anonynurse

Doesn't it say on your discharge paperwork? Everything I am supposed to take between now and my follow up visit is on there.

If it is an "at will" employment state, then he is absolutely correct. He does not have to employ you and can let you go at any time, for any reason. I also agree it is a HORRIBLE time to be out of work. I would suggest you go in and talk to him. Say you could tell the idea of you taking a week off seemed stressful for the office and get a calendar out. Sit down with him, work out a time when he feels it would be less stressful for you to take this time off and come to a mutual agreement. It may not be as soon as you want, but frankly, right now, being employed takes precedence. If you took time off without permission for a nonemergent elective medical procedure it may very well be seen as quitting. Which means NO unemployment benefits. Think very carefully. You would be far better off approaching this from a "how can we make this work for us both" angle than a "you are such a prick!" angle.

Chapstick is an awesome idea.

It should not affect your surgery in any way.

Even if you gain the four pounds to have a BMI of 35, most insurance plans require a two to five year history of a BMI of at least 40 or of 35 with two comorbidities such as diabetes, hypertension, osteoarthritis, etc. These things have to be proven through medical records that show both the weight and that you are being currently treated for whatever health conditions are present. At your age and with your health status it is pretty unlikely you will get insurance coverage for this unless you are on a plan that happens to be very proactive (rare), even if you gain those four pounds. That being said, a BMI of 30 or over has been found to benefit from weight loss surgery from a health standpoint. That means the surgeons generally are willing to do the surgery on people with a BMI of 30 or higher, not that insurance will pay for it. So you likely could have it as a self pay patient. In the United States this surgery can cost anywhere from $10K to $25K depending on who you see and where they do their surgery. Some here have gone to Mexico and done it for far less than those numbers. Most doctors will not finance the surgery, so you will need to have that much cash on hand or be able to get a credit card or line of credit through someone like www.carecredit.com and find a surgeon who accepts that. It sounds to me like you are feeling a little down on yourself and desperate right now, and I think most of us here have been there. Some of the things you are saying are concerning for a mental aspect to this that you definitely will have to figure out and solve for even this kind of solution to succeed for you long term. Given how young you are, if you don't have the insurance to pay for this, the cash or the credit, perhaps you could simply start with a consultation from a therapist. I am sorry you are feeling bad about yourself. Your weight is perhaps a smidge higher than ideal, but from where I sit, you are quite lovely. I hope you find the answers you seek.

Yep. The days of hospitals and doctors offices being willing to bill it later and accept partial payments are pretty much over in the majority of cases.

Yep, me too. Six days postop. Just the scent of protein drinks makes me nauseated. And everything with aspartame (Crystal Light, etc) tastes far too sweet all of a sudden. I am doing natural fruit popsicles, homemade broths, cream soups thinned with skim milk and watered down fruit juices. I'll focus more on protein when I graduate to the pureed phase in two weeks.

Congratulations!

Well, first things first - you need to take a pregnancy test. Provided that is negative, let's examine the rest of your post. 5.5 lbs of loss is a normal rate of loss. Prior to having this surgery, if you could have lost that much each month and gradually lost down to your goal weight, you probably would have hit your knees in gratitude and excitement. The "magic" time of rapid loss for this surgery lasts six months to a year. It sounds like yours may be slowing down and the time of hard work beginning. That is ok! You want it right NOW, but you didn't put it on overnight. 5 lbs per month is 60 lbs per year. That is huge. HUGE. The truth nobody seems to bring up here is that on average sleevers lose abot 60-70% of their excess weight. This means if someone needs to lose 100 lbs to get to goal, with average amount of effort, they will lose 60-70 lbs after being sleeved. With consistent discipline and effort, they can have bypass-like results, which are closer to 70-80% of excess weight. Does that mean you can't get to goal? Of course not! Many here have! But those who have are those who have significantly changed their lives, how they think about food, what kind of exercise they do on a regular basis etc. Instead of panicking that it won't come off as fast as you want, perhaps you can start to ponder what the rest of your life is going to look like, knowing it is destined to come off at ANY speed with the new habits you are adopting. Just a thought.

It seems from what folks say here that most of us are on an acid reducer a minimum of six months after the sleeve and many stay on them long term.

Legally speaking you can't drive yourself home, but there is no reason you must have someone physically there when you have the surgery. My husband was not allowed to come to the recovery room anyway - they had him wait in my hospital room for when they brought me up.

Call your bariatric surgeon. It makes no sense to me either. Your triglycerides would not put you in advanced danger under anesthesia and the modified diet after surgery should help lower your triglycerides. You also should still be able to take meds for this after surgery. Is your PCP less than supportive for bariatric surgery? I would want to know what your bariatric surgeon has to say about this. Technically you should not need your PCP's permission to have this surgery.

