crosswind

. I love hearing all these celebratory aspirations. As for the tummy tuck, well, it's not for me but I bet you'll look great when it's done. My belly got bad when I had my first child. I was upset about it for years and then one day I just sort of gave up on it. Other things to worry about, other things to spend money on. I wish there was a way to fix it entirely without the misery.

Dot laser is the newest laser resurfacing gizmo that stimulates collagen for six months after treatment. I don't look too bad but I see a little jowly/pouchiness that might not snap back. Vaser lipo is lipo that has skin tightening benefits also. A little cheaper than a tummy tuck, less downtime, no cutting. I've seen a lot of b and a's for tummy tucks and the whole process looks gruesome. Recovery seems like torture. My friend got one in Brazil and had her mother take care of her because she could not straighten out her body , had to sleep sitting up, could not wash, you take care of drains for weeks. Gah. I've had enough "down time."

I hate Isopure too, but there's another product called New whey liquid Protein that will give you 46 grams in 4 ounces. It tastes the same as Isopure. It SUCKS. But if you suck it down like medicine, it might get your energy up. Other strategies --protein in applesauce, protein in yogurt and I'm not sure if you know this, but Jello actually has some protein in it. But honestly -- a week out your energy is going to be for shit anyway. I didn't feel reasonably coherent for three or four.

You would not believe how addicted I was to soda before my surgery. I really didn't know if I could do without it, but when someone tells you that your stomach might explode if you drink something, it's extremely motivating. The first thing I did was cut out caffeine. They told me to quit because it was a stomach irritant and the caffeine withdrawals were sometimes worse for people than the rest of their early recovery, so I stopped it. No decaf either -- that's sometimes got as much caffeine in it as regular coffee or tea, depending on how you make it, and it can irritate the stomach you're about to get, so there's no point decaffing when you want to be off totally. So get white soda and drink it for four to five days. Drink it until you realize you really aren't addicted to soda, you miss the caffeine. When I went into the hospital I was still drinking soda, but I had cut out caffeine. After surgery it was an easy transition from carbonated drinks since they don't offer them in the hospital and you're so freaked out by your new stomach in the beginning you're afraid to put anything in there AT ALL. This is the longest I've gone without soda in probably 30 years.

I'm glad to hear you're not dead, and also relieved for myself and probably hundreds of Dr. A patients who hang out here. But I hope in the next few days you contact the doc and tell him what happened. He might have some additional insights for you and,,,I dunno, if I were him I'd want to hear about it. You know, you might be the first person who ever crash tested the sleeve. Good to know you're okay. Thanks for coming back with the story, I was sort of worried about this all day yesterday.

I don't know what's up with me but I am totally wired. Last night I was fully awake until 9 AM this morning and I fell asleep til about noon. It's 2 AM right now and I'm just not going down, I'm sort of puttering and putting on moisturizer and I can not sleep. I am a pretty terrible insomniac but ever since surgery I've been sleeping at night and waking up in the morning at least. It used to be so bad that I would give up on sleeping at all for a couple days just to make myself tired enough to go down and stay down. I have herbs. Passionflower, hops, valerian, skullcap, etc. I have unisom but diphen causes weight gain doncha know. I have Ambien I can't really take yet ( and I never do because that stuff scares the crap out of me). None of the OTC/herbals really work all that well. I have no Ativan and decided to cool it on that stuff when I ran out last month. ( Actually that is a functional untruth. In reality the doctor at my clinic threw me out the last time I asked for more and threatened me with a drug panel) I'm still in the healing phase and I know I need to rest. I'm not doing it though. Are ya'll sleeping and if not what are you doing for it?

When I was talking to Nina before my surgery, I started asking her all these questions about things I could have afterwards. I specifically wanted to know about supplements; fish oil, mega-nutrition shakes, whole food Vitamin tablets. She went into kind of a long, charming answer and I finally interrupted and her and said, well. It sounds like what you're saying is that after the healing period, it's just a stomach. And she said yes! That's right, it's just a stomach! The first weeks -- say up to a couple days ago -- I did not feel like what I had in me was just a stomach. What it felt like was a shredded, cranky pinata so surly that *it* had to be blindfolded. Now I feel like I might have a stomach, or something that plans to be one soon. I had pizza about five days ago, very slowly, the real kind .I ate maybe a slice total, pulling at the thin crust and leaving the back end. I had a Taco Bell crunchwrap supreme that went down almost okay about a sixth at a time; but at the end there was a very alarming, deep-core, kind of gravelly pain in the very middle of my body that got me worried so I went back to full liquids for a day. I'm not sure but I think this is around the time that SBM ( Sleevers Before Me) begin to radio the board, saying, um. I can eat a *lot*. I've had the same phenomena lately. I ate a whole Lean Pocket. It took me about an hour but it all slid down happily. I've been eating greek yogurt, cottage cheese, Protein bars, mozzarella, protein shots and Lean Pockets. My calories are going up, from about 500 last week to nearer to 800 this week. Most food is really going down pretty well. I appear to have a working digestive tract, putting me right on a competitive evolutionary level with, say, everything other living organism with a spine so I consider that a plus. The downside is that I was starting to think that careful 500 was the new normal. Nope. 800 a day for two days made me nervous. It's a still a serious caloric deficit but major anorexia just doesn't last forever. You can call it a blessing and a curse. And a successful surgery, so far. One week left and I'm at two months. About 42 pounds down. Amazing. Mostly amazing because two months, two months ago, seemed like five presidential administrations and a line at Disneyworld in June away.

