abefroman329

The Fitbit app will give you some nice charts.

The trouble with splitting one entree is that it requires us to agree on what to eat.

I never stopped, since men’s shorts come to the knee. But congrats! With the amount of sagging skin on my thighs, I won’t be wearing short shorts any time soon.

Any restaurant that serves soup is a bingo. We found a diner in Evanston that does a continental breakfast (Greek yogurt with strawberries, scone, glass of OJ) that’s perfect for me. Mediterranean/Middle Eastern restaurants are good too, anywhere with meat on skewers. I even tolerate the rice from there! Chipotle’s burrito bowl is another winner Next up for me will probably be the soup, salad, and breadsticks from Olive Garden.

I was diagnosed with GERD 13 years before my surgery and was never asked for evidence of the diagnosis. I also had hypertension, type II diabetes, and obstructive sleep apnea, so I probably would’ve qualified even with those.

Luckily for me I went on a two-week vacation after they submitted my request to the insurance company, and I didn’t think about it while on vacation. When I got home, I called for a status update, and learned I’d been approved!

High A1c means your diabetes is not controlled, which means there's a higher chance of complications related to healing. You can't argue with statistics or handwave them with "well, there are risks no matter what." There are risks to crossing the street, but it's riskier if you've been huffing paint before you do it. Personally speaking, my checklist of items that needed to be completed before my surgeon would attempt to obtain authorization from my insurance company included "get your A1c below 7." It was right there, in big bold letters. Since mine was a little over 6 at the time, it was a moot point. Frankly, I'm not sure why you've spent 3 days freaking out on here when you could've called your surgeon and had your answer by now.

It's not about perfect patients, it's about keeping the chances of short-term and long-term complications low. My dad's A1c hovered around 10 for years, and that was with numerous medications and insulin injections several times a day. When he had to have knee surgery, he had all kinds of issues with the wound healing properly. He had to see a wound specialist and go on several different kinds of antibiotics before the situation resolved itself (and it took months). Why a surgeon would want to risk that, I can't say.

My practice required patients to have an A1c below 7.

As I’ve stated before, given how sick I get when I accidentally drink thru a straw, I wouldn’t even consider smoking.

It should get better by week 3 or 4. I remember the Satanic noises my stomach was making would wake me up!

Way to go!

If you’re lucky, you will. I have some short sleeve shirts that went from “too small” to “too big” before I could wear them again. “Just right” was in the middle of winter.

Yes, I bought XL t-shirts from Groupon and Woot several months before I needed them. In general, if I’m buying clothes, it’s in the next size down from where I’m at now. Today I was pleasantly surprised to learn that my suits can be taken in, and for free, since the charge I already paid for tailoring was for the life of the suits.

I mean, yes, the piece of candied bacon I had with breakfast tasted as good as going to get all my suits taken in felt, so...

So here’s one downside to extra inches and girth and functionality: Blue balls is back, and hoo boy, it’s worse than it was when I was a teenager.

Oh stop, you’d be a tasty snack too!

This is the upside to having a hairy belly: Hides the surgery scars.

All FMLA says is that they can't fire you while you're out, and companies can find a way around that anyway. Are you sure you're not talking about being eligible for paid time off?

Everything looks fine to me!

I didn’t deliberately take a before picture, but there are plenty of “before” pictures of me. I ran across this one on FB from 2011 and that **** is just depressing. Maybe ol’ Judah will pose with me for an “after” picture.

Let's see...this year my wife and I went on a walking tour, had lunch in Chinatown (I had a spring roll and about 1/4 of an order of shrimp fried rice), and went to the movies at night. Then a couple days later we had dinner at a Mediterranean restaurant with my parents. We split an order of shish kabobs and still took half of it home with us (she is almost 7 months pregnant and is also getting full very quickly). If you're looking for an alternative to a bar crawl, there's bowling or a pool hall or one of those table tennis bars that are cropping up everywhere. Or go on a bar crawl and sip one drink while everyone else gets drunk. Or go on a bar crawl and don't drink at all while everyone else gets drunk.

I've been donating everything to the Goodwill, even the expensive stuff I bought when I was my heaviest. I've heard that, if you want to sell it, you're better off just selling a single lot of clothing (5 shirts or 5 pairs of pants or whatever) rather than selling everything individually.

I had GERD pre-surgery and was still able to get it. Post-surgery, I'm not sure if I have it anymore, but I'm not brave enough to stop taking Prilosec just yet. My doctor told me it can inhibit absorption of vitamins and minerals, so I should probably try giving it up.

I was off work for a week and worked from home for another week. I do not recommend anything less.