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18 days post op and I seriously feel like I'm going to explode. Before surgery, I felt like I was never going to lose weight and now I feel like I'm going to lose it, but I will shrivel and die before it happens. I am so excited to get down the road I can hardly stand it. I have never had much patience and can't usually wait for anything so this is making me climb the walls. I'm off work for 6 weeks (4 weeks remaining) so things are going quite slow for me bc all I can do right now is sit at home and wait. My weight loss, however, is going amazing. I am down 17 lbs which is essentially 1lb a day. So, I'm not so much complaining as I am saying how nice it would be to fast forward 2-3 months down the road so I can actually see a difference and be back into a normal routine. I can't wait to go shopping for new clothes. It is my 2nd addiction and I haven't been able to enjoy it in such a long time. I am fighting every urge possible to keep from ordering an entire smaller wardrobe online as it is. I have no idea where I will end up so I know how crazy that sounds, but when you sit home all day alone for almost 3 weeks straight you tend to go a little crazy. haha

Here it is the end of month 3. Never thought I would make it this far. Next week I see the surgeon for the 3rd time and he will tell me if I have passed all the tests and can get submitted to insurance. I waited till the last week to do the heart doctor who because of my age and not able to exercise very well wanted a stress test. I did it and passed. I am glad they did not find anything wrong with my heart. I went to the psycologist for quite a few visits and I think I had enough of that. She was very nice but I still don't know why I use food as a comfort. I have been to 4 support group meetings, went to lung doctor and he said I had a touch of asema. My PCD went on to greener fields and I had to get a new PCD. That was not easy for me after many years. I guess I like him as well as any. It is hard to find a good doctor that you can get along with. One week in this 3rd month I had 4 doctor appointments in one week. I changed endo doctors also in month 2. I pray that I am making the right decision to have this surgery. I know the life I have now is not good. I want a better life. I want to be able to be off of insulin and putting holes all over my body. I am tired of testing and taking insulin. I blame myself for getting diabetes but they tell me it is not my fault. I have been overweight almost all of my life, even as a child. As soon as I started kindergarden I ballooned up to obese and was that way until the 8th grade when I starved myself for 4 months and lost 40 lbs so I could get a dress for graduation. I wanted so to look like the other girls. I managed to lose another 20 lbs over the next 4 years and stayed there with 10 lbs up or down. Then I got married to someone who was overweight and immediately started to gain. I also got pregnant and gained back the 60 lbs which I never could lose. Over the rest of my life I gained another 70lbs and because of the insulin and the pain I have to keep me seditary it will probably continue to rise. Well this is my weight story. Sorry if I bored you all, but you all mean so much to me. I read every post and blog. I feel your pain and also get joy from your accomplishments. I think we are like a family here. Too all the ones that are doing this at a young age I say GOOD FOR YOU. It is a good idea to get your life back as soon as possible. I have missed so much over all the years because of weight. Best of luck to everyone. I will let you know what the outcome is with the doctor next month. I hope it is good news.

Okay, soooo i have been cleared by my Cardiologist!!! Yay!!! Next stop Pulmonologist on Monday, Oct 1st. Super excited! After that, i shall be Approved and then begin my surgery prep including Upper GI and Chest xray. soooooooooooo ready for this surgery. I find myself having dreams about life after weightloss. I feel free in my dream and i feel like theres nothing holding me down anymore. Its mostly mental believe it or not. I will no longer feel like people are judging me because of my weight or most of all, i wont judge myself anymore. smh . . . thank you in advance Lord

