TXAmy07

Oh man, this stinks! I'm sorry that happened to you. :glare: I went with the Gas-x, and I wonder if we were supposed to take a different dosage of that too? I was doing 2 strips, recommended was 2-4. Interesting. Well, this is a good warning for everyone else though I am sorry it happened to you!

Wow, that is really lousy. I'm sorry that happened to you. That would make me so angry... I am very newly banded, but when I went in for my consult my surgeon actually said that a lot of his patients love doing WW with their band so I was thinking of doing that once I get to the real food phase. Now I don't know!! How disheartening!

The night before I started my pre-op I went out with some friends and had a big fat plate of Mexican food. Fajitas and rice and beans and WOW it was good. My pre-op was for 1 month, and 5 days before surgery I cheated a little and had the last thing I wanted before this life change - PIZZA. It was good, but at the same time I felt guilty and a little worried I'd mess things up. I also noticed I was full faster - I could have eaten 4 pieces easy before all of this, but I was stuffed after the 2 1/2 I ate. All is well though, I had surgery on Wednesday and today is the first day I have started to feel hungry. Looking back, had I known the gas pain would be as bad as it was, I would NEVER have cheated just because I'd be too worried about them going in and not being able to do anything!!! I think if that happened I would have said just forget it!

Good luck guys! You will all do great!

So do we all think the biggest incision is where the port is? I thought that as well. Mine is RIGHT in the middle of my stomach, maybe slightly to the right I guess. It's not on my waistline. I wonder why he did it right there in the middle? I pressed on it a little bit to see if I could feel it but I couldn't. (it doesn't really hurt) I feel tons better today though. I haven't been able to really eat, I haven't been hungry at ALL until this morning. My stomach was actually rumbling! I am slowly eating yogurt with a half a scoop of Protein powder in it, it doesn't taste very good but I hope it helps me get some energy up. I have done great with the walking even though it leaves me completely exhausted, but I haven't been as good about drinking as I wanted to be. I will work on that today though. For those that haven't gone yet, just know that 48 hours post-op I feel soooo much better that I can actually say that I don't regret my decision. Not that I ever did regret it, but I was pretty upset right after I had the surgery. I just think I wasn't fully prepared for the pain and I didn't know what to expect. Had someone told me, "You will feel like CRAP, but it WILL get better and you WILL feel better after a couple of days" then I think I would have been in better spirits for these past couple of days. Live and learn, though. Hopefully someone can learn from my oversight!

Juniper, Don't worry about the hospital part, everyone there was soooo nice! If you get the same bariatric coordinator though, tell her sorry for almost falling asleep during her speech. Hehe. But seriously, the hospital was a good experience. They were ALL friendly, and they joked around with me a lot - even the recovery nurse. I asked her 3 or 4 times what time it was, and then I felt sort of bad for bugging her about it so I said "So....... it's very weird to lose time when you're in the OR, because 5 minutes ago it was 7am and I was just going into surgery" and we had this big conversation about that, and I said "so .... I say all that to ask you yet again, what time is it?" and she laughed really hard and said I was a good spinner, and what kind of work did I do? I said marketing and she said, perhaps you should think of becomming a nurse with the way you spin things to get what you need. LOL So, I couldn't say enough good things about the hospital... It's just the surgery itself, I thought I had read up enough on it, but I really had no idea about the gas pain and how much it would really hurt. I am sure you will do great, and you will probably even get to go home earlier than me. I had to wait for longer because the coordinator lady was at lunch. I am crossing my fingers for you, and for everyone else in the Bandito group!

I am going through terrible gas pain right now! My surgery was yesterday. I have been taking the gas-x strips, but I can't tell if they are helping or not. I was NOT prepared for how bad it would feel... the gas feels like it's right in my back so it makes it hurt to lay on my back. I have been walking today though, and it might be a tiny bit better... The pain comes and goes. It is very much second to the sore stomach, which was shocking to me. For those of you that had bad gas pain, how long did it take for it to go away?

