anonemouse

Finally, I hit the "overweight" classification!

I looked up that thread, and here's what Kellie wrote:

I've not had my tummy tuck yet, but I've gone to a consultation and I've talked to a bunch of people that have had theirs. It really just depends on the surgeon, honestly, from what I've found. Some will apparently absolutely refuse to do a TT on a woman that hasn't had kids, and others don't really care. The PS I had a consultation with a couple of weeks ago had no problems with me not having had children. I've also heard recommendations that any post-TT pregnancy should be postponed until a couple of years after the TT, to allow for full healing. I haven't had kids yet, and I don't really want them at this point in my life. I'm going into this with the viewpoint that this is my money and I'm fully aware of and willing to take the risk that any future pregnancy may or may not ruin the TT, so give me a tummy tuck, damn it! :glare: I personally feel that any PS that flat-out refuses to do a TT on a woman who hasn't had kids is on more than a little bit of a high horse. I mean, I can understand it if it's a woman that really doesn't need a TT, but it's rather outlandish, IMO, to tell a woman that's lost a drastic amount of weight that she just needs to live with the extreme amounts of hanging skin because the PS doesn't want his "artistry" to be ruined. Don't get me wrong, I think the patient in that situation needs to be informed of the likelihood that the TT will basically be reversed by any future pregnancy, but I feel that the final decision on whether or not to take that risk should be up to the patient.

I asked this over at MMH, but figured it didn't hurt to ask here, too. Y'all might have some ideas that the ladies at MMH didn't think of. Anyway, do any of you have any ideas for questions that I should ask the PS I am having a consultation with on Wednesday? I went to the last consultation intending to ask questions and then realized once I had left that I'd completely forgotten to ask anything important. The procedures I'm interested in are a tummy tuck and breast lift (possibly augmentation, as well). Any suggestions would be appreciated. I plan on typing up the questions and taking a print-off with me on Wednesday.

Good luck, Christine!

I wish I could get my hair to do stuff. Unfortunately, it's fairly curly (not Annie-curly, but it gets ringlets when long and uncombed), so I can either do short and curly/wavey or longer and frizzy-curly. Can't style it for anything. It's very stubborn; all it does is curl. Which is nice, when I'm in the mood for curly hair. If I want it to look like something other than curls, though, I'm SOL. No popular style ever works. Hell, even styled curls don't work. If I want it to curl one way, it invariably curls the exact opposite direction.:thumbdown:

I kept forgetting to post this, but got reminded by another board. When I was trying to get my PCP to write a letter to insurance for me, back in December of 2006, he made me get blood work done. Well, at the time, my cholesterol was 286. I got it redone in early February of this year, as part of my 6-month post-op check-up. Guess what? It was 185!

I know! After the third one, I was just sitting here blinking in wonder and thinking something along the lines of, "Gee, I wonder which of my students are probably going to be getting great big Fs at the end of the semester?" I'm really wondering if they all sit at the same table and managed to copy each other, honestly.

Let me ask you guys a question. If you were taking a quiz and the instructor handed you two sheets of paper, would you not check to see if at least one of the sheets was double-sided? Apparently, that's a little too difficult for one of my classes. I just finished grading the first quiz they took, and about a quarter of the class failed to answer the questions on the back of the first sheet. You would think that when reading the questions, they would have wondered where questions 8-13 were, since they all answered 1-7 and 14-20. Surely that would have raised alarms in their brains. I never thought I'd have to remind a college class, "Now remember, children, whenever I give you a quiz or exam that is more than a page long, be sure to check and make sure you've answered the questions on both sides of the paper!" :)

Woohoo! That's great, Christine!

Remember that allergic reaction I had? Well, it apparently triggered a massive sinus and ear infection that laid me out for several days. I even had to have my mom come and pick me up in Kentucky and drive me home so that I could go see my regular doctor because it wasn't safe for me to drive. I nearly passed out a couple of times in the shower because of my sinuses and I was very wobbly because of my ears. And on top of all that, I severely burned the roof of my mouth the day after my allergic reaction (couldn't feel it at the time because of the swelling) and now have massive, thick blisters. Shitty week, all around. I had to get blood drawn yesterday to do a rast test to see if I'm allergic to wheat, milk components, or soy. And I got the bad blood tech, too, that always hurts my arm. :cursing:

I'm definitely keeping my fingers crossed for you.

Oh, man. I've been MIA for the last several days due to an allergic reaction / sinus infection / ear infection. I'm so sorry, Christine. Sending you lots of internet hugs, okay?

