Hello all,

So the hospital where i had my surgery is having a transformations Night coming up in October.

Now this is evidently a banquet slash event thing where past WLS patients are invited and if you accept you go up on stage, they show your before pics and you are the after pic. You get up talk about your journey etc, and there is giveaways and healthy Snacks or something to that effect.

Has anyone else had their practice or hospital do this kind of thing? and did you go, did you enjoy it etc. I have accepted as I really want to spread the word where I can, kind of thing. I guess they have invited several potential WLS patients to come and hear us as well.

Im going to wait to buy some decent clothes until the weekend before though. lol

Nope.

I never heard of that. At one of the information sessions I was in a band patient gave a little talk after the surgeon spoke. She showed a before picture and talked about her journey.

At my current program I went to one of the support group meetings. They also have Zumba there 2 nights a week and it is the same night as the support meeting. The Zumba instructor was a WLS patient so she stopped down after class and showed us her before picture and talked to us a little bit.

I haven't seen anything as elaborate as a banquet. It keeps striking me as funny as I tend to think of banquets being food centered and mediocre food at that. I hope they are smart enough to have WLS patient appropriate menu. How ironic if they serve lots of white bread, Pasta, rice or white potatoes.

Good for you for accepting so that you can show people that WLS is a good tool.

Interesting! I'm sure they had everyone sign HIPAA/patient confidentiality forms at your first appointment...so this just seems a bit odd? I guess they can get around it with permission of the patient? Never seen it though.

The St David's Hospital in Austin, TX north does this. They have a wonderful fashion show each year. Every month at the support meeting they have different vitamin and calcium samples to try and bottled water or un-sweetened tea. The main dietitian and chef at this hospital is a WLS patient and even does cooking classes for the groups for little to no cost. I did not have my surgery there, but do attend the monthly group meetings as I find them helpful. There is the opportunity to break down into small groups by surgery type too to discuss progress and challenges.

I have not heard of this. It seems at my hospital, they are into research studies. I volunteered to be one of their subjects.

I've never heard of it either, but I think it's great! What a motivation maker and a way to applaud the post ops and prepare the pre ops. I'd do it definitely.

Sounds like a great idea. Another way to break the taboos that still surround WLS and get it into the main stream. Good for you for offering to be a part of it. Hope you find some nice new clothes for the event.