Husband and wife surgery

[ftnok 0]

My husband and I are considering having the surgery at the same time. We go on May 16 for the first appointment. Has anyone done this?

[Gayle 9]

I hear that this is a reaaaaaaallly bad idea. A lot of the resources I saw said at least 3 months apart. You need one person healthy to help the other person heal. Or if something goes wrong and has to take somebody else to the doctor it wouldn't be good to have the other on pain meds!

[MRSKOUBiK 27]

I think some time apart would be good. That way one can help. If you're both laid up... youll be uncomfortable in bed TOGETHER. and, who will help?

[Dawn 16]

My husband and I were supposed to get it done 2 weeks apart and if he would have gone through with it we would have been fine! I was totally fine to do just about anything by 1 week after surgery!!

[KellyL 173]

I have seen couples do this with no problem. Alot of hospitals are doing it outpatient or just 1-2 days. This procedure is done laparoscopic so you don't have very much down time. It would be good that you're both on the same food stages like pre-op and post-op liquids so you'd be eating the same things at the same time. But ask your dr also.

Kelly

[ftnok 0]

Thank you everyone for your replies. My thought was that I would be drinking liquid and he would be eating cheeseburgers LOL! I felt like it would be easier if we were on the same diet at the same time. You all have given me some things to think about.

[So Cal Kurt 32]

My wife and I are both sleeved, started out to have it done at the same time. Went to the information seminar in March of 2010. got moving on the pre-op stuff submitted to the insurance in late April 2010, I got approved and she got denied. I went through with it on June 9, 2010 even though I didn't want to do it alone. I had co-morbidities and even though her BMI was a few points higher (mine was 41.8) she got denied. She was finally approved in January of this year and sleeved March 23.

I think it would have been a lot easier to have it done at around the same time a few weeks apart as we planned. I think the way everything happened, it caused a lot of friction between us due to lifestyle and being on the same page. Now that she is on kind of the same diet as I am, things are so much easier. She still has a couple of weeks to start a real workout regimen but has started at the gym and our lifestyles are finally starting to sync up. Don't get me wrong, it wasn't that she wasn't supportive because she was, I just felt alone in my struggle. For me the beginning was very hard mentally. As far as the recovery, we both had no problems, I was back to work after taking more than enough time in 2 weeks. My wife teaches nursing at a local college and was teaching a 4 hour lecture 6 days after surgery and teaching both clinical and lecture the following week. I am sure I would have been able to care for myself as soon as I got home. The only thing I didn't do was drive for the first 5 days as per Dr's orders. Both of us went in on a Wednesday and were released on Thursday. If you do have it the same day, make sure you have all of your post op items (protein, sugar free popcicles Jello etc) on hand because you won't be able to drive to get them. Good luck in your journey!

[str8outtajerzy 9]

My Wife and I got Sleeved together on May 11th so far no problems, but we have a lot of support from our family they really help out and pick up the slack.

[M2G 1,836]

Hubby and I are both sleeved, although not at the same time. It worked out well for us but it was more due to insurance hoop jumping and a couple of other factors that were out of our control as to why we weren't sleeved together. (Me Oct. 2010 - Him Mar. 2011)

I say it worked well because I was the research hound, although HE was the driving force behind me researching the sleeve, but I learned as much as possible, did all the pre-op stuff learned about the post-op diet, etc. and at the time when I had my sleeve he was working a VERY time consuming project for work (in fact he had a total of 5 days off in about a 6 month time span, I joked that it was too bad he had to have surgery to get a week off from work) and he had very LITTLE time to commit to research and learning about the sleeve. So I did all the research, hopped on the table first and then when it was his turn I was sort of the old pro (so to speak) so it really worked well for us.

Now that he is a few months sleeved and doing well, we are getting better about sharing meals and eating the same foods. I highly recommend spouses who BOTH need to lose a significant amount of weight to do this journey together, just not exactly at the same time. I think even 2 or 3 weeks separation would be about enough time.