I had my surgery on Nov 2 at TLBC and just flew back to Halifax from Toronto so I thought I'd share my story. My surgery was at 8am. Dr. Yau talked with my mom and I for a good 20-25 minutes before the surgery which surprised me. The surgery started late becasue we were chatting for so long. I thought he was fantastic, personally. He even talked to me about where I would like the port to be and how low my pants normally go. I wasn't nervous going into the surgery. Even when they had the IV hooked up and the oxygen mask on I wasn't nervous. I thought I would be. When I woke up I was shivering like crazy and felt tight in my chest but it wasn't horrible, just a weird sensation. I asked for some pain meds and walked to the recovery room with one of the nurses. She kept telling me to go to sleep but I was wide awake for some reason. I sipped some Water, got myself dressed, and eventually she came back to get me and I walked to see my mom and then went back to my brother's place (he lives in downtown Toronto). I was at his place by 11am (the surgery ended up starting at 8:30am). I had a bit of shoulder pain from gas but a heating pad took it away instantly. I tried to walk for 10 mins every hour and I think that helped me have very little gas pain. I bought gas-x but I never needed them. The Demerol Dr. Yau prescribed really helped with the incision pain. All weekend I felt really good. I walked to the mall and went shopping for a while on Sunday. I have an incision in my belly button which pulls sometimes when I walk so that seems to be the main pain I experience. Plus the port incision (VERY low on my stomach). But I've found the pain completely managable and not nearly as bad as I was expecting. I've found drinking enough fluids and getting enough nutrients in the most challenging part and I have to work on that a lot. Anyways, I feel great, and I'm ready to get this weight OFF! =)

hmm....I wrote a lot... lol

Congrats on your surgery!!! Sounds like you are doing really well. Welcome to the site, Donna

Congrats you guys to newly banded. I will be celebrating my 1 year anniversary on Nov 24th!!! I am 30 pounds away from my goal and love the band. It is a life changing experience and it has been a very positive year. I have good days and bad days. I have a very tight fill right now and that is when you will truely feel the difference of your band. You think you can eat something fine until you start feeling a tight feeling in your chest and it hurts like heck.......you either wait it out with bulging eyes or go throw it up. It isn't technically like when you used to throw up it is a slimmy type of plug that is sitting on top of your band and not going down. The reason it is slimmy is because your fluids are trying to break it down but it doesn't always happen and to get it out you feel much better. This is what is called a PB progressive Burp.....sometimes you just burp it up sometimes you help it come up. I tried to eat fries yesterday and BAD IDEA!!! I had to come back to work and my co workers do not know I have the band and tried to just walk around and sip hot tea. It was a bad day but my own fault. The best thing about this band is before I ate a super size fry no problem then beat myself up inside that I should not have done that. Yesterday tried to do my old habit of having a bad day so eat comfert food............band made it so after three fries I had to stop and ended up throwing the fries in the trash...........Thank you band!!!!!!!!!

Good luck to you guys and keep on the support pages because they are so much help!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Vikki,

Someone told me that if you get something stuck you can sip pineapple juice and it will help break it down. So now I keep a couple of small cans around just in case. I haven't needed it yet but I'm still on liquid/mushies.

Lizzie - It's great to see you on the "other side". I'm glad you were able to work past your families issues. And congratulations on your weightloss so far. You are doing GREAT!!!

Diane - Thanks! Yes, trying to get past my parents ended up being MUCH more difficult than the surgery itself. It was an emotional road and I felt really alone not having my family's support but in the end once they knew they couldn't talk me out of it they were much better. They just want me to be happy.

Congrats on your amazing weight loss by the way!!!