hi, looking for anyone that has had or is intending to have lap band surgery @ Maples Surgical Centre. I'm hoping for early 09.

Hi everyone! I'm so glad to see there are other people going to Maples. I'm scheduled for surgery on May 12th and I'm so nervous and excited Please keep posting on here because I'm so interested in reading about your progress.

cant wait to be banded!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Day 5 post op.

Doing much much better. Have moved on to mushy foods and even dared to chew a piece of popcorn yesterday. Still in a moderate amount of pain but at least I can sleep on my side again. The hiatus Hernia is what is causing me the most pain. So here I am in the twighlight zone of being banded but unrestricted and waiting once again for the next step in the process and for the weightloss to begin.

hope you feel better moonbeam

Thanks Too Fish! I actually am feeling lots better. I'm an impatient healer. When is your surgury date? Canadian Girl, welcome to the Manitoba forum. Doesn't seem to be too many of us active here, but I'm sure there are lots of Manitoba/Sask Bandsters out there. Have you started your pre op diet yet?

Hi everyone! Nice to see some fellow Maples Clinic banders on here. I am almost three months post surgery .... have had 2 fills....approx 3cc...but still not feeling any restriction. I'm trying to stay positive cause I know everyone is different when it comes to how much fill they need.

Hi mimi

How often do they do the fills for you? I won't be getting my first one for another month yet. I go on tuesday to get the staples out. I'm very much looking forward to that. How are the docs when you go for fills? What do they say when you mention you don't have much restriction?

Hi Moonbeam, the doc just says to be patient as everyone is different. I will be more persistant if I still don't feel restriction with the next fill. The first fill comes at 6 weeks post op. Then at 4 week intervals.....again this is individual depending on how you feel. Hope all is well with you I know you'll feel MUCH better after the staples come out.

Hi again everyone!

I haven't had a chance to do a lot of looking in over here, although I'm hoping to get in more a bit more regular!

I had my surgery today @ Maples and everything has gone well. No hernia surprises for me, and I didn't come out with a new pair of boobs, so I think I can say I'm so far quite happy with the process!

The people at the centre were great today - I had never been put under before and was more nervous about that part then the surgery itself - one minute i was commenting on the pretty blue ceiling, the next they were walking me up.

Fabulous facility, great from the start to this point.

Onto Clear liquids for a bit mmmm - at this point, as long as I can HAVE liquids, I'm ecstatic! (midnight to 4pm was waaaay too long to have no liquids LOL) And if I never have to see a shake/bar/veggie diet plan again, Ill be super happy. It was do-able, to those out there not on that stage yet, you'll do great on it - but you'll be happy to see it done too!

All the best everyone!

:drool:

Hi SK,

Good to hear it went well. I agree that pre op diet is crazy hard to do! Congrats on your surgery! I was there today to get my staples out..wonder if we crossed paths. Hope your recovery is swift and problem free.

That's so awesome - my husband was in the waiting room waiting for me and when he came back to recovery he said that there had been someone in to get her staples out - pretty good chance that would be you!! I was out of sight from about 1 until I left at 6 so I didn't see many people myself, but he (hubby) said there was sure a lot of people in for fills/consults etc!

Hope you're recovering well - only about 4 more weeks til your first fill - yay!

I'm enjoying my Water and juice and other liquids right now - I don't know if I'll ever quench this thirst!

Take care!!

Hi everyone. So glad to hear you are all doing well after surgery- mine is coming up fast now (May 12th) and I'm getting pretty nervous. I'm a week and a half into my pre-op diet and it's kicking my butt! If I never see another shake again it will be too soon! (By the way, if anyone else reads this and has to do the medi-trim shakes, the vanilla is disgusting.) I have to do three weeks of the pre-op and it seems like such a long time that I have to go yet.

Does anyone have any suggestions about how to help get through the hunger? It seems to hit me around five o'clock and I get so miserable. Maybe because it is supper time for the rest of my family and it smells so good! It seems to pass by about seven.

On the brighter side of things, I haven't cheated and I'm half way done!!:thumbup:

How long was it before you guys went from liquids to mushies after surgery? I have to have some hope that I will eat real food again!!

Hi Canadian Girl,

Yes that pre opp diet is crazy. I hated it. I ate a HUGE salad while my family was eating their supper. I found that at least that way I didn't have to sit there doing nothing and putting nothing in my mouth while they all chowed down. I also found having herbal teas's like peppermint helped.

After surgery I stayed on liquids for about 2-3 days, and then went to mushies... then for me at about a week or so post opp I found I could eat what I wanted again. I spoke to Danielle (the dietician) and she said go for it.. if it doesn't hurt or make you vomit eat carefully and chew well. Everyone is different though.

Canadiangirl - it's grilling season, so if you have a bbq or are around mean and cruel people (aka family - mine tortured me!!) that are having bbq'd food while you're stuck suffering away on pre-op - grill some veggies up while everyone else has meat cooking. My absolute fave was grilled asparagus (steamed a bit first to short cooking time) then some salt and pepper and a very slight spritz of pam (Ok'd by Danielle as long as it was a spritz) and then toss them on the grill until they start charring a bit. Sooooo good!! Especially the night when there were 4 big steaks cooking along side - they never touched, but some of that flavour was in the asparagus - VERY good! Roasted Green Beans Recipe : Recipezaar was also delicious, minus the oil of course, and great to snack on.

I also made a sort of Soup that seemed to fill me up real good when I ate it for dinner - canned tomatoes with the juice, lots of diced cabbage, mushrooms, a bit of onion, green beans - really, whatever veg you would want in it. If you can find 0 calorie veggie broth you could add that too, in moderation. (I think i added 2/3 c for a HUGE pot of soup) .. some garlic and whatever spices you might like thrown in - pretty tasty. For extra liquid, Water packed green beans without draining off the water works well too.

I also always mixed my shakes with irish cream flavoured coffee (The beans flavoured, NOT syrup added in!) and the only shakes I had a hard time getting down were only the ones I had to mix with water on it's own - blech! I didn't have the vanilla flavoured ones, but maybe something like that would help them go down a bit better?

I'm still on liquids - or at least, should be. I had a brain-fart of a moment yesterday when I actually forgot I had had surgery (just woke up and was HUNGRY) and didn't remember until I had 2 spoonfulls of chicken and veggie soup down. I'm still paying for it today, even though everything was very mushie, I wasn't ready for the bulk of it I guess. VERY painful experience, I may just stick with liquids for the full 2 weeks just so I don't have to risk that feeling again!! I searched around these forums for ideas on how to get rid of 'stuck food' and came up with flat Coke or pineapple Juice - naturally I went with the one with no nutritional value It seems to have helped a bit, I actually think I may survive the episode now! LOL

good luck!:thumbdown:

Thank you so much for your suggestions!! That Soup sounds wonderful and I will be definately trying it and the peppermint tea tomorrow. Never thought of grilling the vegetables- I was so scared of cheating that I haven't put any variety into my diet. I thought the fat free chicken broth was walking on the wild side. LOL.

Thanks for posting about your surgeries and how they went. I'm not as scared now after reading that yours went okay.:thumbdown:

How are you doing SK since your "brain fart"? ( I got a little chuckle out of that!) Have you tried any mushies yet or are u still sticking to liquids? It sounded so painful and I hope you've recovered.

Sounds like you are doing so good Moonbeam- how are things now that you are eating normal foods again?