Frustr8

And you as well as all the rest @makisue will be in my prayers, I am only that everyone of you Marchers have wonderful surgeries, smooth recoveries and wondrously great future lives. You. are giving yourselves a beautiful ? a chance for future health and well-being. And you have a world- wide group of Bari-pals wishing you on to your own victories. Pretty cool, I think!???

Be patient with yourself ,for nothing in nature blooms all year. But to the best of your ability, be a sunflower, on even the darkest days you will stand tall and reach for the sun. And and new defination for FAIL.....FIRST ATTEMPT but I'M LEARNING.... rather softens the pain, doesn't it? And no matter the speed or slowness of this weight loss journey, we will all end up winners.

A thought to ponder, found this today and it is true. Some people try to turn back their odometers, but not me. I want people to know why I do look this way. You see I have traveled a long way in my life and all the roads were not smoothly paved.

I am looking forward to some leggings, my legs are actually starting to taper in and out instead of looking like thick wooden table legs. Well I always had a shape, it was more like a salami, Ample Sample-hood, here I come!

So @ ihartme, did you get your March 2019 surgery date? Haven't heard anymore from you and I'm just wondering?

My old trusty tan Levis are getting loose enough I need to wear a belt, yes the pair I used to lie down on the bed to zip, Yippee Skippee Whoop Whoop, a day I have been dreaming of has come, and by a few ounces I weigh less than Tomkitten ! A big wide " Hey it Works" smile upon my face!????

And Sarah, has Valentine's Day and all these other heading toward Spring days brought you a possible Mr Sarah? Haven't heard from you in a while!

I have something I'm happy about, instead of a NSV it is an TSV but there is no " thread " for that! READY? I now weigh less than my son the Tomkitten! Does this give us the same BMI? Nope, PCP says he measures nearly 2 inches taller, do I am beat still there but I believe that may come also. On my official ( bariatric scale at clinic in Columbus) I am 245.1 pounds, he is 245.4. I am weeping my teats? of joy , at my highest we were very very far apart in weight and I felt it was insurmountable. Even if he does try to lose weight, and since PCP has taken to put " Morbid Obesity" on his appointment summeries, he told me I may talk to Dr Needleman at your next visit, he doesn't have the GERD I did, so might be a mere metabolic weight loser or at worst as VSG. Told him that will be between you, Dr Needleman or Dr Noria, because that is who I am fated to see in Apriln this is a decision your. Mother can't make for YOu! But for a short time I can really be called his LITTLE MAMA and it will be the truth.? &?

All of my prerequirements were done, some twice, quite a story behind THAT, had my presurgical July 17th, found out that day when it would be. Started on my liver-shrinking diet August 1st, met with a Internal medicine resident, who went over in great detail my previous surgeries, any reaction to anesthesia, went over my med list with a fine toothed comb, a lot of meds on there but truly boring type stuff. Gave me 2 bottles of a prep diet solution, one at midnight, other 2 hours prior to surgery.Made by Abbott Labs, the folks that make Ensure, also headquatered in Columbus, do I sleek a slight kickback there? Wanted to give me a nice big bottle of Hibiclens, get that nasty stuff Away from me, found out at previous surgery ( on my left knee) I am quite allergic, looked like somebody thrown acid on my poor leg. So I got special instructions , Dial Gold liquid soap, double shower, 2nd shower leave on 5 minutes and be sure to scrub your navel. Hnnnh? Turns out my surgeon Dr Needleman uses there as one of his portal sites, so I got 7 , one in the navel so it was made clear. At 6 months they have faded some much into the surrounding stretched marked territory they are not easy to find. Only one still clear is the one just below the sternum kinda between my breasts, that was where the liver retractor went in, and the liver shrink diet work, lost 15 pounds that month alone and he said my liver was small, sleek and smooth like a newborn calf, once I was certain he wasn't going to sell me for veal I felt pretty proud of ME.. Would I do it again? Oh no doubt, I have not had a textbook recovery but I'm more mad at my crabby old 73 year old body for mal- healing than I could the hospital, surgical procedure or my wonderful surgeon, in my ❤ he was and is a miracle worker. And to my dying day, and I don't plan to do that for years, I will be intensely grateful he took a chance on me when many programs would have turned me down on age alone. I fought seen and unseen hostilities for 3 long years to get Precious Pouch installed, although she is an ornery brat who rules my life, we will still make our final peace, the GERD freedom makes up for a lot of things, the blips, twists and turns in my bariatric journey . Basically we each write our own journal, in our lives, mine will be a cliff- hanger, you won't go to sleep if you read mine. ?

Where at in Toronto? One of my Surgeons is Canadian, so she has accreditation is I u.S and Canada. i think it was St Thomas( or maybe St Joseph- there are so many saints, it boggles the mind!) Anyway I thi,k she is from on of the suburbs of Toronto, and one of her senior residents came from outside of Calgary. At any rate she is one smart cookie and I like Dr Noria a lot. And April will be a lovely month to be having surgery and I do hope you are blessed with a wonderful surgery and smooth healing. Keep us updated on your journey.

