sk27

Hi All! Was great talking with those of you that were at the clinic yesterday - I wish I had thought of checking here before I went so I'd know if anyone else was going to be around - turns out a few of us found each other any way! Fish - fingers crossed for a speedy recovery for you Everyone else - I hope your fills are doing *something* for you!! It turned out I already had 3cc's in my band (Who knew - they told me pre-op they'd empty me right out because I was from out of town...) so now I'm up to 4.5 and at risk of jumping the gun, I'm certainly feeling a bit more restriction today - hopefully it's real, and not head games Wannabe - glad your removal went well, it's so much better when the staples are gone!! And although i didn't look REAL close, I'm pretty sure the needle wasn't 2 feet long, nor did it hold 10 cups of saline, so I'm have confidence you'll jump that hurdle with no problems at all Off to collapse after a long day yesterday and today - take care all

Hey Tammar! We were banded the same day! That's kinda cool :scared2: I don't know that I can offer any advice other then to make sure everything gets chewed up really well, when I first went to soft solids, I was chewing things obsessively - 60 chews on one small bite at first - a bit much, yes probably, but it worked. Also - I found that more then proper chewing, I was having a REAL hard time with bite size, which was causing me some problems. So, I switched to using my daughter's (15 month old ) baby spoons to eat. It really helped because I was having much smaller bites which helped make sure I was chewing well and not trying to get too much in at once. So now as long as I'm eating something that can be used with one of her spoons, I"m doing pretty good. hope that helps and that you continue to get better :wub: k.

Yup - I'd say that's the horrible gas pain you had last night! Hopefully that will be the extent of it for you, I was very happy to finally have that gone! I'm glad to hear you are doing well after your surgery and that everything went as planned other then having to wait a bit longer - that would have made me even more nervous!! Good luck on your fill when the time comes Moonbeam! I suppose I should phone and book my appointment for my first one. I have a house full of in-laws on my actualy 6 week anniversary, so if the doctors aren't there, it would actually be okay for me to have to move the date around a bit. I'm anxious for the first fill, but at the same time, the surgery is done, and that was the important first step! take care all!

Great news on both fronts! Congrats to you and fingers crossed for a speedy recovery for her!!

I think Canadiangirl had her surgery yesterday? Would love to hear how you're doing!! The first couple days will pass quickly and you'll be feelin' better soon :crying: I had my staples out yesterday - RELIEF!! WOW! I also can pretty much eat just about anything now, although I need to work on eating slower, as that's caused a few problems. Feeling 100% again though in terms of being post-op, now I just can't wait to get my fill!

Stabbing pain in the left shoulder - yes yes yes - it's horrible! Up into my neck sometimes - I'll be happy when that's finally gone! I guess I don't know 100% that I had an issue with things getting stuck, but I assumed because a. i shoveled 2 big spoon fulls of carrots/chicken/celery into my yap b. i chewed the 'old' way - meaning, very little, and c. about a half second after it went down I thought I was having a heart attack! So I just went ahead and assumed that's what it was, but I suppose it could be lingering gas as well. Either way, it SUCKED!! Now, the feeling is almost gone, but once in awhile, it almost feels like something is bobbing up and down from between me boobs up to the base of me throat, which makes me think something's in there. Again - may be gas - I dunno! I have to say though, I'm certainly still not comfortable moving on. I've been having soup exclusively the last 2 days, and even then as soon as I have a bit too much I seem to feel it. I don't know for sure that that's from restriction, more likely from swelling/surgery related things, and perhaps gas. (I REALLY HATE THE GAS THING!!) I've been walking around most of the day, sipping Water, and have done rocking in a rocking chair (I read that helps) and still in a great deal of gas pain, so I hope soon it passes. It's hard to feel up to doing anything when there's a constant pain in my neck (not even my husband for once! LOL) I will think of getting some Gas x - I also read somewhere about it being a bit better once you start having some BM's and I've been in the bathroom all day with those (Sorry TMI - but it's FANTASTIC! LOL) so hopefully I will see some improvement soon! thanks for the reply! k.

I agree with moonbeam - you can absolutely do the pre-op - and the rest of it and in a year we'll all be loungin' back wonderin' what all the big fuss was :thumbdown: For reals - try having some fun with your veggies, there's lots of seasonings and ways to dress them up without adding no-no's to them - hard to eat plain veggies was the downfall of many a diet for me, learning how to trick 'em up is a great thing! I'm still not moving towards the mushies yet - scared! I'll see how I go in a few days, but as of yet, other then my really horrible go at soup yesterday, I've not been incredibly hungry yet - kinda a good thing at the moment. I have to agree with moonbeam (again!) about the brain playing catch up with the eating - it's hard to not just jump in head first doing exactly what they say not to. I think I've mostly managed to finally clear away any stuck food, hoping I only have to learn that lesson once! Also - moonbeam - can we talk gas for a minute?!? i had NO idea what people meant by gas pain. Ow... such a small word seems to be not very accurate at describing how some of this gas pain actually feels. Not trying to scare anyone (because even with the gas pain YES YES YES I'd do it again in a heartbeat!) - but did you have it, and if so - how long for? I keep scouring everything I can trying to find the *one* secret to getting rid of it but it always comes back to walking and Water so I guess I'll keep on doing that and hope for it to go away. It sucks - it is by far worse then the surgery itself, hell, I feel like I could do cartwheels up the street if it wasn't for the blasted gas. Sorry - apparently I felt the need to go on about that one for a bit

I knew about the two in Saskatoon, but this is the first time I've seen someone in Regina doing the fills. I will go to Winnipeg for the year for my fills, but it's certainly worth knowing someone in Regina does them for when the year of fills included with surgery is done. Has anyone around here gone to Linda MacPhee? Would love to hear some experiences! Any ideas where/who she was trained? Thanks for the info! k.

