MacMadame

I had to keep a food diary for 3 days and the nutritionist went over that and then told me all about the post-op diet.

We got our annual reviews today. I got an Oustanding rating! :cool2: Plus a slightly bigger bonus than expected, which is good because it's paying for my sleeve. :thumbup:

And has about 30 calories. I am POSITIVE she was borderline anorexic though. Not to mention, batshit crazy.

She sounds like my grandmother. My grandmother was 5'3" and weighed 90 lb. soaking wet. I never saw her eat. NEVER. I even stayed with her one weekend and never saw her eat the entire time. Once when my sister was getting married, we all started out at my mom's house and were trying to get out the door to go to where the wedding was. My mom had cut up a cantaloupe so we could have something to eat given that we had no idea when we'd get a meal again until the reception at 6pm. My grandmother gave me a hard time about having ONE slice of cantaloupe for breakfast. She said "You don't see the thin people eating cantaloupe, do you?" Mind you, at the time I was merely overweight, not even obese, let alone morbidly obese. I just gave her a look that I hope said "you crazy old bat" because I figured it would be rude to actually say that. Oh and she was always convinced that she could do a better job parenting the grandkids than their parents (her children) could. Which was pretty :teeth_smile: because she was a HORRIBLE parent who would not talk to her kids for months if they did something to upset her and most of her kids went through at least one period where they didn't speak to her for years once they were adults.

Here's a link to the BM website to help out. TLC :: Big Medicine

It's definitely reruns because people have seen them all before and even can tell you what will happens just from the episode titles. However, *I* have never seen them before. I didn't even realize what the show was about until I was searching for message boards devoted to the sleeve and found the TLC board for the show.

Are these the same in laws that implied you were a crack whore? :cursing:

I thought she posted for at least a few pages?? Anyway, I want to watch yesterday's Big Medicine which I have on my DVR but Mr. Mac is watching Army of Darkness (for the 100th time) and won't give up the tv. :biggrin:

You need to find a surgeon who does not require weight loss pre-op. They are out there and data is on their side.

Not only is there another option, but by the time anything happens -- assuming it even does -- there will probably be tons of options. They are coming up with new things every day! (Well, maybe not every *day*, but often.)

Respecting the office doesn't mean whitewashing what goes on there. We have brains and we have history and when we use our brains to judge Bush against history, he doesn't stack up. I don't have to have been President to know if a particular president is worse than another one just like I don't have to be able to play baseball to be able to umpire it.

Btw, for those who are interested, here is where the first post was copied from: Five Disadvantages of a Gastric Sleeve Operation - Associated Content The same guy also has 5 Advantages of Gastric Sleeve and it's information also somewhat out of date. The amount of stomach that is removed is more than 60% and the EWL is higher too (because they make the stomach smaller than they used to): Advantages of a Gastric Sleeve - Associated Content

Dr. Rumblaut hadn't done enough sleeves to make me comfortable with him and I've decided to get a sleeve. I think he's one of the best for bands though. Since I'm getting a sleeve, I looked around and one of the "fathers" of the sleeve is right here in my area. He's more money, but I feel like I'd be crazy not to use him given that he's right here and has such an awesome reputation. OTOH, if their office keeps canceling stuff on me, I may give up and go to Mexico. Mr. Mac won't like it, but I'm getting impatient. If I go to Mexico, I'll probably go with Aceves. There are other good sleeve docs in Mexico but of the top ones, he's the most convenient and I've heard the least bad things about in terms of complications and stuff.

I don't know of any private insurances that cover WLS. It's almost always excluded. It's the same if you get it through a company and the company has less than 100 employees. Every insurance is different on what counts as a co-morbidity. Generally it has to be something like hypertension, high cholesterol, GERD, sleep Apnea or Type II diabetes. Some insurance companies only count some of those if medicine isn't doing a good job of controlling it. Thinks like foot problems (which I also have) aren't considered enough to approve the surgery, but every little think you have like that can help -- it paints a picture that the surgery is medically necessary for you. Have you gone to your insurance company's web site and searched for their Bariatric Surgery Policy? Some companies really spell it out and make it easy to see if you qualify.

Good luck!

It's now next Wed. So not quite a week extra to wait. They wanted me to either do it on my birthday when my mom is in town and we had plans or two weeks later. Luckily, I can go to one of their satellite offices and it's actually closer to work (as long as it's not rush hour). But I realized after I made the new appointment that Mr. Mac won't be able to go if it's in the middle of the day like that. He really needs to go because he's still not really on board with the whole surgery thing. No, that's me. I'm impressed you remembered. The hunger control is better with the sleeve and hunger is my main issue.

The Orange Mango has 47 g of carbs of which 32 grams are of sugar! That's more carbs than I'm supposed to eat all day! I think I'll pass.

Luck! I'm posting to say my surgical consult got postponed! :eek:

Absolute weight maybe, but % of EWL is a different animal. What I see is that WLS helps most people lose about 100-150 lb. A LOT of people just can't lose past that. So if I have 100 lb. to lose, and someone else has 250 lb. to lose, and we both lose 100 lb., I've lost 100% of my EW and gotten to goal and they've lost 40% of their EW and not gotten to goal. Note: that doesn't mean it's hopeless for anyone with the higher BMIs. My surgeon has a patient who lost 250 lb. with a band! But this is another reason why I think it's great for people to have WLS once they realize they have a problem and not wait until their problem is even worse and why I think the NIH recommendation of waiting until morbidly obese is totally bogus.

Really? I had no idea!

Chinchillas! Don't buy them at the pet store though. Too expensive and they'll probably be sick. Get them from a rescue group. They will ask for a small donation that should be less than half the pet store price and they'll probably start you off with food and stuff. Ours even came with cages -- though we ended up replacing one of them. So the stuff we gave them was worth more than the $50 we gave them. Because people decide that growing chinchillas for their fur is a good profitable hobby, there are often 30 chinchillas at a time at a rescue group. The fur farmers get in over their heads and then Animal Control comes out and confiscates the chins. It's sad. But good for us pet owners looking for a pet!

I would hire someone to watch your kids at your dad's house so that they are hanging out with someone older and responsible instead of the irresponsible teen. That person would clearly be in charge and could stop any shenanigans before they started. Alternately, you could make play date for them that don't involve the teen so they are away from his influence.

Their point is they don't understand statistic. :thumbup:

It's 9:10pm and I'M STILL AT WORK! I tried to go home about 30 min. ago but my car won't start. Well, it will start, but as soon as I let off the gas, it dies. Which means I'd be dying at every stop sign and stop light if I tried to drive home like that. I'm waiting for Mr. Mac to pick me up. And he's SURE TAKING HIS TIME!

Actually, it's not the center. It's the left side. :thumbup: A sleeve is basically a partial gastrectomy like they used to do for ulcer patients and still do for stomach cancer patients. The main thing is that they take off a very specific portion, including the portion that produced ghrelin, the hunger hormone. They started doing this for really high BMI patients who were too big for a lap RnY. They'd do the sleeve and then they'd wait until the patient had lost enough weight to be safe and they'd do the second half -- usually a DS, but sometimes a traditional RnY. What they found is that patients often lost so much weight with the sleeve that they didn't need the second part and so some docs started doing it as a standalone surgery.