Hey everyone going through Kaiser Richmond!!

Where are you in the process?

Be sure to use your Relaxation CD! It really really works! By the time I was in pre-op, I just lay there and smiled - I was SO happy that it was finally here - was not even nervous! Weirded out yeah, but not nervous :-) The ONLY thing that I would do different is to not go back to work 6 days after surgery. . . 10 days was much better. And I thought that I was getting faint from not eating, but in fact it was because I was still on Atenolol for my Blood Pressure, and I didn't need it any more! It resolved SO fast. I was getting down to like 70/49 with a pulse of 41 after excercise!!! TOO LOW!! My pulse was not supposed to be going under 55! Now that I have been off those meds for 5 days I don't get weak any more :-)

Where did u get ur cd?

From Kaiser! Liz hands them out in the pre-op class :-)

Wow Riley, you are working it.keep it up, i see ur ticker keeps moving forward!

Nicole it's getting closer, I'm excited for you Relax!!!!!! lol

Hey everyone!

Wow! Thank you all for responding, I took the advice and called Kaiser and pressed 9. They said it is too soon for me to call. Lol. I make it a point to always ask how a person is doing, probably because I work at a call center and Verizon finds it very important to engage. I will call back this week though. I finally am going back to work after three months, so I am excited to be back to work and get going on this process. Verizon Wireless has a gym with certified personal trainers, the fee is only 15 a month, so I am excited to have them work with me after my orientation. The nice thing is we don't have to pay extra for these trainers. Verizon promotes great health and they are VERY encouraging. Great support system. Its hard to find that on the work force, but the call center has contests and weekly/monthly goal winners. We have over 600 people at our call center, but they join up teams and strive for great health. I am just excited. I have enough vacation and personal time for this whole experience. Thank you all sooo much for getting back to me. Everyone is so supportive, the only person hesitant is my boyfriend. He has this idea I'm going to leave him after I lose weight. I am the same person extra curvy or a little curvy lol. He will come around though. I can't wait to meet the famous Liz, they do have to weed out the not so serious, I don't fall in that category so bring it on!!! :thumbup:

Riley you're doing awesome and I'm so inspired by you. I hope my experience goes as well as yours! (aside from the infection, obviously, lol).

OMG OMG OMG OMG!!! Liz called me today and moved my surgery up to April 6th instead of the 14th. I know it's only 8 days but it makes a huge diff for me. It's over a week earlier and it makes my wait LESS than a month away instead of MORE than a month away!

I'm so excited! Also, I'll have a different surgeon. I'll have Dr. Baggs instead of Dr. Fisher. I'm sure they're all great so I don't really care.

Kinda freaking out with excitement now! WOOHOO! Apparently something came up and Dr. Fisher had to move all his surgeries for the 14th. I'm okay with it since it moved me CLOSER and not farther.

Anyways, had to tell you all the good news. I'm THRILLED!

Congratulations Christine!! this great news indeed. I'm sorry I didn't finish talking to you yesterday, when I came back you were off line. this is so inspiring to see you guys go through this process.

Yay Christine! You will LOVE Dr. Baggs, he is great at that AP band placement to prevent hunger while not backing stuff up into the esophogus. Also puts some saline in there at surgery so it's easier to get through the first 6 weeks. Yay!

Edited March 12, 200917 yr by riley4183

So Nicole and I had our pre-op classes with Liz and Robin today and they went really well. Afterward Liz had me come back to her office with her and she was able to sneak me in for an impromptu pre-op appt with Dr. Baggs (since they switched days/surgeon on me they needed to reschedule me with my new surgeon).

It went GREAT!!! I really really like Dr. Baggs. He's closer to my age and not as much of a "dad" figure, even though Dr. Fisher is really nice too. We had a great meeting, he was very encouraging and said many nice things and made me feel good about myself and my decision to have surgery.

My last appt is with Tom next Friday for my physical and then on to surgery 4/6! YAY! I can't believe that of ALL the appts I've had since November that I only have one left before surgery. What a great feeling.

I'm so glad to hear that you're doing okay with hunger Riley. I'm glad we both have the same surgeon!

Ok I am finally home:D

We went to sF for the weekend.

Well Thurs was good learned some at the classes, Id have to say I enjoyed it way better then the orientation:) More personal. Left there went and got my blood done, was in and out within 5 min! It was amazing, I really like their lab. I told them I have passed out, so i need to recline, so they put me on a red board (no one else in the room) and got me done immediately so i wouldn't be nervous waiting. Out and back at the car by 1:15ish. It was SWEET!

Then nightmare checking into the hotel. But enjoyed our nite woke up was back at kaiser by 8:30, but get this while on the bridge I realized i didn't have my WALLET, CASH, ATM, OR KAISER CARD!!! I was an unidentifiable person lol. I called and Beverly said come anyways. Well they let me in:) And to top it off got in with baggs 1 hr before my appt was suppsoed to be! So that was nice, now the scale there wasnt the best lol. I shouldnt have worn flip flops and jeans but still way under goal so they were all happy.

So that was my weekend. I will never stay at holiday inn in the civic center again, but def will the homewood suites. Oh and i walked all over SF on Fri now THAT is scary! One street is normal the next is all homeless. Pretty interesting!

2 weeks till surgery, im gettin nervous, but excited:D

YAY Nicole! Isn't the lab there great?? I gave them very high marks! I gave everything very high marks except for the x-ray dept. for the barium swallow. Tell them to put it in a cup for you to sip! Those guys had no idea about lap-band limitations.

And Dr. Baggs got the best marks of all! So glad you & Christine have him

I saw my PCP today, he is very very very pleased, he could not believe that my High BP is totally gone, he checked it himself twice and finally pronounced me cured! I take NO meds now, ZERO. I actuaolly stopped taking the beta blocker 2 weeks ago, but it wasn't official until today. Getting off those meds has been a goal for a long time, who knew it would come so soon after surgery!!!

Not happy with the scale today - or for the last 2 days - but my monthly visitor showed up yesterday & that may have something to do with it. Still not hungry!!!

Best to all!

Riley

I have my last appt tomorrow with Tom Greenwood. Kinda sucks that I'm driving 1 hour each way for a 10 minute appt but...oh well, I'll have to get used to doing that for fills too since they're pretty quick appts also. I'm SO not gonna complain! This is all totally worth it.

I'm excited to be officially done with appts and just to be ONLY waiting for my surgery day. It's almost here!

Hi everyone! I had my appt with Tom today and really liked him a lot. He was such a nice guy and seemed genuinely proud of my weight loss so far and said some really nice things.

My weight (with clothes on) was 261.1 AND I'm on my period, so yay for the good number! Per their records I'm down 37 lbs since orientation 11/25 and he was very pleased with my progress.

So now I'm all good to go for surgery in 17 days! The next time I drive to Richmond will be when I'm on the way to surgery...CRAZY.

Have a great weekend everyone!

YOW Christine! Woot! Woot! Only 2 weeks left!! This was the point when I got scared, and really needed my "successful surgery" CD. Did you get one?

I did get one, but haven't gotten around to listening to it yet. I'll try to do that this weekend.

Maybe I'm nuts but I'm really not nervous, just really really excited! I don't have any worries (maybe I should!) and I'm just ready to do this and start the next chapter of this weight loss journey.

I'm sure the nerves will kick in soon, maybe when I've only got one week to go.

How are you doing?