steph_co

Kandi - I think it's great of you to share this - I don't think it's bragging. It's good to know that it IS possible. And you know - even amongst the pain that I HAVE had, I WOULD do this all over again if given the choice! Oh, wow - I just noticed! You and I have almost the exact same stats! I was 233 and I want to be 130.

You can so do this. I was 170 when I met my husband, but ballooned up to 200 when we got married (yes, I gained about 30 lbs in just over a year). He tells me that I have confidence even at times I think he's crazy. But I realized that I DO have a lot more confidence in myself than I did in high school and I WAS skinny in my senior year (Atkins). Oh, to be skinny AND have that confidence? Sha-bam! LOL Do the inside work first and guys will be noticing you long before you hit your "goal." I was not comfortable with my weight at 170 (head issues), but the way I was strutting around that place, I had all kinds of guys wanting to date me. LOL You can do this, Jill. I'm here with you every step of this journey! Best of luck with your surgery! Keep us updated on your progress. That's part of why I decided on the permanent change of the band. DH and I used no birth control whatsoever and it took us 4 1/2 years to get pregnant and then I miscarried. My infertility is not medically explained, but I KNOW it has to do with my weight even if the docs were gun-shy to ever say that to my face (I'm surprised that not a single doctor just came out and said that I should lose weight). Here's to us getting skinny and then pregnant!!! We can do it! :whoo: :girl_hug: Hugs, Deyon. You can do this - and do it for YOU. YOU deserve this. Anybody else being happy for you is just icing on the cake. I'm here for you!

Sunshiny - I'm glad I'm not alone in this fear. I had serious thoughts of backing out, I was so scared. But I kept telling myself I HAD to do this - I didn't want to keep getting bigger. I want to be able to have babies and I want to be able to play with my step-children and then our own children when I have them. I'm glad to hear that you started counseling before the surgery - I think I would have come to terms on some things sooner rather than the night before my surgery. I hope things are going well for you, my sister. You'll be in my thoughts for a speedy recovery.

Glad to hear one of my band-day buddies is doing well! Hope the pain and itching go away soon.

What a great attitude! I feel the same way - not to let bad foods take control again. Have fun at Curves! I can hardly wait to get exercising.

Excellent thread - thank you SO much for asking this question! I did not know about this before this past Monday - I happened to read in the book given to me by my surgeon's office that it may be tax deductible! I had no idea! This is some excellent information! DH and I are self-employed and file jointly. Would that be the AGI of what we make together, then? If that's the case, we'll have to have our accountant compare filing jointly to separately! Oh, this is cool - it makes me feel a whole lot better about all that money.

Tracy - I'm glad to hear things went well!

OK, so I'm 19 hours past my surgery and actually feeling pretty decent. I was not told which side my port is on, but I'm almost positive it's on the left because that's where I can feel pulling when I move. When we got home, I took Vicodin crushed in watery applesauce. Slept a few hours and then took another. I was keeping ahead of the pain and it was working great because I really wasn't feeling that much. Mostly across my diaphragm it hurts and then it radiates up to between my shoulder blades. It's weird - I feel the radiating pain more in my right shoulder than my left and then THAT pain kind of radiates over to the left. Strange. But no major gas pain (niiiiiice). I only used a Gas-X strip on the way home because I was hoping the pain I was feeling WAS gas and that it would help. It didn't really. The pain between my shoulder blades almost just feels like sore muscles. It's nothing unmanageable, thank goodness. I had Vicodin and Tylenol PM last night about 8:30pm and then slept. I woke up around 1am hurting a little. Took some liquid Tylenol and tried to get more sleep. Slept until about 4am. Got up and took some Vicodin in watery applesauce. I'm doing pretty good. If I wasn't hurting (I kind of have to hunch over a bit when I walk to keep from feeling the stretching by my port), I'd probably be able to go take care of some of that dang Christmas shopping sitting in a motorized scooter. I have to chuckle at that sight. But I'll force myself to take it easy here at home. I'm scheduled to go back to work Sunday night at 6pm. We'll see how I feel. Most likely DH will have to go with me (we work for the same company and he's familiar with my job) to support me. I hope I feel a bit better by then. I HATE being laid out in bed. I want to be up and moving about more so than sleeping.

