Good evening, all! I thought I would take the advice of @@LuminousLife and journal my story for therapeutic reasons. I have chosen to only tell my husband, mom, and 2 best friends (from different states) and I figured since I've been getting support for months here from all of you, I could maybe assist others!

I will first give a little bit of my background. I am 27 years old, married with no children (yet)! I am not on any medications, blood pressure and cholesterol, etc are all great... I just need to lose weight! (About 125 lbs to be exact.) I officially started this journey back in August, however had been researching my options for about a year before that.

I was sleeved this morning at 9am and my surgeon said everything went perfectly! Honestly, I had been expecting the worst... Gas pains, stomach soreness, not being able to pee, etc... I have had NONE of that. Knock on wood, other than a dry mouth, I feel so blessed to have today go as well as it did. I got to my room at about 11am (I believe) and I felt sick to my stomach for about an hour and kept falling asleep. At about 2pm, I noticed I already felt way better. I've been taking advantage of sleeping when I want (I literally did not sleep all last night bc I got sick from this stupid tofu Soup I ate for lunch. Gross.) I've been using my spirometer when I can and been taking laps around the Bariatric unit every two hours, each time feeling better and better! Any questions/comments are greatly welcomed!

Edited March 23, 201412 yr by dreamscometrue

This is so encouraging. My surgery is in two weeks. I'm scared sh*tless. I'm afraid I'm gonna die.

Mine is in two weeks too I can't wait we will survive and live to tell our success story xoxo

This is so encouraging. My surgery is in two weeks. I'm scared sh*tless. I'm afraid I'm gonna die.

Don't worry! You will not die!!! Seriously, not sure if you read the recent article that was just posted on here yesterday??? The death rate for WLS surgery has gone from .8% all the way down now to .03%. It has safer fatality rates than plain old gall bladder surgeries! I believe the clinical studies had over 160,000 patients in there. Long story short, you will not die. You will be over with the surgery so fast you won't even think they actually performed it! Ha! And I highly recommend journaling each day, whether it's on here or not! Again, I took the advice of @luminouslife and it has been very therapeutic to sit down at my computer and reflect on the minor "Wins" I have each day (like drinking water normally!).

Mine is in two weeks too I can't wait we will survive and live to tell our success story xoxo

Yes!!! And I will follow your journey if you choose to journal as well! Can't wait for your surgeries to be here... That feeling of anxiousness will soon be over.

Keep the journal coming, I definitely enjoy a peek into your journey.

Keep the journal coming, I definitely enjoy a peek into your journey.

Yes please!! I loved reading your story! So inspiring, I do not have a date yet so reading your story really puts it into perspective. Keep up the great work and the journaling

Well, today has been another great day! No pain meds at all. I worked for the first half of the day and then my husband and I ran a bunch of errands and I got a lot of walking in. I've been thinking of random things that have crossed my mind today that others might find helpful. I went back to the Vitamin Shoppe today because I needed more protein powder (ran out of my old kind from months ago) and I decided on the Isopure Dutch Chocolate. I highly recommend it and the LOW carbs/HIGH protein is perfect. Also, if anyone is looking for a shaker, check out the Smart Shaker (I think that's what it is called). It's awesome because two separate parts unscrew from the bottom so you could store vitamins in one layer and more protein powder in the other. Also, I'm sure that most do this, but if you are prepping for what to buy, the 4 oz. Rubbermaid containers are awesome. I have a week's worth of those filled to the 2 oz. line with French onion soup broth, jello, pudding, and refried beans. Ahhh, refried beans have now been 3 lunches of mine and there are two more baby cups in the fridge. I still cannot even get over that I will have gotten 5 full lunches out of ONE CAN of fat free refried beans. Unbelievably awesome! Oh, and I weighed today... Down 19lbs total. Loving my sleeve! I know there are a lot of negative posts and some people even regret it, but I seriously feel like myself again, am full from small amounts of food, exercising daily, and am losing weight... Seems like a pretty good deal to me. Hope everyone is having a good day with their sleeve!

Love ready your journal #dreamscometrue, I would like to also journal my journey but so busy. I haven't been sleeved yet, finishing up my testing. I have a few more to go

1- endoscopy

2- ultra sound of gall bladder

3- psych evaluation

Then info will be submitted I guess. Hopefully my surgery can be scheduled by end of march bcuz that's when I am eligible for FMLA. They do accommodation but it doesn't guarantee your job. Does anyone know more about FMLA or job accommodation? I am also holding back on buying new clothes in larger sizes cuz I am looking forward to being smaller soon. Hopefully I will be ready for summer.