Alright folks, here it is. I like to read the longer, more detailed stories so I know EXACTLY what's going to happen, and so that's what I think I will write now. Skip over this if you aren't prepared to read what surely will become a novel! So... I got to the hospital at 5:15 am for my check in. They took me to a room, gave me the sexy hospital gown, took my vitals, asked me a ton of questions such as, "are you pregnant?"... Then came the shot. I told her that I heard it hurts, and she said "no way, look at the needle! it's tiny!". I admitted that yes, it WAS in fact little and thin and how could that hurt? She gave it to me in the stomach and then said, "see that wasn't bad!". I agreed! She turned to walk out and by the time she got to the door I was doubled over in pain. :thumbsup: It wasn't the NEEDLE, it was the actual medicine (heprin, to prevent blood clotting) that hurts! But good news, it didn't hurt for too long. Maybe about 5-10 minutes. After a little bit they came and got me and took me down to the pre-op room, where I met the anesthegiologist. She said I have terrible veins (thanks Mom) and she had to use a baby needle to get an IV going. She said "don't worry, when you wake up you will have a second one, this is just to put you to sleep... I'll give you a better one for the meds but it would hurt too much to do it awake". (hmm, don't worry, eh) The surgeon came in and said hello, gave me some post-op instructions and then they both left to get ready. My OR nurse Jill came over and introduced herself and then complimented my little stuffed frog that I had with me. My daughter told me to take it for good luck, and it's her prized loved worn out little frog. I told Jill that, and she said, "tell you what - I'll let you take him into the OR with you then since he's so special". Awww! So, Little Froggy went to surgery with me. :grouphug: A few minutes later they took me down to the OR, and then that's when everything got cold and busy. There were 80 million people walking around in the freezing OR, doing 39 million things. Someone was putting a "seat belt" (what he called it) over me, someone was putting my arm on a board to tie it down or something, they were talking about getting some feet boards to tilt the bed where I'd be leaning up during surgery (!)... Someone said "I just gave you something to make you sleepy" and that's THE last thing I remember. Suddenly I was in the recovery room and WOW, the big incision HURT. I felt like I couldn't even talk though... there was so much going on in that room, several other people that were coming out of surgery too, and my nurse was helping this lady who had eye surgery and it was her 69th birthday. She came over after a minute and asked me some questions, what my pain was (I think I said 8), gave me some morphine, the surgeon came over and said some stuff to me... I remember the one thing I was really flipping out over was the things on my legs. WOW. I was hot and sweating all over, and these things on my legs that they put on during surgery were pressing all over the place and they kept tightening and loosening and they felt plastic. The very first thing I said was, "I dont want to do this any more" and someone laughed and said "too late, you are done!" and then I asked for my boyfriend and they said he couldn't come in until I was out of recovery... THEN I said "what is this on my legs?? It's so hot in here" and they took them off and said "oh wow, they are soaking wet - you're sweating!". Someone got a big box fan and turned it right on me and yay, I was so happy! Fan + morphine = YES! She gave me another shot of morphine, and I chilled there for a bit. I started to feel more human and become more aware of things, such as the old lady they were yelling at to stop bending her knees. LOL! I guess she had surgery on her knees but they said "we're going to take you back to the OR if you don't quit!" and she was yelling about how it hurt, etc. MAN that got annoying. Luckily I faded in and out, and finally it was time to go back to my room. I kept trying to make myself wake up some and feel better because I knew they'd let me leave there if I tried. Sure enough! Radiology was not ready for me yet, because they didn't think I'd recover that quickly (it wasn't even fast... my surgery was over at about 8:20ish and this was at 10am) and so I had to go back to my room I was in first thing in the morning. I was never so happy to be back in there