I think people should call themselves what they feel comfortable calling themselves. No need to cause a division in the group over a name. We'll know who you are out about on the boards. :cool: Maybe just put an '07 after your chosen name so that OTHER people know you're in our group, too.

Okay...haven't had Vicodin yet, this morning, so I'm a bit more on the conscious side. Surgery was scheduled for 9:15am yesterday. The night before I was having the most terrible anxiety. Not about the procedure itself - more about the permanence of this procedure to my body. Every other diet/exercise plan I could quit. This isn't something I feel I can quit and I think that scared me. I know I sound like a major commitmentphobe, but I'm seriously not. I'm very happily married for 4 years, together with him for 5, so it doesn't touch other areas of my life. Sitting there talking to DH, I figured out that I'm scared to get skinny. :cool: I built up this wall of fat to protect myself. It made A LOT of sense as to why I couldn't succeed in the past in losing weight. Because when I was fat, I felt okay being rejected by people because I could blame it on the fat. Now once I get skinny and I get rejected, I have to come to terms that it's because of something else. Yes - I plan to go get counseling. I already told myself that was a pre-requisite for me before I told myself for sure I could get banded. I just couldn't believe I was THAT controlled by my weight. It really did surprise me. Another thing I was reading in the binder given to me by my surgeon's office was that some people are afraid to lose their fat because they're afraid they'll lose their identity even if "fat" was not the identity they really wanted, anyway. So, yeah. I know when this obsession with food started and it was right after one of the biggest rejections of my life (at 8 years old). So I get to nip this in the bud so that I can move on and LIVE life. Excuse the long psych session. Onto my surgery story. I was scheduled for 9:15, but they wheeled me in at 9: 47. I remember switching over to the operating table, getting my arms stretched out on those boards, then the anesthesiologist saying he was giving me a sedative and clunk - I was out. LOL He told me as he gave it to me that it would feel like I had had a margarita. I told him, "I don't know - I'm a lightweight!" He kind of chuckled like he didn't believe me and that's seriously the last thing I remember. haha DH said the doc called him about 10:30 to let him know I was out and in recovery and that they'd let him in as soon as I woke up. They figured it would be about half an hour. He didn't mention a hernia to my DH, he just told him that I had behaved well and so did they. LOL I was soooo groggy. I'm not sure what time I woke up, but it was really hard to rouse myself. I told the nurse I had to pee and she laughed and said I'd have to wait a couple minutes (she could tell I was still weak from the drugs AND I was just in my gown). So eventually she wheeled me over to the bathroom because I kept saying I needed to pee. Oh, almost forgot - before that, I woke up moaning in TERRIBLE pain. I don't want to scare anybody - I just want you to be aware (and at least I forgot it until now - so it wasn't traumatizing...LOL). I was moving my head back and forth and moaning. So they gave me a bunch of morphine and when that didn't work, they gave me a bunch of fentanel (sp?). It finally started to kick in, even though I still ached. She helped me get dressed and wheeled my bed to the bathroom. I walked in there, took care of business and then came out and she told me to walk over to this recliner. I walked over there all by myself - she seemed impressed. Finally they called my DH in. I was soooo happy to see him because I had kept asking for him. I think they wanted to wait until I was no longer moaning. LOL Didn't want to scare the guy. That was about 11:30. They had me sit there for a bit to make sure my pain was under control. It was STILL hurting, so she broke a Vicodin in half and had me swallow those. OMG - that was AWFUL. It felt like I swallowed a razor blade when it got to my pouch. So then I was moaning from that. She had me swallow some Water to get it to dissolve quicker. She told me I might have to chew the Vicodin whenever I take it. I have opted, instead, to crushing them and putting them in watery applesauce or watery pudding with a couple scoops of Splenda to try and offset the taste. Ick. We finally got out of there at about 2pm and made the 3-hour drive home. Of course, stopping every hour so that we could get out and walk around. But I made it through and feeling pretty good. I'll add more to the recovery stories thread.