And Biofreeze is a topical ointment, I get mine at Wal-Mart, right now I have Blu-Emu, it's cheaper and Johnny Bench ( baseball) and Richard Petty ( NASCAR driver ) are on the ads. Now don't laugh, it's no worse than choosing foods from commercials. And either it or the meds from my last ER trip has tamed my neck/ upper back pains down to a dull roar. This I am grateful for!

And I never had one particle of gas, was it because I was an RnY, maybe Ohio State pumps out all the CO2 afterwards, IDK but don't worry, Karma got me in strange and difuse ways, and I believe I would almost prefered the gas at times. But life does have its twists and turns, but it has to beat the chance of death all hollow. Besides I wouldn't have gotten to be on the internet and meet all you very neat Bari- brothers and sisters. I'm sure I am the only Bypass in my county, nobody to talk to here. And sometimes I can say Jodie, Susie or Janie had that also, they made it through- I can Too!

Well grapefruit is a diuretic, if you don't mind that, there are a few things you shouldn't eat with grapefruit, check with WebMD and Drugs.com on your search engine, I usually use Duck Duck Go, Firefox or the ever- present Uncle Google. Like DDG because it can be Cleared with a poof at the end, not retained forever in the memory like Google does.

And a Happy Future for all of YOU! Take a deep breath, smile, because all the preparations will now bear fruit. And you can do this next stage also, have faith in you, face tomorrow without sorrow!??

Yeah I know how that feels, there were times I would get one trapped as I rolled over in bed, so now I turn on the side in stages, no more Side Flops for me.

It's more of a balk instead of a stall, but still peeved you when you're sure you are doing everything that your dietician and surgeon recommended. It will smooth out but only in its sweet time!

Yeah it can cause ulcers big-time, that's where I got Hector my small original gastric ulcer. The actual problem was two- fold, I have slightly impaired lungs, one doctor said pre- emphysema, one asthma but any rate anytime a "bug" decides to take up a vacation home in my lungs, I produce a lot of mucus. So doctor #1 my PCP wrote a script for a demulcent, and it did work, maybe too well. it also stripped away the protective mucus layer in my stomach, meanwhile Doctor#2 my ortho- pede guy was recommending 4 ibuprofen every 4- 6 hours for my pretty severe arthritis pain, down went the Motrin, found an unprotected stomach with no mucus protecting it so the chemicals started chomping and erodi,g until I had an ulcer( Hector) coming close to bleeding with the ulceration. Well I presented my little self to OSU with a diagnosis of gastritis and ulceration on my paperwork, I was on a PPI Dexilent that was working pretty well. What do they do after my surgery? Put me on omeprazole,which was not gastroprotective , in fact I was on THAT when Hector was discovered by my gastroenterologist 8 months before. 5 weeks in- after an endoscopy 3 ulcers in my strictured tummy pouch and a whole line of them marching down my jejunemn. I started telling them at 2 weeks There is Something Wrong in there, I was told I was still swollen, oh nothing wrong, I wasnt giving myself a chance to heal. One even got in my face to tell me how her fancy degrees made her smarter than me. Maybe so but I had lived in this body a long time. And this isn't over yet, I am hoping with the April 12 or the one subsequent I will finally have everything in there calmed and my stomach stoma opening will be wide enough that foods can pass through, mighty tired of liquids and thin purees, I have dentures so chewing everything 30 times is a Royal Pain.

Had it, an RnY , last September 5th but having a slow screwy recovery, I can be ranked as "Atypical "in some ways I am like a 6 week- 2 monther instead. But things will straighten out ( or so my Surgeons assure me) and I will have as good a recovery as everyone else. So I try to keep peace in my soul, found out years ago all pounding your head against a brick wall foe is give you a doozy of a headache. So I am somewhat fatalistic, Que Sera, sera- what will be will be. I came into all this to become a winner so nobody better try to count me out!

Talk to my Bari- bud @ LynnV in Dayton Ohio, she had it done and is quite satisfied.

And trusting @ ItME that things are still going well for you in March 2019.

And confidence, pride and belief in yourself, and that kind of stuff is so good. Maybe this summer I won't hide from cameras and even cell phones, sure used to, even offered to be the photographer to keep from being immortalized at the size I was.

So has anyone rewarded themselves with something like jewelry, a trip, concert or similar?

And when it happens let us all see the pretty thing you have become. I suspect you have always been pretty but now it will have worked to the surface where everyone can see it too!?

Isn't it amazing how much work they can get done through such tiny openings? At 6 months, unless you know where to look it's hard to find mine among the stretch marks of 3 9-pound babies. Only one easily seen is the top one where Dr Needleman put in the liver retractor and that's only because it was unblemished up there just below the sternum and between my mammary endowments. The other 6, they're still around but no one would be interested in looking for them. And at 73 I have resigned myself to 1 piece swimwear, sure couldn't rock a bikini? even at my smallest.

And they want and need, although kids seldom verbalize it, their Mom, healthier and lighter in weight, actually hip is easier to heal from than knee replacement and I have had 2 of them. But God Bless you, I do routinely pray for all of us on Bariatric Pal, that we have what we need, when we need it and that every surgery is successful and smooth. And those who have not walked the walk, have no room to criticize, nobody knows what it is like ?unless ?they have experienced it. It is not and never will be the EASY way Out, but it rewards in a lot of good ways. ?