with my mom and boyfriend! (As a side note, I remember as I was waking up in recovery someone saying, "what is this frog" and someone else said "that's her daughters, he was in the OR with her" - that made me happy) So we chilled for a bit, then they came at 10:30 to go down to radiology. I had to swallow this gross chalk stuff while they did x-rays. I asked to see, and they showed me my band, my "new stomach", the port, etc. It was cool! The only super uncool thing was having to move back and forth from the bed to the xray bed and back. THAT sucked but they said take your time, so I did just that. My stomach was so sore that it was hard to move. I also had to turn on my left and then right side for another xray, which sucked too. After a few minutes the doctor looked at the xrays and cleared me and they took me back up to my room. Then I got juice! I was soooo thirsty that I couldn't have been more excited about the juice. But then came the bad news. It made me feel SO sick. I had them get Water, and that was way better. I think the juice was just too sweet. The nurse said in order to leave and go home I had to drink a certain amount and keep it down, I had to go to the bathroom a certain amount, and the bariatric coordinator for the hospital had to come in and talk to me. That was motiviation!! I could only drink a medicine cup of water every 5 minutes, which was so weird - but they said my stomach is the size of a golf ball! That kind of freaked me out. I started feeling pretty sick when I stood up to go to the bathroom and I thought I was going to throw up - I started dry-heaving, and the nurse went and got me something for that. It helped some but it was a slow fix. I just kind of chilled out for a couple of hours, drinking water, going to the bathroom, sitting in the chair... dozing off some. Then the coordinator came in and started going through this HUGE packet of information. I mean seriously?? I was EXHAUSTED and feeling sick and she was talking all about eating and chocolate flavored Calcium pills and oh man, it was just way too much. They should have her come before the surgery. At one point she said, "don't get bored, I am just telling you this stuff because you need to know it all". I wasn't bored, I was tired! That kind of annoyed me, but finally she was done and she left. Whew! They said the last thing I had to do was walk with that coordinator down the hall and back to make sure I was okay and then they'd let me go. We did that, and she asked how I felt. I said still a little sick, very sore, and very tired. She said the gas is what makes you sick and the best way to get it out is to walk. I didn't know this, but when you walk around the gas gets absorbed in your body. Otherwise it just sits there. So we got done with our walk, she cleared me, and I go to go home! My surgery was at 7:15am and I left at 2:30. I felt pretty dang bad when I got home. I kept thinking, WHAT did I do this for? I took some stuff for my stomach, and that helped some. I was so sore that I couldn't walk much, and I am sure the gas was just building up inside me. I was almost regretful of what I had done but I got reassurance from another MAYO BANDITO, Bethany. She reminded me that some think the gas is the worst part of it all, and some do regret doing it for that reason. Just to know that the feelings I was feeling were normal helped me so much. So, thanks again Bethany! Today I feel BETTER. I am actually less sore, but still have the gas. I can feel it in my back, of all places... which makes it hard to lay down on my back. I have been walking once down my street today and I am about to go back out once I finish this. If I could just get the gas to go away, I'd feel so much better! My stomach is still pretty sore but I can tell it's better from yesterday already. So, I am feeling a lot more positive about things today. I am still sipping water, not very interested in any kind of food. Once I get the gas to go away I will be so much better! I am taking gas-x - the one that melts on your tongue but it's kind of gross and I hate taking it. I still have not taken pain meds. I have skin glue, so he said I could take a shower today. I bet that will help too. I guess that's it! That's my story. I want to always remember how I felt yesterday and last night so that I can motivate myself to make this work! I will be a happy person if I never have to go into an OR again. :thumbup: Good luck to everyone!!!!

Hey Juniper, Tracy is the new LB coordinator, Nikki was the old one. I started all of this in October, and she was the one I dealt with mostly, AND the reason why I chose their practice - she was awesome. She was helpful, she had the band herself... she let people feel her port at the seminar! But then Tracy was there, and I never really got a good feeling about her like with Nikki. Tracy was gone the day that I went to pick up my pre-op stuff and so Nikki filled in for me and she let me do the non-Myocel stuff. Maybe you can just call and talk to Nikki... tell her you're having a problem with the Myocel and what else can you do? Anyways, I did survive yesterday. I am writing my story now and I will post it soon. And the thought of soup makes me want to puke. :thumbsup: I'm sticking to water for now!

Congratulations to you for moving forward, for admitting what I know is hard to say, and for taking control of your life! Please keep us updated on your journey. :thumbup: -Amy

Hey Juniper, That rocks that we're at the same office! I picked Dr. Anderson because he was at the seminar. Did you go to one? Did you have to speak to the dietician? When I was there talking to her she told me the ratio of carbs to protein in the myocel stuff... So I bought some that had as much protein and as many carbs as Myocel before I even started the pre-op. When I went to pick up my packet of stuff to start the pre-op, Nikki asked what flavor I wanted and I told her I already had some that I'd ordered online. She said just make sure it has at least 20g of protein per serving and that it's Whey based, but that was fine. Soooo, if you don't like the Myocel you might want to look into something else. That stuff they sold was expensive compared to the $20 I paid for my huge thing of it. When is your surgery date? Did you know Dr. Hagood does the fills? I might have picked him had I known that, not that I don't like Dr. A but it would be kind of nice to have the same person all the way through! Do you like Dr. Hagood? Wow, I am full of questions! It's the nerves talking... I am terribly nervous about tomorrow. :thumbup:

Juniper, My surgery is at Presby Dallas and my surgeon is Dr. Anderson. I can't believe I will see him in 36 hours!!!!!!! How about you?

I was worried about losing TOO much, but apparently Cigna goes by the weight when you first began the process. I gained 5 lbs in the beginning of my 6-months, and then ended up losing 40 lbs as of last week (probably 15 of that is from pre-op diet!), and my surgery is the day after tomorrow. As far as having to LOSE for Cigna, it's not so much for them as it is for your surgeon. They put you on a pre-op diet that's low carb/low fat so that you lose some of the fat out of your liver, making the surgery easier to do, recovery faster, etc. Your surgeon should cover that with you once you have a surgery date though. Good luck!

Bailout?? What bai... OK yeah, good point. I was sick of hearing about that as well. Now in Dallas it's the Cowboy's practice stadium in the news. It collapsed because of bad weather, and they interrupted the interview with the Derby winner on Saturday to talk about that. Maybe we need another rant about media in general. :smile:

OK I'll play... All About Me :smile: Where do you live? Dallas, TX How old are you? 31 Are you married, dating, significant other, partnered? Live-in boyfriend of 4 years Any children? 8 year old from a previous marriage Grandchildren? Nope! Pets? 2 dogs, 1 cat and 2 birds. Plus the boyfriend and kid. Hehe. Current Health Morbidities? None. What are your greatest Fears? With the surgery, I guess failing. Going in and him saying "oh sorry, your liver wasn't small enough so we didn't do anything today". Losing the weight I want but then having a messed up body image and not being able to accept my new self. What is your weight loss short term goals and Long term goals? Short term: to look good when I go on my celebratory cruise at the end of June! Long term, lose 130 lbs List at least one thing you want to do/wear/eat/buy when you reach your goal? I want to walk into Old Navy (or insert any other random store) and go to the clearance rack and buy some super freaking cute on sale outfit for like $5. I want to wear cute strappy heels! I want to go with my family to an amusement park. Oh, but the first thing I'll do when I hit my goal is go rent a jet ski, because I've always wanted to go on one. So I guess I better aim my goal for summer time!

Congrats Doug!!! Your story made me both nervous and even more excited. I am glad it went well. :smile: Deb, you're next! Good luck tomorrow and let us know how it goes!