Hi, ladies. I only have enough energy in me to drop in and say "hi," I made it. I'm keeping ahead of the pain using the vicodin and it's working like a charm - just making me weak. I'll try to give a story tomorrow.

Putty - my social worker said that nearly everybody goes through that right after their surgery - wondering what the heck they just did to themselves. She repeated this again and again and again - it's normal. She said a lot of people further on down the road in this journey may not talk about it much, because they have forgotten that it happened to them. Before you know it, you'll be loving the banded life as your size shrinks! I'm preparing myself for the second thoughts, so I know where you're coming from. You are strong! You can do this!

Good luck to you and your family!

I think my vote is obvious. As somebody mentioned in the other thread, the men can be November Satyrs to coincide with Nymphs. I think it's sexy. :Banane20:

skyeblu - If you want to participate in the Virtual Trainer, then yes - there is a monthly fee: ActiTrainer Online Data Analysis - ActiGraph, LLC. But if you just want your calories, steps taken, miles walked, etc, it shows all of that ON the ActiTrainer, so you don't HAVE to get on your computer to view all of that. The Virtual Trainer, you can input all your food and whatnot. There's a bit more information on the other threads, too, in addition.

Being on a clear liquid diet isn't helping my nerves at all. LOL I'm borderline hypoglycemic, so this is really hard. I worked last night and am working tonight (6p-6a). Then we leave in the morning for Denver to stay overnight before surgery. I'm starting to get really nervous...I guess just because it's such a huge step and it's so...permanent. I just keep telling myself I can do this. I probably won't update the day of surgery because after surgery we'll be driving back home (3 hours) and who knows how I'll feel when I get home. I'll try to get back as soon as possible, though. Surgery is at 9:15am MST. Thanks for the encouragement, ladies.

Thanks for the stories and information, ladies. I'm getting antsy for this Thursday, so reading this stuff really helps.

I start my clear liquid diet tonight at midnight (5 more hours to go!). I work 6p-6a and sleep during the day. I'm a little worried tomorrow because I'm driving up to Denver after work (3 hour drive) for my nutrition class and then coming back to work that night. I hope I have enough clear liquids to get me through the day tomorrow. :nervous:

Denise - Yes, you can put it on and one of the default displays is calories. I think the defaults were BPM, calories, steps and miles. I can't remember for sure. You can also set it up to automatically reset its numbers each night at midnight so you don't have to mess with that. You'd have to read the book to set that part up - that's not the factory default. It'll just keep adding your numbers up and up and up if you don't reset it.

Hope this helps give you an idea:

I want to add, here - you don't have to wear the chest strap unless you're wanting to get your heart rate. It'll measure all the other stuff without the strap. I put pictures in the other thread. Forgot to add, too, that the ActiTrainer starter kit comes with a 15-day trial to the Virtual Trainer, too. So you can decide if you want to buy. You can look at a demo of the Virtual Trainer by going to their site: ActiTrainer Online Data Analysis - ActiGraph, LLC. Type in actidemo for the username and user for the password.

How upsetting. I hope you can find the right words for your dad. You are making a good step in the right direction to taking care of YOU. To heck with what they might think.

Good job! I bet it's an awesome feeling.

It's $198: ActiTrainer Online Data Analysis - ActiGraph, LLC. Which includes the actitrainer itself ($178 on its own) a waist holster an arm/wrist/ankle band to hold the actitrainer if you choose one of those sites to wear it CD to set it up on your computer and the Polar heart strap. I think the Polar heart strap is kind of a cool little addition. I don't know how Bodybugg monitors heart rate, but Polar is the leader in heart-rate monitoring. This item on its own is $54 at other places: [ame=http://www.amazon.com/Polar-WearLink-Transmitter-Medium-XX-Large/dp/B0007VB4IE]Amazon.com: Polar WearLink Coded Transmitter (Medium/XX-Large, Black): Sports & Outdoors[/ame] I would imagine being right on your chest by your heart, it would be the most accurate.

Fudge. I didn't realize it would put the ) on the end of that website. Here The ActiGraph - Technology of Health