Canadiangirl - it's grilling season, so if you have a bbq or are around mean and cruel people (aka family - mine tortured me!!) that are having bbq'd food while you're stuck suffering away on pre-op - grill some veggies up while everyone else has meat cooking. My absolute fave was grilled asparagus (steamed a bit first to short cooking time) then some salt and pepper and a very slight spritz of pam (Ok'd by Danielle as long as it was a spritz) and then toss them on the grill until they start charring a bit. Sooooo good!! Especially the night when there were 4 big steaks cooking along side - they never touched, but some of that flavour was in the asparagus - VERY good! Roasted Green Beans Recipe : Recipezaar was also delicious, minus the oil of course, and great to snack on. I also made a sort of Soup that seemed to fill me up real good when I ate it for dinner - canned tomatoes with the juice, lots of diced cabbage, mushrooms, a bit of onion, green beans - really, whatever veg you would want in it. If you can find 0 calorie veggie broth you could add that too, in moderation. (I think i added 2/3 c for a HUGE pot of soup) .. some garlic and whatever spices you might like thrown in - pretty tasty. For extra liquid, Water packed green beans without draining off the water works well too. I also always mixed my shakes with irish cream flavoured coffee (The beans flavoured, NOT syrup added in!) and the only shakes I had a hard time getting down were only the ones I had to mix with water on it's own - blech! I didn't have the vanilla flavoured ones, but maybe something like that would help them go down a bit better? I'm still on liquids - or at least, should be. I had a brain-fart of a moment yesterday when I actually forgot I had had surgery (just woke up and was HUNGRY) and didn't remember until I had 2 spoonfulls of chicken and veggie soup down. I'm still paying for it today, even though everything was very mushie, I wasn't ready for the bulk of it I guess. VERY painful experience, I may just stick with liquids for the full 2 weeks just so I don't have to risk that feeling again!! I searched around these forums for ideas on how to get rid of 'stuck food' and came up with flat Coke or pineapple Juice - naturally I went with the one with no nutritional value It seems to have helped a bit, I actually think I may survive the episode now! LOL good luck!:thumbdown:

That's so awesome - my husband was in the waiting room waiting for me and when he came back to recovery he said that there had been someone in to get her staples out - pretty good chance that would be you!! I was out of sight from about 1 until I left at 6 so I didn't see many people myself, but he (hubby) said there was sure a lot of people in for fills/consults etc! Hope you're recovering well - only about 4 more weeks til your first fill - yay! I'm enjoying my Water and juice and other liquids right now - I don't know if I'll ever quench this thirst! Take care!!

Hi again everyone! I haven't had a chance to do a lot of looking in over here, although I'm hoping to get in more a bit more regular! I had my surgery today @ Maples and everything has gone well. No hernia surprises for me, and I didn't come out with a new pair of boobs, so I think I can say I'm so far quite happy with the process! The people at the centre were great today - I had never been put under before and was more nervous about that part then the surgery itself - one minute i was commenting on the pretty blue ceiling, the next they were walking me up. Fabulous facility, great from the start to this point. Onto Clear liquids for a bit mmmm - at this point, as long as I can HAVE liquids, I'm ecstatic! (midnight to 4pm was waaaay too long to have no liquids LOL) And if I never have to see a shake/bar/veggie diet plan again, Ill be super happy. It was do-able, to those out there not on that stage yet, you'll do great on it - but you'll be happy to see it done too! All the best everyone! :drool:

Wow - that's awesome - good luck tomorrow! I would love to hear how you do! I start my pre-op diet tomorrow - just had my "last meal" tonight - and feel really ready to start tomorrow! I can't offer help on a Winnipeg support group, as I'm in Sk - but hope you find one!

I realize this thread hasn't really had much attention lately, but I just wanted to share that I'm having my surgery at the Maples clinic on April 28th - it's been a fast process, my consultation was just last week but I'm really excited, although fairly nervous as well. I have to say I've been very impressed with everyone i've dealt with at and through Maples - Jen, the doctors, the psychiatrist and the dietician, not to mention the other people working at the clinic that I've spoken with. They've all been fabulous - I was very nervous starting the consultation process, but it didn't take me long to realize how committed all of these people are to helping. Anyway - just wanted to share my news, and also offer my 2 cents of dealing with the people at Maples thus far. Provided there's nothing unseen in the next few weeks, I wouldn't hesitate to recommend them to anyone, they truly are fantastic!

Another Saskatchewanian here! Just starting to snoop for info until after the holidays when I can focus more attention to it! Does anyone know if GMS (or other insurance companies) pays to have the surgery in Toronto or Winnipeg? ty!