Pookeyism

Haha...I am bathing but in the shower - I really miss my tub! How long after the lapro could you bathe submerged in Water?

True. Sigh...

I see my doctor again today and will address everything then. It seems to still be there occasionally. I seem to get alot of discomfort to the point of pain right in the general stomach/lower liver area now - i burp soooo much. Heartburn too. Still very sore but also been crying alot. I try to avoid it but its impossible.

It does seem like fun. I have not done anything like this in ages - basically you have a belt with flags like flag football and if you have any little bit of a flag on when you cross the finish you survived. Dodging will be difficult abut doable - harder to dodge without even touching like you can in flag football! The biggest decisions I guess will be what wave to run and whether or not to set up a tent in the camping area. Probably nay on the tent I would be okay with it but Hubby will want a warm bed, a shower and very possibly another day for Austin before we head home. It hasn't set in but he IS running too! lol.

Thank you all. The bereavement leave would just about be over, too. It was Wed. before last. I will discuss it with my doc tomorrow and if he refuses to keep me off any longer I will go to my PCP the next day and go from there. As is I was not informed of there being any problem with being allowed any extra time if needed until Friday as I was getting ready to board a flight home to Houston, so I have not been able to get a PCP appointment until Wed. My immediate supervisor and I have been in a strained relationship since I told him I was having surgery. Well, actually he feels I have had excessive mourning days in 2011 - my Grandmother passed away last January, my Grandfather in October and my godchilds Grandmother in May. I only took a vacation for the latter but he really was ticked off. With that said I usually work a 10 hour day, and get it OT on the weekend to the point I most often work 60 hour weeks. Ironically, if the work situation were better, and I had any reason to believe I would be offered any way to not have to move around ALOT, lift heavy objects, run back and forth to chase down my warehouse guys who will not respond to repeated messaging, and a whirlwind 2-3 hour end of day crunch to get paperwork and the like ready for assigning export forwarders (warehouse is allowed to turn in paperwork hours late daily) I might could return. When I go over it and think of everything I woud go through (my boss never expressed any sympathy to me for my Mom's passing) once back, I know I need more time. I need to be able to go back in at least to a point to be sharp enough to give my boss tit-for-tat.

I had my surgery on the 4th, and my Mom passed away on the 11th. I had to fly to Va from Tx to take care of everything and returned on the 20th. I have spent alot of time crying and pushing myself to take care of everything. The stress had been signifigant and I am recovering but I cannot see myself returning to work this week. Predominant symptoms include excessive soreness if I sit upright for very long, extreme fatigue that pops up out of nowhere (to the point that I almost and sometimes do fall asleep). I get disoriented and lightheaded to the point that my Hubby has pointed out I should not drive, and I agree. I have a 'final' doctors appointment on Tuesday where I have already been advised I will be released, since "nothing went wrong" with the surgery, and these complications are associated with my Mom's death. WTF? How can they determine that? I was told if I needed more time I needed to take it to my PCP and ask. I was told they would not do it because if they delay my release it looks like they did something in error. Has anyone ever heard of anything like this? It sounds to me like I was told I am on my own because they will not admit I could be having complications.

Very good!

No further responses yet, but we will give everyone a few days and go from there - this is harder than the forum because we have to do it in real time. NIN - Do you have anything you would like to do?

That sounds right. I might be a 14 at onderland but since all of my weight is in my tummy and across my ab and arms I am not sure. As is I can pull a 14 up until it meets my tummy bulk - and that ends that. Not thighs, hips or but - tummy. Damn! lol...

I went home with it and it was a little annoying but overall I am glad I did - I had the opportunity to have a conversation with a nurse who has had the surgery and she says - unofficially no study or anything - that she thinks people are in less pain if they have the drain and take care of it. Her educated guess was it drains (duh, lol) and eliminates alot of pressure. Just be very sure to take care of it - and remember the bulb is drained and then left partially "squeezed" then capped again - it creates the negative pressure to help the drain work.

Following up? Hope all is well - my Hubby gets things "stuck" sometimes and we were warned that it can trigger a situation that evein if it is too small to obstruct breathing if it came up a bit and went back down it could get into your airway - or you could produce mucus that could drain into the lungs - and in extreme cases it has been known to cause Fluid build up in the lungs and can be fatal. It is a horrible feeling - never had it myself but hubby has several times. Scares me to death!

I did not have the nausea you spoke of, but it sounds bad (like I needed to say that) - hope all will be well. I did feel very bed for several days, but I think mine was due to dehyration from crying and such (my mom passed away on my 1 week post op). I am recovering but I can say I am pretty sure it has slowed my recovery some. Good luck and God bless!

Yeah, but what about the cute bunny? *back in my corner, lol*

To PDX and Sleeve4me, Ditto on encouragement, I did not see PDX's post at first - posted from my phone and it does odd things...

You do not have to site a study based on stomach surgery related directly to bariatric WLS. There are ample texts that site the anatomy of the stomach and the physiology behind what is taken for proper maintenence of a 6-7 inch incision running through what used to be your stomach. Alot of soilders, cancer patients, ulcer patients, gall bladder septicemia and the like have histories of having to remove small and large parts of their stomachs. They had to go through relearning their stomachs, proper healing, etc. Curious if I had been on a vein that there had been agreement if you owuld have requested citation. Google is a great resource although you will have to take a bit and really explore. Medical journals are good also but again you cant just google "bariatric studies". There is alot of information I reference that I read a few years ago as a friend went through a gall bladder going gangrenous and she lost a large portion of her stomach. It wasn't online and sorry I do not have the texts with me. I am not going to apologize for coming off high and mighty, as I didn't mean to. My post was not aimed at any one, and it does state facts. If I can't post more thatn an occasional "that's great, woot woot" - then I will eventually tire of this. I need people who will step up and tell me whats-for, and not worry about hurting my feelings. Yes - the whoot, whoots are very important too! In return I try to do the same. I have never been the person who worries about anyone who would tell someone in a social forum to "STOP IT". I am not PC, I am in my corner, and everyone else has a corner too - and we come into the middle and play. We are here for support and encouragement and I feel I have done well by my posts. If not, you may block me - there is a feature in our controls to do so. To diffuse the situation I offer happy bunny jumps:

PS - I forgot. I have a massage therapist that used to say "save coconut oil for your massages".I wonder if it is to use as little as possible and still get the benefits?