i need to get this ALL out before i insane. or i guess to prove that im NOT insane. nor do i have BEHAVIORAL ISSUE. lol i cant believe this. UGH anyways. lets start from September 5th. September 5th was the last day of my 6 month NUT visits. completed and faxed over to my Surgeons office the same morning. September 6th. I gave it a day and didnt call them. They received my paperwork but again i never called the Surgeons office because I was told my paperwork was complete and would be given to Kathy our Surgical Coordinator. In my mind i assumed everything was fine due to the fact that the notes in my file say i chose to go with the gastric sleeeve. I had also met with my Surgeon a month before making my final decision and he specifically said lap band would be a waste of time and probably have to be removed a year later due to all complications and issues. (plus i have a 2 year old and all the fills wouldnt be logical with my schedule.) moving on.....i gave in and called the insurance directly because i was told that i would be submitted. not until the end of the business day did the say that got a call from my Surgeons office questioning authorization code something along those lines. so i called my surgeons office and spoke with one of his nurses and advised what surgery i wanted and got transferred to voicemail. one of them call me back i think it was on the 10th. One of the nurses called me and said she needed to speak with the Surgeon and she was out of office for one day. they prolonged this all week and then i didnt find out until thursday the 13th that the coordinator ended up back with my chart NOT sure why but basically it had to be inter officed through the carrier to be present for my appointment on the 17th. so again no submittance to insurance. Monday my appointment with my Surgeon was effective but short. The coordinator DID explain to me that she will not be submitting to insurance until after Monday AND that my Surgeon cannot schedule my pre op or surgery date until approval has been received, I TOTALLY UNDERSTOOD THIS. there was a handwritten note on my flie and my SURGEON took it upon himself to call the Coordinator while we were in our appointment. he fought for the push and understood that its not good practice to get the patients hope up and then be denied for some reason. I called the coordinator to explain to her that i FULLY understood but that My surgeon insisted on calling her. he took it upon himself to question and fight for me. SORRY cant control that so basically that was that. i was told my chart would go back and it would be submitted the next day. so instead of bugging the coordinator i called my insurance. just to CHECK. ok great no submission. Wednesday i let it pass. didnt call anyone. Thursday it is now the 20th and i talk to the coordinator. she says shes working half a day and that my file wont get submited. i hvae to wait for friday or Monday. so based on me i called insurance this morning hoping it would be there. THEY then asked me for her phone number. called her and then she called me. she expressed that she explained these things to be over and over which i understood but i guess lack of communication from the beginning put me in paranoia and reading the forum just made me in the mind set of CALL CALL CALL. basically my forms just got SUBMITTED TODAY. finally BUT that the entire group at the office has meetings a week and they brought up what if i have behavioral issues. are you serious??? because im anxious about my surgery>>?? because i know your busy but my case has been completed for weeks. because i have a 2 year old and work on a small team at work where our schedules are made waaaaay in advance and i work occassional weekends so its really important to know whats going on. i feel bad and sad that they would think of me this way but i feel like i didnt really do anything worng yeah a little obsessive but all in good reason. i told them that i also need more time to talk to my Surgeon during our appointments because there are things i still want verbal confirmation directly from him. i dont know it makes me feel low but i know in my heart that i DONT have behavioral issues. i was told to deal with the Coordinator only (even tho during this time i was going through an address change and had issues getting my address fixed) it may have seem like i called to check on approval but other things too. all in all i was told not to raise red flags and if i have anxiety to meet with my dietitian or one of the nurses. sigh. yeah everyone has anxiety im just a working single mom who is anxious to start a new life. sorry but 7 months is gone and im ready. whatever i feel better and now the waiting game really begins. for whoever reads this or made it to the end seriously am i crazy>???? honestly i know im not AND i see where they are coming from but.....come on.

So, three days of 2 protein shakes, and 4 oz of protein & 1/2 c veggies equals = leg cramps from HELL! Woke me up in the middle of the night with screaming pain! Dear God! But once that passed I fell back to sleep, woke up and weighed myself. 12 pounds down! Holy Cow! At this rate (4lbs/day) I should lose 40 lbs by surgery day! But of course then I won't qualify with my BMI. Hopefully they don't weigh me, BUT BE SURE I WILL WEIGH MYSELF ! I then went to the gym for the first time since starting this diet and did pretty well, considering my fatigue of the last 2 days. I also called the surgeons' office to ask about the potassium levels in their vitamins and shakes, it only adds up to about 8% of the daily requirement. The nurse there said it should be enough, but I should drink more and I could try a product called "Cramp EEZ". I went to Target and they did not carry it, but as I shopped I checked out the water section I noticed some "vitamin" waters contained potassium and some did not. So I picked up a couple "skinny water" bottles that contain 100mg of potassium each-just to try them out. This is so much a learning process.

I am still very swollen so I was hesitant to get on the scale, but I couldn't resist the temptation and I have lost 10lbs since Tuesday. I couldn't stop smiling. That is just so amazing to me. I can't wait until I'm able to start working out and building muscle and working on toning as I go. This is just such a blessing!

i have a freind who has watched my success and she has desised to have a band. But a band is not an easy way out the way she thinks it is. It is hard work. She is refuseing to give up soada she said i hate protine shakes and will not drink them. Why would any body get this done like that, She said becuse you were so successful yes i have been but i work hard at it i watch what i eat i work out like crazy. This is not a quick fix I do uses protine shakes I also do not drink soda. This is sugery i mean real sugery why on earth would you do this to fool your band I did this to be heathy and recalm my life. If that means no soda so be it I live find othre things you like to drink deit snapple crysltal light tthere are other things. Please do not put your self though sugery if your not ready to change you life. As this is a LIFESTYLE CHANGE not and easy way out