So I have my pre-op appointment on Thursday, and I was thinking that I need to come up with some questions that I will need to know the answer to and write them down so that I don't forget. The only things I can think of right now is that I want to verify that I wont have to stay overnight, and I want to figure out the exact cost that will be due that day. Any input on anything else? Thanks!

Bumping this back up to the top! Do we have any updates yet? How did everything go, 1sters? Can't wait to hear from ya'll! :thumbdown:

Ann, you can do this! Like Meem said, just one day at a time... You can do anything for just ONE day. I had to tell myself that a lot today too, for some reason it was harder than it has been. We are so close now, though! WE can do this! :thumbdown:

I would ask about switching to another shake... I spoke with the dietician about it and she told me the requirements (ratio of carbs to Protein was my doctor's) and then when I went in to pick up my pre-op instructions they said "ok which flavor of Protein powder do you want? It's $100" (or whatever the exact cost was - it was expensive!) and just let her know that the dietician already told me the requirements and I had ordered a huge thing of it for $20 from a website..... She said oh okay, that's cool. And that was the end of it!

Before I vent, I will say for the record: I would probably be worried about this if I was going to Mexico for surgery, and I totally understand why this is certainly a big deal for someone that is traveling to the epi-center of this mess and will be inside a hospital, etc. So please don't mistake my irritation for someone that can't recognize that in some circumstances there ARE those that should be aware of what's going on, and concerned about the whole ordeal. But for the most part... I am SO SICK OF HEARING about the swine flu already! It is such a stupid media thing, they are all having a fit over it just because there's nothing much else going on. FACTS from the Center for Disease Control (CDC) for the 2008 Flu Season: During September 30, 2007 – May 17, 2008, World Health Organization (WHO) and National Respiratory and Enteric Virus Surveillance System (NREVSS) collaborating laboratories in the United States tested 225,329 specimens for influenza viruses; 39,827 (18%) were positive. (CDC - Influenza (Flu) | Flu Activity) It is harder for the CDC to speculate an exact number of adult deaths that were caused by the flu, because many of these deaths are in the elderly, young, or those with existing respiratory disease. I saw an interview with a man from the CDC this morning and he said that approximately 20,000 people die each year, though. 20,000. Yet the Fort Worth, TX ISD shut down 140 schools for a week and a half because ONE kid got the SWINE FLU. A strain that, according to the CDC is less severe AND has a smaller course. I mean, I get it. It's a tragedy that people have died. It is sad, and it really sucks. But do we need to get so worked up over this, so much so that it's causing panic? I feel so bad for the people that have one or more of the 40 THOUSAND (40,000) children that go to a Ft. Worth school - in economic times such as do we need people skipping work to hang out with their (bored) kid? And don't think you can take them to the mall or movies or to eat pizza, because the news is also saying don't go to crowded areas or Chuck E cheese or anything of the sort. I wish the news could get onto something else for a bit! Didn't some fake "reality show" dumb "celebrities" get married or something? Where's the good old Octomom? Let's get all up in her business again for a while... (that's something I never thought I'd say) Go away PIG FLU!!!!!!! I am washing my hands of you!!!!!!!!

Oh, the GOOD and WELL thing. I used to mess that one up. Example: How are you today? I am doing well, thank you. It's not good!!! An unrelated pet peeve: GUM SMACKERS. I am happy you like your gum, but seriously? Not everyone in zip code needs to hear it, thanks. I have a co-worker that does this, AT WORK. One day I broke down and something to him about it and he said "oh haha yeah my mom and sister don't let me chew gum around them - I've always done that". OK really? Was that not a big sign?

I just got approved with Cigna on April 1, and I agree that you should start with March. But also - I did not have to do a 5 year history. They told me 2, and my surgeon sent in 3 just because that's what my PCP sent to them. I guess it is better to err on the side of caution though. Just letting you know my experience.

That reminds me... I never asked about birth control pills. Are those okay? Also they never gave me a pill crusher like they said they would! I forgot to ask about it before I left. What do ya'll think?