Coookies

Anesthesia + anything in your bowls = a really unpleasant surprise if you pass gas after you come out of anesthesia... trust me on this..... I haven't done my surgery yet, but I've had 2 in the last 2 years... my tonsils/adenoids and my gallbladder... and it can be very embarrassing!!

Met my other BFF last night and told her. She was really supportive. At one point in our time hanging out, she looked at me and said, "I guess I'm going to have to give you your clothes back." That really made me smile. Cuz we live in Asia, plus size clothes are hard to find and are so ugly. I had given her all of my size 14-18 clothes (cuz she's one of those rare plus sized Koreans)... Anyway, that was really sweet of her, cuz it means that not only does she support me, but she believes in me. I told I would just need to borrow them.

Am I the only person whose GP didn't like the idea of doing this surgery????? My surgeon emailed me telling me that to get the national insurance to cover part of my surgery, that I need a referral letter from my GP.. So I ran over to my GP to get more meds for my cold and to get him to write me the letter.. So after finishing my check up, I pulled out the piece of paper I had written the name of the type of referral letter on (in Korean) and gave it to him... He was like "Why?"... So I explained about wanting to do the surgery, which he said he is unfamiliar with (Korean people for the most part are quite petite so while there are a few obese people running around, they are few and far between)... Immediately he started shaking his head no... So I told him that if I don't do the surgery I'm going to die anyway... Then I reminded him that he's the one who told me that... and that my weight is making my asthma, which is already severe, harder to manage. He asked me my current weight and height (they don't check that here) and he pulled out a BMI counter and said my BMI is 45. I guess because of that he reluctantly agreed. So he sent me off with the nurse to get an injection while he wrote the letter. At this point I felt like pond scum, cuz I could see what he was thinking... But when I got into the injection room, my favorite nurse was there (i have to get an inhaler script pretty much every week at the doctor) and another one popped in and they both asked me about my surgery..... what kind of surgery and where... When I told them the name of the hospital they approved of it (i guess it's kind of famous in Korea...don' t really know) and then my favorite nurse smiled and patted my arm and the young one smiled and said that I was making a great decision and told me "fighting".... which in Korea means good luck.... I was so happy, cuz at that point I was ready to start crying. They really made me feel much better. Ok, sorry for ranting.. I just needed to get that out!!

So, I have 2 BFFs... today I decided to tell one of them... the one I know will keep his mouth shut and take my secret to the grave... The reason I decided to tell him is that I live 7,000 miles from home, and someone needs to be informed of what's going on, cuz it's going to be his responsibility to call my family and tell them if I croak on the table... and to deal with all the other details like telling my friends, boss, etc. and dealing with my body.. So I just got off the phone with him.. He was glad that I told him.. I'm leaving letters for him to send and sending him emails to forward to my boyfriend (who lives in another country) and some other folks... Anyway, I feel better. Like a burden has been lifted.. Now I can just focus on my surgery and learning as much as I can about it beforehand. Thanks to everyone who replied!!

Yay!!! Good Luck!!!!

Wow!!! Am so glad I read this... I got no pre-op diet instructions from my doctor.. Just to show up for the tests the day before the surgery. So I just emailed him... This was his reply: ______ "That is a good question. At least pre-operative 2 weeks, you have to keep high Protein diet with 1200Kcal/day. However, you lost lots of weight within the last year. So I recommend to you keep your lifestyle until then. That is enough to prepare for surgery. _______ Anyway, it is good to know about the liver shrinkage. Last year when I was 66 pounds heavier I had emergency gall-bladder surgery and afterwards my doctor said I have the healthiest liver he's ever seen in an adult. That was cool to hear. Anyway, I'm going to take the advice of everyone on here who said that not eating carbs will shrink my liver... Any advantage I can get right?!

try just eating the egg white.... the egg white only has 17 calories, but the yolk has 59... this way, you could eat 2 or 3 hard boiled egg whites, and get less calories than a single hard-boiled egg (76 calories)

Did you think about getting the surgery done in India??? They have great physicians there and it is not difficult to find a great surgeon who has done hundreds or thousands of these surgeries... Medical tourism is big thing there!! Good luck!! I'm doing mine in Korea. Oh, I looked up the prices in India... the average is around $5,500 US.

Thanks everyone!! I'm very excited about the surgery, but a little scared that I might die... I just keep telling myself that if I don't do the surgery I will die soon anyway. It's really nice to know that others have done it secretly. @Foxbins... I've been thinking about the same thing.. just to leave letters in my house, just in case... I listed my 2 bffs as my emergency contacts, so they will know if something goes wrong.. I'm lucky about my surgery though... the country I live in is pretty cheap to do the surgery (Korea) and the doctor has cleared it so that I can stay in the hospital for 5 nights after my surgery, before I fly home to my city (I wouldn't be able to fly for 3 days anyway, cuz of a law in this country)... I want to stay a bit longer too, just to make sure there are no complications... I have severe asthma, so the surgery is a little more risky. One outpatient surgical hospital rejected me cuz they said I should do the surgery in a major hospital so that a pulmonologist can be there for the surgery just in case... so I took the doctor's recommendation and found a major university hospital that will do it. Yay!! Less than 3 weeks to go!!