:-)

Nothing new today, but I just wanted to get on here to wish everyone a MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! Tomorrow, we will head back to our home town in the morning and we are going to have our first Christmas shrimp boil. I'm also making an avocado/bean/corn type of a salad. This is all giving me a bit of anxiety seeing that I'm only a week post-op and this will be the first time I've seen any of my family since surgery (other than my mom who knows). I won't be drinking, which I'm sure will trigger the "are you pregnant" card. Annnnddd I have no clue what I'm going to eat, which I'm curious if anyone will question me. Luckily, I'm good at BS-ing and I think very well on my feet. It will be fine, they've all seen my crazy fad diets over the years and I've been planting the seed for about a month now that I've been eating healthy and exercising. Anyway, wish me luck tomorrow! You guys all stay strong on the food front, also! I'm sure there will be a lot of sugar cookies, fudge, pies, etc.. that will be causing more people than just I a bit of anxiety. Just remember why we chose to have this surgery!

Love reading your journal @dreamscometrue. It's really inspiring and I think I will journal too once I hit post op. My surgery is Tuesday, the 31st and I am soooo excited. I feel like it's taking forever to get here!

Love reading your journal @dreamscometrue. It's really inspiring and I think I will journal too once I hit post op. My surgery is Tuesday, the 31st and I am soooo excited. I feel like it's taking forever to get here!

Oh my gosh, the 31st is just right around the corner! I'm sure you've been doing this, but if you are anxious like I was, you can start getting food prepped at home and divided into 2 oz. cups, start packing your hospital bag (don't forget gas-x strips and chapstick), and clean your house meticulously! That's at least what I did because I like a really clean house and not having laundry to do, which was SO NICE to come home from the hospital to a house like that! Good luck on your journey, you will do great! I just got off the treadmill and feel great and it's only been a week! Once those first 3 days are over, you'll be back to feeling normal.

Got my results for my echo gram. Everything is ok. So glad. Now I have my endoscopy and psych val and then I guess they submit the info. Yay:-). One question for dreamscometrue did u lose your hair? That's my concern.

I'm officially out of the 40+ BMI range! Just updated my ticker and was DELIGHTED to see 39 as my new BMI. I'm sure that sounds really stupid, but I remember being so embarrassed when I realized my BMI had reached 40 awhile back. It's nice to think I won't see that number anymore! So, tomorrow we are heading out of town to meet up with another couple for an annual "get-away" weekend trip. I posted about this prior to surgery and had a ton of anxiety about if I would feel up to going, what I was going to eat, would I run out of energy, etc… Now that I'm on the other side, I know I'll have plenty of energy and am excited about going EXCEPT I had to start a little lie today saying that I've caught a stomach bug and haven't felt like eating much and that soup is really all I can hold down. Hopefully, that will be enough to keep the questions away. Nothing else really to report other than jello, refried beans, pudding, watered down soup are REALLY GETTING OLD. I've been reading some interesting topics on here from the vets these past few days and now knowing that I'm in the "honeymoon phase and don't know what it's really like until I'm 6 months out and it feels as if I almost was never sleeved," i'm trying to embrace this regimented phase of full liquids and staying on track. It's been making me question what the future holds. I've gone through so many diets over the years and have lost track of how many times I've ran my ass off, eaten 1200 calories a day, and lived at the gym taking every workout class available, which led to losing 50 pounds to turn around and gain 60 pounds the next year. I know that this will be a lifetime of this new "normal", and when things get more difficult a few months from now, I'll know that I'm much better off with the sleeve to fight this battle than I would have ever been without it. That's all for now. Wish me luck this weekend!

Got my results for my echo gram. Everything is ok. So glad. Now I have my endoscopy and psych val and then I guess they submit the info. Yay:-). One question for dreamscometrue did u lose your hair? That's my concern.

YAY!!! You are one step closer to having surgery, which has got to be a great feeling! To answer your question, I have not lost any hair. I started taking Biotin from day 1 post-op and I'm still only 10 days out, so I would expect that if it's going to happen, it would be at least a month from now. Luckily, I have A LOT of hair, but that was a major concern of mine before surgery. I will definitely post about it if I notice a change though.

Thank you for your posts!! So helpful!! I'm having surgery Monday at 630 am