Okay. First of all, you are not going to die. No one thinks you' re going to die. Your surgeon especially does not think you're going to die, because if he did, why would he operate on you? The second reason you are not going to die is because I promise you won't. You have the crosswind guarantee that you will not die on that operating table and this is how I know: go read the literature. The chances of death from this surgery are hilariously small. They are overall hiliarously small -- and even smaller given the picture of your current health, comorbidities, etc. If you are significantly overweight, you have a much better chance of waking up tomorrow in the throes of cardiac arrest than you do of dying from this surgery. People who die from this surgery usually do so later, and the usually do so because the ignore their own symptoms for some outrageous period of time. Any other complication that could result in death is close to zero in likelihood after you get home from the hospital. If you monitor yourself; and something seems wrong -- you go the ER and they patch you up. And you won't die. Second of all. However you're feeling now, I also give you the Crosswind guarantee that when you get there, they are going to get you so high you are not even going to notice you're gone. I'm obviously a little substance happy personallly, but I had never been under general anesthesia before and I was sort of looking forward to it. There is something intensely, sinfully restful about laying down on a cot and letting the various opiates commence. In fact, everything in my experience prior to the surgery was an "induction" strategy to get me to show up on that table without losing my mind. The night before they told me to party it up, eat whatever I wanted and have some drinks, and then before bed it was 2 mgs ativan; then first thing I get another dreamshot, then another ativan, then...I'm trying to remember what they called the Big Blue Pill, but the point is -- go ahead and worry now because once you get there you are going to notice you suddenly feel perfectly marvelous. Finally -- when we see dramatic depictions of hospital dramas on television, the patients are *already dying*. So we hear Code Blue and crash cart and all these armchair-clutching tv moments where there is a chance the patient might take off for the hereafter. This is not your situation. You are healthy and you are undergoing elective surgery. People who die from this surgery are already seriously comorbid and are often more at risk the higher their bmi. Write the letter if you need to, but I promise you, you're going home.

Surgeon was Dr. Aceves. Got me a little jumpy. I'm feeling fine right now, and I was feeling a little safer -- he's week ahead of me. Hope he's okay.

I think the same thing. If you're eating 800 calories a day and seventy of them should be protein -- even if you go under that like I do and are at 65 or 60 or so; and your fats are reasonable -- say 20 or less, that only leaves enough room for 90 carbs. That would be high for a lowcarb diet but people who eat lowcarb who exercise can get up that high. It's pretty hard to overdo it on any edible molecule at 800 a day.

Justalfe, please let us know how you're doing when you can. Just posting here for email notification. Vomiting blood in the eighth week...that's not good...

. Hey I had a minicupcake today with real frosting. Here's the thing: I have the opportunity to eat normal, so I'm gonna. I've been reading people here eating serious lowcarb diets -- I'm not gonna unless I'm in a megastall. . I remember being on LC for two years and trying to get back to the "sweet spot" for another five, until the thought of subsisting on ground beef and pepperoni sticks sent me catatonic. Part of my weight loss recovery is going to be to develop non-psychotic eating habits, which means if I want a minicupcake and I can afford the calories, I'm going to eat it. Rest of todays food was a chobani greek, lc Pasta with cottage cheese, Protein bar, and I tried this chocolate chip protein cookie. 65 grams of protein, 800 calories...etc. I'm done obsessing. I didn't really do a pre-op diet so I think that's why I lost so much so fast -- so far. I ate lowcarb for a week beforehand and maybe lost five pounds. It's slowing down a lot -- six pounds in the last two weeks. If you see someone with a really high initial loss, check to see if they did any dieting preop.

Well, I took a unisom last night, the sleepmelts. I hate taking those though. They leave you with a hangover and they cause weight gain over time. I don't know if it's the surgery that's causing this or if it's just my zoomy little brain messing with my sleep wake cycle. It's probably unisom again tonight.

You know that was what I was envisioning for my post-sleeve life. No drama. You just go around like a normal person and when there's food you eat it and you fit into pants that could not also serve as a yurt for smaller indiginous peoples. . I'm glad to hear I'm probably right.

