First visit with surgeon. DONE!

September 11, 20169 yr

OK, so I had my very first consultation with Dr. David Ward in Morristown New Jersey he will be my surgeon.

He addressed all my questions and my husbands as well. We had pretty common questions like, how long does the surgery take, healing time, what to expect, any complications that could arise, mortality rate etc.

The first thing he asked me was what type of surgery was I interested in. I did not let him know right away that I wanted the sleeve.

I asked what he thought would be better.

He let me know that the sleeve would be better for me. Which is what I wanted to begin with.

He informed me that bypass would not be in my Best interest. Also, he does not like to perform bypass surgery on smokers.

I asked him how long I need to be smoke-free in order to have surgery. He said, obviously it is better to be totally smoke free but, he does understand how hard it can be. He did say that I can use nicotine replacement such as the patch he wasn't too happy about vape only because there's not too much information on it. He did recommend that I at least cut back even if I don't use the nicotine replacement.

I also asked about liquid diet and what I need to do now to start preparing. He said we definitely want you to cut back calories and carbs.

you will be meeting with a nutritionist who will help you with that.

My husband asked when would I need to start the liquid diet the doctor informed us it would not be necessary until much much closer to surgery. He said it is not mandatory that I lose weight just not to gain any weight but it would help if I lost obviously it would make surgery go easier.

So my first of three appointments with the nutritionist will be on the 26th of this month. I still need to make an appointment with a Gastro and the psychiatrist.

I did ask why does it seem to vary so much as far as everyone's diets preop and wait times. He said is far as wait times go, that's the insurance requirements. Pre-op diet really depends on the individual some of us are not as heavy as others. Some of us have different issues Healthwise. That's why it varies so much from person to person. For example he already told me that he is sending me home after surgery with a blood thinning injection. Most of you probably didn't need that or won't need that. my BMI is very high (63.7)

He did warn me already not to compare what I can tolerate and what's in my program to what others have.

Oh on a final note, I mentioned that we have a few family events coming up and that I'd be heading into NYC and probably eating my head off. He laughed and said get it out of your system now because once the nutritionist appointment starts it becomes very serious.

So that was my very first visit to a bariatric surgeon.

Sent from my iPhone using the BariatricPal App

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