I'm excited to be giving my 6 month surgery update. There were times when I didn't think I could do this, but it gets easier every day and every month. I feel pretty much like a normal person now. I eat whatever I want (within reason) and my sleeve keeps me in line. I am thankful for that control. I still have occasional moments of pity for myself when I can't eat a big meal or a large serving of something. But, I'm always able to put it in perspective when I remind myself of the positive life changes I've had post op. I can now move around with much less knee pain than I was having. I can't remember the last time I got short of breath doing a normal activity like WALKING up some stairs. I have gone from a size 22W to a 16 Misses. Since I had to buy a suit in a size 14 this past weekend, I guess I'll officially be in that size soon. WOW! Now that's results. It feels so good to go to the "regular" clothing section and pull something off the rack. Shopping for clothes is so much less stressful than it was a few months ago. I wasn't exercising much until around the 5 month mark. I'm getting a regular exercise schedule going now. I can tell that it is keeping the weight loss more steady and will hopefully help me firm up some. I seem to go through small stages of loose, wrinkly looking skin to smooth skin. This mostly happens on my thighs and a little on the upper arms. Overall, I'm doing pretty good with not having too much flabby skin. My hair was fine until recently and I thought I might get off without hair loss. But, right around the 5 month mark, it started shedding real bad. At least I was anticipating that it might happen so I wasn't totally shocked. I immediately started wearing wigs and am currently enjoying trying out some new styles and colors that I would not have been brave enough to try with my own hair. I thought that Thanksgiving and Christmas would be awful in terms of not being able to eat, but it was barely a blip on the radar. I ate a little of everything I wanted to eat with no problems. As usual, I stopped when I got my full signal and tasted a little more later when I was ready or hungry. The biggest thing I have to monitor with eating these days is that my sleeve handles different volumes depending on the time of day. In the morning, I can barely eat anything at all. I've taken to drinking a protein shake for breakfast instead of trying to eat because it was getting frustrating to feel stuffed after 3 or 4 bites. At lunch time, I can take in a little more depending on my stress level and how busy I am that day. When I'm stressed or rushed, I can't get down too much. If I'm able to take my time, I can eat about 1/2 - 3/4 cup of food at lunch. I don't like to linger over my food too long, but sometimes I have to just nibble on it while I work (after my official lunch time is over) or I would never get in a decent amount of real food protein. Evening or dinner time is when I can eat what seems like a normal amount of food. I can easily do a cup of food for dinner most nights. Sometimes it freaks me out a little to eat that much, but I have to remind myself of how little I've actually eaten all day. So, it all balances out. I'm always careful to not stuff myself at dinner just because I can eat more at that time. I still listen to my full signals and stop when I feel it. Like many other sleevers, I have found it way too easy to take in junk food so I have to really watch myself with that. I am able to drink soda with no problem. I just can't gulp them the way I used to and the way I can water. Sodas have always been a problem area for me but I luckily acclimmated myself to diet sodas on my preop diet, so that's mostly what I drink. I occasionally have a regular soda but in general they seem too sweet for me to drink more than a little of. The diet sodas don't seem to be having a negative impact on my weight loss or stretching my stomach. I started experimenting slowly with diet sodas around 4 months and am used to them now. It takes me a long time to drink a normal amount of soda and I rarely finish whatever I have ordered/bought so I don't worry about taking in too much. I was able to go back to regular caffeinated tea about a month or so after surgery and haven't had any problems with that either. I do drink regular sweet tea when I drink it. I don't drink a lot of it the way I used to, I guess because it's too sweet. But it still tastes good (better than soda) so I don't stress about it since I'm drinking a small amount compared to before surgery. Like many other WLS patients, I struggled with whether to tell people about my surgery. I decided to tell them so that I wouldn't feel like I was being deceitful about how I lost weight. I know that's not the best decision for everyone, but it's the best choice for me. I also decided that I wasn't going to talk about the surgery I had or give out any other info. I know that some people are too invasive/nosy/insensitive with their questions and I didn't want to have to deal with that. I can just imagine someone asking me how much of stomach I let the doctor cut out, how many times I've thrown up, or how many times a week I poop. I'm sure some of you have dealt with that BS. My strategy of telling people that I'm not giving out any details about my surgery, including what kind of surgery I had, has been extremely successful. The minute I tell people that I'm not telling what kind of surgery I had or that I'm not giving out any details, I generally don't get any other questions. I mean not one more question after that. On the maybe two occasions that someone tried to push it a little further I just looked at them blankly and smiled and let them figure out why I wasn't talking anymore. They got the message REAL fast. It's kind of funny sometimes. I tend to tell friends or closer acquaintances that it makes me uncomfortable to talk about it and they respect that immediately without feeling like I"m shutting them out. Maybe this strategy will work for someone else. I think in time I may be more open about the surgery, but I'm not ready right now. Overall, this was the best health decision I could have ever made for myself. I hope that other people who are on the fence about it can benefit from this blog and from other people's blogs. Feel free to post any questions. I don't sign on as often as I used to, so if I don't respond it's because I haven't been online in a while. But I will respond to all questions as soon as I see them. Best wishes to everyone. :cheer2: