I have my appointment with the surgeon on Thursday April 7th and have been trying to make a list of things I want to know. What did you ask?

Of course the main ones I can think of are:

How many sleeves have you done?

How long will I be off work?

Do you feel it is an appropriate surgery for me?

Thanks for any help and suggestions!

those are some good questions. Also asking about his personal percentage of complications/fatalities with gastric surgery.

My surgeon said out of the over 3000 gastric surgeries he's done (at least 600 sleeves) only 2 of his patients have died and both were from heart attacks.

What is his pre-op and post-op diet?

BTW, My surgeon has done thousands as well and his one fatality was an RNY patient who went home from the hospital and ate pizza. The pouch ruptured and eventually gangrene killed the patient. Considering the thorough preparation and education my doctor provides I simply cannot imagine a patient doing that.

We actually have had to take classes on the pre/post diet so I know that already.

I am curious about the number of surgeries - I know VSG is fairly new to our area so I realize his numbers will not be 1000's - should I be concerned about that? I do know over all he has been doing bariatric for quite a while. That is defintely on my list of questions.

My surgeon has done less than 5!! It makes me a little nervous, yet, I trust him completely. He comes very highly recommended by my friends in the medical community. I guess I feel if he is worth his weight as a surgeon, he can do this. He has been doing gastric surgeries for over 15 years. Also, with my insurance, it is this surgeon or NONE! I am hoping for a call to schedule the surgery this week!

My questions so far have pertained to:

How long til I can work?

Will I still be able to golf?

What are the main complications to watch for and how will I know?

Why should I do this? (you should have seen his face when I asked him this!)

and my final question.....

How soon can we do this?

How long til I can lift heavy items---vacuum, yardwork were my main concerns. I knew from his office about his credentials and his reputation among friends is stellar!

I have my appointment with the surgeon on Thursday April 7th and have been trying to make a list of things I want to know. What did you ask?

Of course the main ones I can think of are:

How many sleeves have you done?

How long will I be off work?

Do you feel it is an appropriate surgery for me?

Thanks for any help and suggestions!

My surgeon has done less than 5!! It makes me a little nervous, yet, I trust him completely. He comes very highly recommended by my friends in the medical community. I guess I feel if he is worth his weight as a surgeon, he can do this. He has been doing gastric surgeries for over 15 years. Also, with my insurance, it is this surgeon or NONE! I am hoping for a call to schedule the surgery this week!

My questions so far have pertained to:

How long til I can work?

Will I still be able to golf?

What are the main complications to watch for and how will I know?

Why should I do this? (you should have seen his face when I asked him this!)

and my final question.....

How soon can we do this?

Thanks for your thoughts on number preformed - I know my Dr has been doing gastric surgeries for years and I am thinking along the same lines that this experience in general counts for a lot.

You're right that other bariatric procedures have been around longer. My surgeon has done over 400 sleeves though so I think you can find an experienced surgeon if that is important to you. My surgeon's done over 1000 RNYs and even more lapbands. So you need to talk to him and determine what you are comfortable with.

Had my surgeon visit today. He has done 14, been doing them just a little over a year. He has had one death, a patient who was a revision and they were doing a variation of the sleeve (not a normal sleeve) because RNY was not an option due to previous surgeries they had. I won't lie, that scares me, however he was very straight forward about it and I could tell he was very upset about it. He told me the stay is 4 days in the hospital and that he sees a slower recovery with the sleeve than the RNY but that weight loss is very close to the same. I liked him. I believe I will stay.

I also talked to the program manager and she is going to see if one of their sleeve patients would be willing to talk with me so I can get the scoop from them.

And I cleared the psych visit today too!

Next up - Nutrition class and 2nd Nutritionist visit on April 25th. I will have cleared everything then except for the 6 months medically supervised diet - I will be 3 months in on April 18th.

If you check Tiffykins blog, she has a list of AWESOME questions.