Juniper

to further complicate matters, i realized today that the female version would be bandida!! :sad: ah well... i just put it under my avatar. :eek:

gonna, you just can't win! at least you're not puking and itching at the same time, i guess! *looking for the silver lining* :eek:

*sigh* i figured that was probably the answer i'd get. hehe i've never had any experience with steri-strips, so i guess i was hoping they were more hypo-allergenic than the adhesives in other products. ah well. even scars are better than fat rolls. :eek:

hey pephlin! only 25 hours to go now! :eek: best wishes to you, and be sure to let us know how it goes!

linda, that's a good attitude to have towards weighing in! normally, i don't mind the ups and downs either, cuz i know it'll work itself out. i think it's just having a deadline to meet this goal that's got me :eek:

karianne, i did something similar! i bought some toddler size plates and bowls, so that i can get accustomed to the smaller serving sizes. it's been hard to make that transition, but i'm hoping by starting before the surgery, i can be more prepared when the time comes to do it for real! Not drinking with meals is going to be super tough, too. I've started drinking my water at work from a shot glass. I just hope no one thinks I'm drinking on the job! :eek:

Is there anyone who has a reaction to adhesives? If so, what did they use on you? I'm curious what options I'll have, since I don't think the glue will be possible.

I'm horrible at weighing almost every day. I don't know why I do it! I get so discouraged when my weight fluctuates, you'd think I'd learn my lesson. I guess I'm just really sweating losing the 20 lbs my doc wanted me to before surgery, because of my thyroid problems, and now possibly gallstones. I think I may have to go all Protein shakes for the last two weeks. :laugh:

Linda, I'm doing my pre-op right now, so I can't have anything spicy, since it's not part of my doc's very restrictive choices. I might be able to have it again once I'm banded, at least I hope so! But right now... I'm really missing it!

macaroni and cheese! esp. fried mac and cheese balls from the cheesecake factory. and spicy food. i :scared2: all things spicy!

*laughs* as far as that goes, i wonder if it's bandidos de mayo!! :scared2:

i was thinking about that as i was typing... i was wondering if the port would be in the way of the bar! but maybe if i stick with good old fashioned wooden roller coasters!! (being optimistic here!) if not, i'll just have to take up paragliding. :hurray: :grouphug:

kellster, so much of what you said rang true in my mind, as well! and rollercoasters... yeah, i can't wait to fit in those seats again, and not cringe when the bar comes down! and cyndi, my dream involved fried chicken, which i don't even like!! how weird is that?! :grouphug:

that really does help, thank you! i think i'm going to go ahead and order some, since i'm already having a hard time getting the powder Protein shakes down me in any form, blended or frozen.

oh my gosh, gonnaride, i'm so sorry you had to go through that!! i think vomiting terrifies me more than needles, and that's saying something. i plan on BEGGING them to give me anti-nausea medicine before i leave. i mean, it's so bad, that just TALKING about throwing up with the nutritionist made me start crying. :grouphug: i'm glad your band stayed in place, and i wish you a vomit-free future!!

Cyndi, I know exactly how you feel. I've been a former band-basher myself, and I was very successful about a year and a half ago at losing weight with Medi-Fast and working out. But you can't eat Medi-Fast forever, and when I went back to eating "normal" food, I gained all 60 lbs back, plus another 20. This time, the extra weight really had an effect on me physically. My back hurt after walking only 20 steps. My feet hurt every day when I got home, and I have an office job! I finally had to admit that I COULDN'T do it with diet and exercise alone. It was very sobering having to accept that about myself. :tt1: I really didn't tell too many people, and in fact, have only told my kids, my fiance, and my mom (besides my doctors, and you guys of course!). It's not that I'm embarrassed of having the surgery. It's that I'm embarrassed to admit that I Failed. But then one day I was telling my son about how I was thinking about having the surgery, and asked him what he thought about it, and he said the thing that finally convinced me it was OKAY to do this. He said that it was just like having that mental reminder that I should stop eating before I eat too much, but this would be a physical reminder. And that's when I realized that the surgery wasn't a cure-all, and it wasn't that I was looking for an easy way out - it's that I needed a physical reminder to stop eating because my mental reminders weren't enough. And then when I met with the psychiatrist for my psych eval, she said something similar. She told me that her "band" was in her head, and that not everyone had that "band" in their head, so they needed the band on their stomach instead. We joked about how if she could figure out why some people didn't have that mental band, she'd be rich! Okay, so I started rambling a little... I just want to say that it takes strength to do what we're doing, and I realize that now. We're committing to a LIFELONG change that will help us become healthier. It's not about an easy way out, and it's not even about being a failure. To give up and stay overweight would be our failure, but we're not doing that! And while I'm still not going to tell people about my band, it's no longer because I'm embarrassed, but just because I want to be successful on my own terms, and not have people looking at me expecting results. This will be our LAST attempt to lose weight, because we WILL be successful.