Sounds like too much too soon to me. Some docs don't give clearance to walk at all until 4-6 weeks out and 2.5 miles, while not a lot on the whole, may be more than your recovering body is willing or able to handle right now, especially when paired with errands and lifting. I see the pain you have as a warning sign to scale back. Maybe try cutting it down to one mile and work up gradually from there. And take it easy on the lifting for another couple of weeks.

I was up about 12 lbs after the surgery, but now am down those and then some. I am five days out, so your results may be similar to mine, but more likely wil be up some from water retention due to flying/traveling. Glad you are feeling a bit better. I started to feel really great last night, got a little too ambitious and now today am back a step in terms of pain. I am not good at being the patient!

I am on Pepcid. The pill is smaller than an M&M and I just haven't had any trouble swallowing them since day 1.

I think your feelings are completely understandable. I have a close group of friends too and if mine were doing this it would make me crazy. If you truly are good friends you SHOULD be able to tell them how you feel. They probably do not realize that they are saying things so often or that they are making you uncomfortable. They probably think they are witty and halfway think they are complimenting you. It is weird how people's minds work. Just tell them up front "I had this surgery so that I could live my life in a normal fashion and when you draw so much attention to my surgery, it makes me feel very abnormal. It has been a year since I have had it - the novelty has worn off. Can we please stop commenting on it now, because it takes away from my pleasure when it comes up. OK? Thanks." Hopefully that is all it will take. Obviously they have no idea or they would not contine to do it. I am betting if you ask them to stop it and tell them how it makes you feel, they will be surprised and will actually start to relax more in your presence as well. It sounds like they are trying to "make room" for your surgery in their interactions with you, without realizing it isn't appropriate and makes you feel bad.

All I brought to the hospital was a book (didn't touch it), my cell phone and charger and the clothes to wear home (which were the same I wore there). I wore a maxi dress (long sundress) and it was perfect. Nothing around my tummy at all. While I was hospitalized (overnight), I was pretty drugged up and all I cared to do was sleep. Gas-X they had there. Biotin they had there. Slipper socks they provided me with. There really was not anything I needed that the hospital didn't have, including toothbrush and toothpaste. I am five days postop today. I have a lot of Clear Liquids on hand and have started my Vitamins. I have sample packets of different kinds of Protein. So far the Nectars have agreed with me the most. easy to Water down and sip. Since my focus is more in hydration than protein intake right now I sip a lot of watered down juice, which helped get my gastrointestinal function up and running (no pun intended) again. Honestly I have not needed a lot.

I am so sorry to hear about your mom and so glad she is going to be okay! What a roller coaster ride for all of you! I would suggest you go to see your mother's surgeon postop along with her to get these kinds of questions answered. It sounds more like a complete gastrectomy than a sleeve gastrectomy, but really only he/she can answer these questions for you with any degree of accuracy. Take care of yourself and prayers going up for continued healing for her!

Yuck, that stinks. Kidney infections are nothing to mess with, you poor thing! And yeah, you feel like dookie when you have one. Remember, you need FLUIDS now more than anything else. Go back to your shakes, push watered down juices, sip sip sip all the time! See if your doc will write you a script for Zofran for the nausea in order to help you get your fluids in. Sorry you are feeling icky! I hope this passes quickly for you! :hug:

Funny how we are all told different stuff. My doc says no caffeine for six months because it is acidic and has been linked to ulcers, therefore threatens the suture line. I came here this morning JUST to find this recipe. THANK YOU!

My surgeon actually told me this could happen and he plans for it by putting a pressure dressing on that site. He said it is because the port rests between the muscle and the skin, it creates an opening there for Fluid to pool after it is removed until that space heals. I had to leave the pressure dresing on for a week. Glad you are ok and sorry this happened to you. It was frightening I am sure.

i am four days postop now from having the sleeve portion of my revision. My doc does the two (removal of the band and then doing the sleeve) in two separate surgeries. Because my surgeon saw my liver when removing my band, I didn't have to do a pre-op diet, so that was nice. I too was struggling with having to do that again. But my loss from the band was good and my liver was small. I can tell you the recovery from this surgery is much much harder than the band was. More pain. Less energy. Stricter diet. But I feel a little better every day. Since I am so fresh from the OR, you may want to read other threads of a similar nature posted here to get more info. Good luck!

I had the same fear. My surgeon told me I had a larger chance of dying on the way to the surgery center than I did during the surgery. I think that was supposed to help. lol! And it did.....kinda.....

I am on day 4 postop and yeah, you sound pretty normal. Take your meds and hang in there. Day four isn't awesome, but it is much better than day 2!

This warrants a call to your doc.