told to not have gum until further notice.

Pre-op, I had a problem with peeing every 15 minutes or so. By the time I had lost that first thirty pounds, the problem resolved itself. Now I can sleep 4-5 hours at a time without having to get up to go the bathroom and I drink 80+ ounces of Water every day.

Scant butter or olive oil

Boop Boop de OOPS! I meant Marks' Daily Apple www.marksdailyapple.com

Nicolanz, great angle. Clautxs, hmmmmmmm 9-7=2. Mommy can go home now. You are already two days past your doctor's clearance, and doctor trumps mother in this card game. Tell her you love her and appreciate her help and will call her in a couple of days to let her know how you are doing.

You will so enjoy your first closet flush........for me it was a very emotional experience. One thing to keep pushing you forward in your journey is to get rid of the discards immediately so that there is no looking back. If they are too good to throw out, there is always charity, a homeless shelter, or posting on this forum so that someone coming down to that size may be interested.

Don't have a picture, but in my clost is a size 12 pair of white jeans. I think I may be just 10-15 more pounds down, and they will fit like the proverbial glove.

I am so glad to see someone else who has been on a stall of several months. Those little doubt devils have been trying to get in my head. So two days ago, I committed to another intake adjustment and go with 80-100 grams of Protein and 80-100 ounces of Water / fluids. The scale had a 1/2 pound tick downward today, so I will stay with it for a bit and see if the downward turn will keep on going. Queen, I am delighted to see you posting again. I read your year-long travel blog when I first entered the forum in August 2013. You gave me encouragement that it gets better for those who have many months under their belts, too.

I agree that Nom Nom Paleo is an excellent resource. Also, My Daily Apple www.mydailyapple.com is another for recipes that do not come from factory foods. Paleo / Primal foods can meet our requirements. Basically those recipes are from meats and low starch veggies.

I had an anterior cervical dissection and fusion at C3, C4, C5 pre-op (2/14/2012) which give me no problem, but I have issues with my thoraxic spine and need a full lumbar fusion. My neurosurgeon is stalling until I can get my weight down. I have lost 65 pounds so far, and need to lose another 35 before surgery will be considered. He feels that my vertibrae will heal a lot better if they have less weight to support. But what all of that means is that I need some serious pain management for crippling sciatica and femoral nerve pain. I take Lyrica @ 350 mg a day, use lidocain Patches or Voltarin Gel (good stuff) on hot spots, and get spinal epidurals (steroid) every three months. As a matter of fact, I had one as soon as I could lay on my stomach for the procedure. I had my sleeve surgery 12/23/2013 and had epiderals in February, May, August, and recently November. I also had a 3 nerve ablation done a couple of weeks ago. If you have not had an ablation, you might want too Google to see what it is about. The process is similar to the spinal epidural and can be done with local anesthetic. I got immediate relief for the sciatica. The femoral nerve pain is just now coming around, but at least I can sleep at night without Hydrocodone. A couple of sleeping pills do the trick and I can sleep for hours. Doctor said the relief may last 1-2 years. Nerves can regenerate, so it is just a matter of how slowly that happens. Other than that, I take Tylenol as needed for other aches and pains. My arthritis and systemic inflammation have really backed off as the pounds drop. The Voltarin Gel helps for topical relief. D.E.M.A.N.D. outstanding pain management. There are enough processes out there to at least improve your quality of life. I hope you can find relief. I wish you good luck and good health.

My ability to exercise has been all over the place, depending upon which condition is flaring up at the time. What my sleeve has done for me since my surgery (12/23/2014) is get rid of 65 of the hundred pounds I need to lose. I can move with less pain. The inflammation throughout my body is less, allowing me to reduce pain meds so that I am not a zombie 24/7. Pre-op,my arms and legs were very weak, and my spine was collapsing under its heavy load. I have already had one fusion. My spine doctor is waiting on me to drop the last 40 pounds before he operates again so I am getting spinal epidurals to hold off the process. I have slowly worked my way up from no ankle weights and one pound hand weights, to 1 pound ankle weights and 5 pound hand weights. Today, in a fit of boldness, I was able to do my strength training with 3 pounds ankle weights and 10 pounds each hand weights! This is such a gradual process. There are days when I am just too exhausted (post-stroke fatigue) to do much, so I do Sit and Be Fit kind of stuff. I have a DVD that I use a couple of times a week, Leslie Sansone's Walk Your Belly Flat. It has three 1 mile chapters and I can never make it past the first mile in the living room. If I fizzle, then I lean into my walker. If I can't stand any longer, then I sit in a chair and march in place. So, even though I realistically can't keep up with the youngsters on here, I do what I can every day. I suppose that when the inevitable full lumbar fusion has to happen, my exercise will be just to walk to the bathroom.

Yeah, what she said. Stalls are like lovers....your first will probably won't be your last.