I've got an appointment for an allergy test on the 19th. I'm honestly not sure if the benadryl helped or not. If it did, it wasn't anything drastic.

This just keeps getting better and better. The roof of my mouth has turned into one giant blister because I apparently burned it on coffee (without even feeling it!) while it was still swollen today from the allergic reaction. So now it's bruised from the swelling AND blistered. I can't even eat anything because the pressure my tongue puts on the roof of my mouth while I'm swallowing is so painful. Someone should just get it over with and put me out of my misery.

Honestly, I didn't think to ask her. She knew that I don't have kids, though, and didn't say anything about it being a problem.

Yeah, I'm planning on calling an allergy center tomorrow and having an allergy test scheduled. I've been wanting to do that anyway, just to see if my allergies have changed, but this will give me a good reason to do it. I think I'm swearing off of Cheez-its, though. :biggrin:

To be honest, I don't get it. I've eaten Cheez-its before, even the 100 calorie packs. This wasn't even my first packet out of this box. I don't know why I'm reacting to it now. I looked on the package, and the only potential allergens that they've got noted are milk, soy, and wheat products. Years ago, I tested as slightly allergic to wheat and milk, but I've never had a reaction as bad as this before, to anything. Like I said in the OP, occasionally I'll have slight tingling or numbing of my mouth or lips when I eat lemons or nuts (usually walnuts or pecans), but nothing that has kept me from eating them.

If it gets much worse, I'm definitely going to make a trip to the hospital. My lips have swollen slightly and the back of my mouth (around my tonsils) has swollen up a little, too. It's not to the point where it's caused a problem with breathing or swallowing, so I'm just keeping an eye on it at this point. I took a benedryl a few minutes ago, so hopefully that will take care of it.

She said that if I keep losing on schedule, I should be close enough to goal (hopefully within 20-25 pounds, less with the skin and fat she'll remove) to have it done in May. Ideally, I'd be at goal and completely stable, but May's looking like the best time for me to have surgery, since my university semester will be over and I'll be between jobs.

If I believed in reincarnation, I'd think I'd done something to someone in a past life. I'm currently having a fairly painful allergic reaction to Cheez-its. I was eating a 100 calorie pack of them for a snack earlier, managed to get maybe two of them down and then noticed that the top of my mouth was burning like it was on fire and was starting to swell. Of course, I immediately stopped eating the Cheez-its, and the swelling hasn't gotten much worse, but it's still slightly swollen and burning! I don't get it. I've never had this reaction to Cheez-its before. Occasionally, I'll have similar, but much slighter, allergic reactions to nuts or citrus, but not to other stuff.

I want it to be the middle of May now, damn it! :Dancing_wub: It's like I can see being thin and having a flat stomach right around the corner and it's killing me to wait. I know I have to wait, in order to be closer to my goal, or I risk ruining the results of the surgery. But inside, I have this gibbering voice screaming, "Gimme, gimme, GIMME!" :wink2::biggrin: I'm sure that I'll freak once it is mid-May, but right now I'd go under the knife in an utter heart beat. What makes it even harder to wait is that I know that even if I had a TT right now, I'd look so much better than I do currently. It's so disillusioning to work hard and lose half of my excess weight, and not really see it in the mirror or have many other people see it, just because I still have this damn flabby belly that I have to conceal with bigger clothes. I just have to keep that picture in my head, of being flat-stomached for the first time in my life. I think I'll go mad, otherwise. :Dancing_chief:

That's what I was worried about. If it gives me any more problems, I'll definitely give my surgeon a call.

Honestly, I'd start looking into other forms of weightloss surgery (forms that don't rely quite as much on ability to exercise), and I'd look for a surgeon that was extremely experienced with high-risk patients. Take the surgeons on Big Medicine, for example. They work with extremely high risk patients, ones that are so heavy that they can't even get out of bed. I doubt your mom is higher risk than them. Yeah, lap-band is probably out of the question, but other forms of WLS may still be an option.

It's kind of throbbing/stabbing/sharp ache pain, if that makes any sense. I haven't really paid much attention to what I was eating before it's happened, so I can't say with any certainty that I was eating a particular type of food before the attacks. If I had to guess, though, I'd say higher fat meals than I usually eat. I think the last attack was after I'd eaten beef tips sauteed with rice, onion, and cheese and a really cheesy broccoli casserole thingy from a restaurant. It's not a constant thing, though. I'll go days with no problems and then it'll start hurting off and on for a couple days.