agirlnamedfrankie

I had my surgery two days ago. They woke me up and asked if anything hurt - I said I was thirsty and they said too bad. Wheeled me back to my room (which I think I slept through) and then I napped there the rest of the day. I got up sometime later in the night to try and walk but didn't make it terribly far. I didn't have any real pain until mid-day the next day - none of the heavy chest gas pains they said might happen. So the whole waking up process was pretty easy for me.

Make sure you're allowed to have painted nails during surgery. That was one of the rules on my list - remove all nail polish from fingers and toes. First time I've been in public with bare toenails in like 10 years!

Sleeved yesterday, doing well so far. A basketball of gas in my stomach, I think, but this morning's walk was much more successful that last night's. Haven't had my leak test so still no liquids, just lots of resting. Pleasantly surprised at the lack of pain - hope it stays that way!

I'm just finishing day 2. I don't mind the shakes but I've had a headache since mid-day yesterday, sometimes dull, sometimes stabbing and I'm ready to get rid of that. I've also never really noticed just how many food commercials there are! Things I don't even like are sounding good.

Balloon girl, reporting in. I've now blown up 270 balloons. It was really not much fun in the beginning but it's gotten so much easier and now I can whip out 30 in a row with no problem. So the sleeve has pretty much already made me an athlete and I haven't even gotten it yet. Liquid diet starts tomorrow, though.

Just sent you two messages to your gmail address.

I'm going with Dr. Joya in Puerto Vallarta. I fly in on 8/5, have surgery on 8/6 and return home on 8/10. It was a hard decision - I initially narrowed it down to four doctors but narrowing it down from those was agonizing. I did a ton of reading and hopefully made a good decision! So far, arranging everything has been quite easy as the coordinator is super responsive.

I'm having my surgery in Mexico but I went directly through the surgeon and didn't use a separate tourism company.

I've seen a lot of recommendations to bring a small pillow to press against your stomach post-surgery and for the trip home. I'll be flying home so thought having one might be a good idea, especially for the seatbelt? I was wondering if anyone had any suggestions for particular pillows (preferrably ones available on Amazon so I can get it within the next few days ). I don't want any sort of stuffed animal or stomach-shaped pillow with surgery diagrams so I was just looking at travel pillows. Would memory foam be too soft? Maybe microbead? Flat better than roll? Or other tips? Thanks!

If all goes as planned, I'll be two weeks post-op then. Maybe I'll join you for some delicious liquids.

No, it's a closed group (it tells the type of group in the upper right corner) which means that you have to be approved to join or read the posts but anyone can see that you're in it.

I just ordered the Jay Robb sample kit based on some suggestions I'd read here. Those are made with Stevia. http://www.jayrobb.com/protein/whey-protein-samples.asp

whaaaat? Haha! Interesting, what's the reasoning behind it? And no, I don't have it It's to strengthen your lungs. Google tells me that having surgery in the chest or abdomen increases your chances of having breathing difficulties or developing pneumonia and "deep breaths help keep your lungs clear of secretions that can lead to infections. Deep breathing also helps improve the function of your lungs so that they deliver as much oxygen to the rest of your body as possible, which speeds up the recovery process." I think balloons are just the poor-man's spirometer. Although now I wonder if this is just a sucker test and when they find me in a house full of 420 balloons, I will have qualified.

I'm August 6th. Curious if anyone else has a pre-op balloon requirement? In addition to the pre-op liquid diet, I'm supposed to blow up 30 balloons a day for two weeks. I understand the reasoning behind it but was surprised as I haven't seen it mentioned in the forums and I've been doing a ton of reading.

I understand how you feel. I went through my insurance's requirements of six months of nutritional counseling, had a psych test (3 meetings), a sleep study (2 doc visits + the overnight), visited the support group, saw the doctor, had labs run, etc., and in the end, didn't meet the qualifications. However, I knew going in that I was under their BMI requirement and that it was dependent on co-morbidities which, it turns out, I have none of. (Yay for health?) I don't know how much difference the Cherokee nation approval process is from that of an insurance company. Are there factors other than your BMI that they take into account? I know that in general, for insurance, as long as you're 40+ BMI, you're typically covered (if your policy covers bariatric surgery at all) and that you don't need any co-morbidities. Do you have a clear layout of how they determine eligibility? I'm guessing it's something more specific than just a 50/50 whim and that should give you a better idea of what your chances are. Having jumped through all the hoops I did and not being approved, I'd still say it's absolutely worth your time to give it a shot. I'm going the self-pay route now and having surgery next month so I can't speak to the benefit of having the surgery, although I obviously think it's a big one since I'm going through with it (and paying) but the opportunity to have it completely paid for is pretty awesome and in the long run, probably worth the potential of wasted time.

Yes! Every day is a rollercoaster of "I'm so excited, I want to do it NOW!" and "omg, what have I done, this will be terrible!" Reading the forums has mostly helped me lean towards excitement, especially with the number of great success stories and the fun NSVs but some of the problems do make me worry. It will be a huge change but I guess if what I had going right now was working, I wouldn't be here in the first place.

Thanks everyone! Sounds like there may be some hope for me yet.

Glad this thread got bumped, I was just going to go searching for a tall ladies thread. I'm 6'1" and haven't been anywhere close to goal weight in so long that I have no idea what will be comfortable. I'm saying 175, just to have a goal for now but anything under 200 will be super exciting. Inspiring to read about all the success you all are having!

I've read a lot about how tastes can change after surgery and how people can no longer tolerate the shakes they used to or the sweets they did but I'm wondering if anyone has found that they now like foods they didn't prior to surgery? I am a super picky eater (pretty sure I'm a Supertaster) and the list of foods I don't like is long - nearly all vegetables, tomatoes, black/refried Beans, oil-based salad dressing, any type of bread that isn't white - just trying to think of foods that would come up in the post-surgery diet but honestly, I could never list out everything. I'm wondering if I can maintain a shred of hope that I'll suddenly find myself liking/enjoying foods that I couldn't stand before surgery or if that's just not likely to happen.

I'm August 6th, is that close enough? It looks like several of us are at very similar starting weights as well which is kind of neat.