I haven't posted to this thread yet because i was nervous that they would change my date, but i think i'm finally ready to accept my tentative surgery date as a done deal... may 27th!

What do you think of those Profect vials? I've been thinking about getting them for post-op, but I haven't wanted to invest too much in something that I haven't heard much about.

finally got official approval from insurance last week. go next week for my pre-op. not sure how much weight i've lost on the no-fun pre-op diet, but i've still got two more weeks to get that liver small. the last couple of days i've been having pain on my right side under my ribs. my PCP says it might be my gallbladder, so i'm doing a hida scan on saturday. isn't that ironic that i'm eating the healthiest in my entire life, and now i might have gallbladder problems. even more ironic, it's the Protein shakes that are giving me the attacks. ah well. i'm hoping if it is a gallbladder issue that the doc will play nice and do both at the same time. my PCP says sometimes insurance won't pay for both if you do both at the same time, so docs are hesitant. but i really don't want to go under the knife twice, and i read somewhere that a pretty high percentage of LB patients end up with gallbladder problems, so better to get it out now, i suppose. all in all, my spirits remain pretty high. i've been putting most of my focus into what foods i'm eating, even logging everything at livestrong.com (cool website, btw.) now i'm on a personal Quest to find the "perfect combo" of protein, carbs, and fat for my weight loss goals. thanks to everyone for their surgery stories. while some of them have made me even more nervous about what COULD happen, it's helped me in another way really get mentally prepared for this huge event in my life.

my pre-op is thursday, as well! i'll be running over there on my lunch break, so i'm hoping it doesn't take too long.

Christy, all the times that I've done MediFast, it's been about day 4 or 5 and all of a sudden my energy picks up, so hang in there!! And if you can stand it, one thing that I used to do that helped was split my bar into two, and eat part at lunch, and the rest as my late night snack (since I'm a baaaaad late night snacker). :crying:

I can't imagine that's right!! Did you move the scale, maybe?

You know, that's one reason why I've decided to do the band, though, cuz I've lost a ton of weight on these "liquid" and extremely low calories diets (particularly MediFast)... but I not only always gain it back, but the pounds always bring friends when they come back!

tully, i'm sooo sorry you're having a hard time! i know exactly what you mean about never wanting another protein shake ever. i'm already so freakin' burned out on protein powder, i almost can't stand it, and i still have two weeks to go, PLUS post-op! i know i've been told that not eating ALL the stupid protein will keep you from losing the weight, even if you do everything else right, but it's just so icky. :-( i've managed to get by so far by freezing the "shake" mix, and eating it like that, but it's still horrible tasting. i did eat it once mixed in with yogurt, and that managed to cover the taste pretty well, but i really don't like the taste of yogurt either! *sigh* one thing, though, how's your thyroid? i know one reason it's so damn impossible for me to lose weight just from dieting is because of my underactive thyroid. the only way i've even been able to actually lose weight is to diet AND exercise my butt off... but it's hard to find the strength to exercise when you're only eating 1000 calories a day max. okay... 2 weeks... we can do this... one terrible yet liver shrinking shake at a time.

Leeann, I have the same problem. Since I mix my own protein "drinks", I have 1 in the morning, 1 for afternoon, and 1 for after dinner, so that I have something in my tummy when I lie down to sleep. Also, I've had to eliminate all the foods that I would normally snack on, and I've stocked up on sugar free popsicles, and sugar free jello. When I get the late, late night munchies, I grab one of those. It does help.