I attended my initial lap band seminar in September. I was very angry with my boss for the insurance plan that we have...he eliminated weight loss surgery from the BCBS cafeteria plan. I was stuck with self pay, so I contemplated surgery for 3 more months....it was $10K, out of pocket! I eventually decided, at the end of January 2011, to proceed with surgery.

Surgery was set for March 1, 2011 and I was excited....just excited, not scared.....READY! My doctor, Dr. Wilkenfeld in Conroe/The Woodlands, TX had a wonderful 3 hour pre-op seminar about eating, medications, exercise...everything to know before and after surgery. I also attended a 2 hour post op seminar about food and nutrition. There are monthly seminars about everything from diferent types of exercise, information from dieticians, plastic surgery...I attend my first one this weekend!

My doctor performs this surgery as an outpatient procedure, so ther was no overnight stay for me. I went home after the surgery feeling like I had been hit by a truck. For 4 days, I thought "What have I done to myself? This was a horrible decision." I had problems with nasuea from the liquid vicodin....as soon as I switched from that to Children's Tylenol, I felt much better! I had surgery on Tuesday and was out of the house on Friday! I took it easy through the weekend and was able to return to work on Monday (yoga pants and no underwire until Thursday)....luckily, I didn't have to go see any customers! By Thursday, I was back to almost normal and had my first post op appointment.

I was down 8 lbs in 10 days...not too bad! I haven't weighed again since then, so I don't know where I am 23 days out, but I am in pants that I wasn't able to button pre surgery. I only weigh when I go to my doctor's office. Next appointment and first fill is 3/30/2011....I'll have my weight update and the real truth after the first fill!

I have some restriction, but I am pretty hungry 2-3 hours after eating. I have had a few problems with eating too much, but PB (productive burping) helped and I haven't made that mistake in a while. There was ALOT of gas pain for the first week....this was the most painful part of the surgery. I have more gas issues now than I did before, but I DID have major surgery to my digestive tract, so that is to be expected. It gets better every day.