. I won't Miss Madge, but here now, what did I tell you about the crying? You thought I was an isolated case I bet. Surgery just brings on delayed onset tears for some reason. This just never really bothered me, I just sort of reported it as a symptom. Yep, okay, crying again. What else can you do? For all we know it could be good for us.

Blowpop = AWESOME. Sounds like a good time

Hm. I had half of a crunchwrap suprme from Taco Bell tonight and it went down great, in fact I'm putting it in the slider category. I didn't eat that half all at once. I had a quarter at about 6 and another about 9:30. Since all I ate was a New whey liquid Protein shot all day I was pretty ready to fill up Mr. Tantrum I can also eat eggface pizzas with lc tortillas. One thing i really can't manage is a bean burrito. I think there's too much fiber and it's too dense.

Personally? He sounds like a nutcase. Get rid of him!

Hi: I'm six weeks out . My surgeon said to wait on alcohol until I was on solid food which was four weeks for me. But he also said to be cautious even at that point. To be honest I thought the minute I got to four weeks I'd be diving for a bottle of cabernet but when I got there I just could not imagine it. I just wasn't ready ( still not). I think what they really meant was to look at alcohol once you have the eating thing down. Drinkinng wine will not pop a staple but it is a strong irritant. You have scar tissue forming around your staples and when they are too irritatied they might overreact and scar too much. This is one way peope get strictures. The magic "out of the woods" healing time for most people is THREE MONTHS. Believe me, I know that seems like forever but at this point I am halfway there, another six weeks to go, and there's the rest of my life to get sauced. It goes fast and I think it's worth it to be careful. Make your recovery your priority now. Next year you can get plastered on hubbys birthday -- in a bikini no less.

I was just looking at the calendar, considering doing an update for the board and checking to see how long it's been since I had my sleeve. 43 days so that's one day more than six weeks right? Wow. Six weeks later, things are better than they used to be. Recovery was hideous and strange, and still ongoing but there's less of an Addams Family feel to the whole process. Eating is getting much easier. I haven't so far gotten dehydrated, nauseated or thrown up, but there are other monsters out there, namely fatigue and Oh-hell-I've-blown-blown-up-my-stomach paranoia, which are both slowly receding. There's also the numerous times that badly chosen food tried to punch its way out of my esophagus but that's getting better too; I'm not sure if it's because I am healing or because I am less of an idiot. My ear infection cleared up after several rounds of bugspray and I'm on one more for good measure, prophylactically. I'm going to be traveling next week and I've been swimming, visiting the chiropractor, getting massages for my shoulders and my neckwhich did not fare very well carrying an extra 130 pounds. My blood pressure ( which I did not even know was bad) went down from 180/105 in the hospital to 130/80 in six weeks. I still don't fit into the jeans I've been trying to stuff myself into since day ten but that's okay. I have lost 40 pounds. And I am still not dead. I actually sort of have a little life starting to locomote here. I do have to tell you one thing. Since I can't saturate my emotions in carb bombs and a couple of glasses of wine to wash it down, I am finding myself ruminating about my marriage and getting extremely pissed off. I've been teling myself that this is a healing process and besides, I divorced the guy, he's not supposed to be able to make me miserable anymore. But if you're heading down this road I think it's worth it to mention that sometimes, without my drug of choice, life can come up and smack me in the face, at which point I want to kick the shit out of it. Otherwise though...this is going pretty well. So far, so good. I just keep wondering, heyyyyyy -- if I lost 40 pounds in six weeks will I lose *another* 40 pounds in *another* six weeks? I know, I know, Probably not.

Please respond and the more the merrier. I did not see a nutritionist ( or a shrink, or a PCP, or a priest, or anyone) before I had the sleeve and the recommendation I got from Dr A's office was to shoot for between 6-800 calories a day. I've been noticing I have never been able to eat more than that so I guess it's fine for now but I'm curious: Was that your recommendation also and are you sticking to it? Do you eat under or over 6-8? How's it going?

. Hey there you are chiquita. I'm trying to remember what I did with myself the first couple days. I don't remember a lot of pain but then they trick you down in Mexico via the method of keeping you high as balls the whole time. It's completely brilliant and makes you want to go back and get lots and lots and lots of surgeries. I remember reading other people on the board twelve days out going for walks and skiing and playing squash and what have you and thinkig, okay, THAT is not at all how my recovery is going to go. I laid around and drank Isoproblem. Day five, six...I probably got out of bed to stare at the TV for a couple hours and then snuggled on down with my computer the rest of time and watched movies on Amazon. Goes fast. But don't rush it. And no skiing. Not even at gunpoint. What I recommend is to just lie there and think of England for at least a week.

This is really good information. We should sticky this, since it's a good way to find out what surgeons are really recommending and where people really are. It's interesting that *most* people are eating 6-8. This is all I can manage most days but I've been wondering if I should try to get them up a little bit. It's almost 2pm and I haven't eaten yet.