Okay - my friend I spoke of earlier says it might be possible, but it seems extreme. THEN I remembered a friend that if i recall correctly put coconut oil in a whip cream dispenser (the kind that takes the nirous oxide tubes) so it would whip it and she used less - but I don't know if it was associated with weigh loss or gain. He did mention that you would have to be using a large amount of oil - perhaps in an attempt to distribute it well? Coconut oil is about 40 caories a teaspoon, so to gain 3 lbs from the oil if you gained every calorie you added to your skin (but you wouldn't) you would need about 5.5 cups of coconut oil. If you figured in the amount you do not absorb, which I do not know how much it is, I forgot to ask, then you are looking at 11 cups of oil for say, 50% absorption. But you would not process it like if you had ate it, and your body in return burns a small amount of calories to process things transdermally. That's all I have so far - but keep us informed on what you think it is.

I haven't read all of the posts - and again if someone has mentioned this my apologies. Eating foods too soon can have another serious issue - ulcers. True many ulcers are from viral causes, but you can get an ulcer from a piece of foodstuff caught in the line of your staples, it erodes and you have an ulcer, or perhaos an infection, and even a leak - you don't have to burst your seams to develop a leak...

You cannot be turned away from most ERs, but here in Houston there are private care ER's that usually take most insurance - they are more attentive in general. We keep our medical info with one just down the road, and it came in uber handy when my husband had an emergency. I am not advocating it, but you can get an IV set up through a mdeical supply and IV yourself. You are only administering a basal Fluid (I think I said that right) so gravity or light pressure will work. Start emailing your conversations with your doctor, and be very specific that the email is intended to be addressed by the surgeon and all other parties that may be involved in evaluating your question. Be sure to mention accountability for your health and that you do not seek opinion, you anticipate results. Do not ask if you need to be seen, tell them to arrage whatever tests are standard to assure no leaks, no damage to your esophagus during surgery, etc... Good luck, god bless!

I am a size 18-16 and my last weigh in I was about 222-221 lbs. I am 5'10". My sister is 185 lbs, 5' 7" and is a size 10. We are similar in build and muscle - except I have more muscle bulk than she does. But since she has finally gained some weight it is all in her legs and butt (and yet amazingly proportionate, grrr, lol) - I have to rely on muscle for definition in my legs and butt, as all of my weight is in my stomach and arms. I am curious to see how I turn out...

Transdermal products are (i think) broken down into smaller compounds than what the oil in coconut is. Many transdermal products also have chemicals that make the skin and capilaries more capable of absorbing the chemicals in the patch. I forwarded the question to a friend of my Hubby who is currently working on transdermal applications for several types of conditions. If he looks up long enough to give me an answer I will pass it on. I can't say when that will be - he has forgot to go on vacation before whe he is working the way he is right now, lol.

Here are some facts: You no longer have a normal stomach. It has been elongated into a sleeve that ends in a small pouch. It changes how your body needs you to treat it and food. There are alot of sleevers that are not doing what the should, but doing what they can or "this works for me" - and yet it probably isn't working as well as they think it is. You can do alot of damage and not realize it for quite awhile. One of the basic rules for not drinking before or after is that Water is pushed forward and created more gastric fluxuations and ripples when introduced with food. You can push undigested food out of your stomach into your intestines before it is ready. It was not such an issue when you had a full stomach and had a place for the food to digest as the water and liquids created by digestion passed. You probabaly can have a small amount of water - sipped in small amounts and anticipated with small bites - but only if the sip is incorporated into the bite, to moisten your bite as you chew it. no one can give a definite answer to this question because no one is observing exactly what is going on with each individual person. There are volumous textbooks dedicated to the function of the digestive system, and our doctors are not that type of specialist, they are surgeons so their approvals of things are often slipsided and sometimes misinformed. One thing I plan on doing as I go into eating again is sticking to the mantra "protien first" and incorporating papaya extract into my meal for the evening. It has compounds that are very good for digestion - I give it to my flemish giant rabbits, too!

Coconut oil cannot be absorbed into the body to be expended or retained as calories. It can be absorbed, however. Coconut is one of the oils that naturally have Vitamin E - one of the Vitamins that can be both absorbed and used by the body after being absorbed. It also has antibacterial and antiviral properties. The skin can absorb and apply many things, but I have looked and cannot find concrete medical evidence that your body could absorb enough to affect your weight loss. I have forwarded your question to someone who will be able to give us an answer, but don't know whe he will get my message.

yay! I hope you can get a huge group to go! I will be at the one in Austin. It isn't until December but it gives me a chance to be fully recovered, and alot more weight off my knee. PICTURES!!! Take pictures! You tube has some also footage too.

I made my doctor insert a drain. His arguement was he rarely ever has leaks. My arguement was I wanted to be sure, and put in the drain. Something else about the drain. I drained the first day about 3 bulbs worth of liguid, about 2 the next few days, and at least 1 a day after that. That is Fluid tha I would have had to pass another way, and would have been that much more bloated. If you get the drain, opt for purple colored jellos and clears so that if you do leak, you can see it in the drain. The liquids draining will be deep red, then lighter red.