Hey everyone going through Kaiser Richmond!!

Where are you in the process?

Prayers are a' comin' babe, for the next 3 days and as long as you need them! Use your "successful surgery" CD, and remember it's OK to be super-excited! I hope you get Icy tomorrow morning (pre-surgery nurse), she is uber-great!

Riley

Thanks Gals!

Riley what all did they do preop when you got there? I am totally trying to get myself 100% ready so i know whats happening:D I read your story, and you make it sound so wonderful:)

I love seeing your ticker move, Riley! I'm gonna have to come out to SR and meet your skinny booty one of these days. How far are you from Petaluma? We drive through there all the time on the way to Dillon Beach.

Did they weigh you on your surgery day? At the support group on Saturday the girls that had surgery in SSF said they didn't get weighed...I thought that was weird. I WANT to get weighed so I have an official surgery date weight.

Good Luck on your surgery tomorrow Nicole - it will be over before you know it.

On my surgery day, my nurse told me to go weigh myself on the scale outside the bathroom - it was an old fashioned kind where you move the weights - I didn't know how to use it so I had to have him do it. I guess he would have written down whatever weight I told him.

That is WEIRD Pam! With how strict they've been on weighing us every time you'd think this would be the last weight that really mattered. What if we went out of control and got above our goal weight? They wouldn't even know!

Thank God I'm almost 10 lbs below goal, that buffer is very reassuring. I'd be SO stressed this week if I was only a couple lbs under goal.

Seriously, it was pretty wonderful! Lap-bands go first, so there is no waiting or anything . . .Dr. Baggs gets there early too. I was in surgery by 8 and out of the hospital by just after noon. What do you mean by pre-op? I had pre-op labs, etc. done up here, then just had anestesia appt. the AM of surgery.

I think she wonders how they prepped you?

yup thats what i wonder, did u get to keep on panties? im pretty shy lol.

Did they give you any shots in ur tummy for blood thinning?

eek i just got my baby arrangements done:( im gonna miss the snot. lol.

Banded ladies, what was your dinner before surgery?

OOP! Sorry Nicole. Yes I got weighed, on an old 2-beam scale. They weighed me then asked me what my goal weight was, so I coulda said anything! No, I did not get to keep my panties on! They make you strip everything off, put on little non-slip booties that they give you, and give you this HUGE gown that you can wrap around you several times. Then they weigh you, then take you to the "spa". they put all of your clothes in a patient bag and you have it next to you, I had my cell phone in there (pre-op) and stuff. You sit in a recliner and they give you nice, warm blankets and "fluids" (through on IV!) The heparin shot is in your arm and I did not even feel it. They also gave me stuff for naseau in my IV, it felt sorta warm but that's it. Dr. Baggs came by & said hi (& assured me that he had had a good night's sleep, since I asked!) & the anesthesia guy came in, then the OR nurse came and said she'd be back to get my in 2 minutes and she was even faster than that, she walked me in to surgery. The only embarassing part was win they got me to sit up on that skinny OR table, Dr. Baggs had to run around behind and "unwrap" the gown from around me before I could lay down! Oh well, at that point I didn't care, I knew I was going to be naked in surgery anyways. I wanted my band too bad to say no! But do tell Dr. Baggs when he comes to see you in pre-surgery that you are shy about that stuff, he is very kind and won't expose you more than he has to.

My friend Jane (the other Jane) just had surgery at SSF and she didn't get weighed, either! The scale at Richmond was kind, tho - no worries! I AM SO EXCITED FOR YOU!!!!!

Riley:laugh:

I didn't eat . . . put myself (and did not tell Kaiser) on a liquid diet the weekend before surgery (mine was on a Monday) because I REALLY wanted my BMI under 40 for surgery, and my liver "flat like a pancake." It worked! I have another friend going through SSF who is on a liquid diet for 2 weeks before, but she is very high BMI. You are supposed to eat your normal 1200 calorie diet. My friend the other Jane went out to Chinese in SF the night before, then was scared to death she would weight too much on surgery day, and was SO relieved when they did not weigh her!

That's kind of what I'm going to do too. I'm going to have my "last supper" on Saturday night, but do mostly liquids on Thurs, Friday and Saturday (except for dinner) and Sunday.

Did you get below 40 BMI? How much did you lose during the liquid days?

Riley, what kind of liquids did you do?

So what foods are you on now? Mushies right? Are they easier then the book looks?

I was only 1 lb. less than I expected to be, so I don't know that it worked THAT well . . . . I lost 3 lbs from Sat AM to Monday AM, according to their scale - would have been 2 lbs. on my scale at home. I did a LOT of diet cranberry mixed with Tazo passion tea (decaf, sweetened with Splenda) - like, a gallon a day. For protein I did sugar-free chocolate soy milk (Soy Slender) with no-carb soy protein powder from Trader Joe's. I also did smoothies with tofu, Soy Slender vanilla and sugar-free torani syrup. No yougurt or regular milk because of the carbs. I avoided carbs like the plague! Yes, my BMI was 39.6 and my liver was so flat the in the surgery pics you can actually see the band through my liver when they passed it behind. A year ago I had fatty liver disease, so I wanted to be extra careful!