Pookeyism

Nicole76 - Thank you! rebecca b - I am sorry your boss is harassing you. Perhaps you could talk to your doctor to issue a note that it is a medical necessity and as time critical as any treatment you would need. Insurance definitions of necessity and what your doctor deems necessary probably disagrees - with a note from your doctor you will also qualify for FMLA if needed - depending on how long you have worked for your company, of course. I am very worried about something happening. My Hubby is a Geophysicist and travels for long periods of time all over the world, so I basically run our household - I have power of attorney and all that. I bought our house when he was in Africa! lol. I am trying to get him familiar with the household accounts again and he is trying! He has advised work he will not even consider traveling until the doctor has cleared me to stage 5 eating and I am feeling well. Losermama - I too feel like I am going to be the one person to not lose an ounce and yet totally follow the plan!

...perhaps a bit more profound, lol. I am just feeling like this isn't going to happen. Like something is going to go wrong and all of this will just be wasted. Sooo much emotional energy and effort - and the distraction it has been to my normal activities, all for nothing. I wonder what this is from. I am not this much of a worrier. I just tell myself that nothing is going to stop it - possibly delay it, but not stop it. I will preservere! Grrrrrrrr! lol...? Deep breath, all is well, all is well, all is well....

I think the final full out push to do it yourself was a good thing. You know going in this is it. Keep with the personal trainor if you can, I have one - but that is for exercize and she helps me not to push myself too far. The weight (and she agrees) is for me to deal with. She has clients that she has trained for years and never fell out of the 30% BMI's. I think she would like to push the weight issue more, but she just wants you to exercize and keep active and doesn't want to push people away from the gym. For me the weight is not related to my activity levels, except it does limit what my body can endure. Going by what I lift, I should be able to do a pull up at about 180-200 lbs. I want that pull up soooo bad! lol. and YES! I am CrAzY nervous, lol.

Vitamin D is produced with exposure to the sun, but is a fat soluable vitamin and the Vit D produced by the sun is not readily absorbed. A diet consistent in a fat that makes vit d work well is important also...try 4 oz of whole milk, or 8 oz of 1% milk. Vitamin D is important in many genes reproducing correctly, neuromuscular function and development and combating imflammation. Vit. D and Diabetes is often hand-in-hand, and often insufficient sleep is included. Vit. D is a major concern or should be before surgery because the healing process is affected as a whole. Please don't look at this as something that may/may not affect your surgery. Address this now with an endocrinologist and extablish a relationship with a doctor that is a diabeties specialist. Get your A1C tested and your blood glucose level at least 4x a day. These are not fat diseases (well yea but) these are diseases you have now. They might resolve and they might not. I was diagnosed in 2007 and looking back at how I felt and problems healing from sports injuries and brusing and eyesight problems and such I was probably diabetic for at least 5 years. The difference in me now is night and day. I dropped 25 lbs just controling my BG levels. That left me very heavy still, but I was back in to my exercises more, back in to good moods, less stomach pain. I heal better, etc. I will be off my medications as of the morning of my surgery and depending on my readings my doctor thinks I may not need them again. In the meantime I maintain because it feels so much better when my levels are under control. Whew! Off my soapbox. I am just a very strong advocate for diabeties maintenance and education. Good luck with your approval (I have Humana and have a total exclusion to WLS and WLT so I had to pay out of pocket).

Does anyone have any books or articles they would recommend? Not online, but actual books?

I meant more of the actual procedure, but any book or magazine someone can vouch for being informative and can recommend is knowledge for someone. I wonder if anyone knows of a book written about the history of the WLS's?

Thanks Alex!

Absolutely! Any books that can help us, and in turn pass on to others, too. Not everyone wants to spend all day online!

Very brave! I have made 1 video but it isn't online yet. Maybe I should go ahead and post it.

It is good to see you are progressing well. Be careful chewing! lol. The absent-minded or quick eating is going to be a problem for me also. I have always been that way. A friend suggested I eat with my left hand, so I have to pay attention more, lol.

OMG! Yes! aside from the obvious health benefits, I don't want to be hungry everyday! I have spent SO MUCH of my life hungry, staying at 1600, 1800, 1200 calories a day! My surgery date is 01/04/2012...

I pose this to everyone. I have noticed alot of posts, blogs or mentioning (here and elsewhere), that post operative pain and persistent conditions are beginning to trend to MD's, their staff and other MD's post op - and even sleevers - that pain and discomfort is typical. If it is not easily diagnosed or found in a test it is "probably ________", fill in the blank. Gas, bloating, settling (wtf you aren't supposed to "settle", they took out a part of your stomach, they didn't detach it and leave it to float around)! This alarms me. We are taking this big step, and the improvements on mortality are getting better everyday for post-op sleevers, but there seems to be a trend for post-op pain to be explained away into this category of "it is what it is". If you had an apendectomy and you still felt pain months later, or developed pain in another area of your bowel, no doctor would go "it was where you had an apendectomy, it happens". It should not be OK within the medical community to allow themselves to ignore cronic pain of any kind - that means the patient is still in pain! You should not be left alone afterwards, you should be offered therapy for the pain if a solution cannot be found. Pain meds, qualified abdominal massage, heat therapy. If nothing else works, why aren't people being offered anti-inflammatory meds or antibiotics? If you experience relief after, you at least begin to pinpoint the situation. Hit and miss with drugs is a last resort, but is an accepted therapy in other people - why not sleevers? I very rarely come across posts where the doctor checked a patient out for an emergent heart condition or heart attack!!! We were an ignored group for so long. Shadow sufferers that are just now being understood in the medical community as this being more than just willpower to loose weight. Why now are we faltering in this fight, and allowing ourselves less that complete recovery? Is this a rant? I do not know...I just feel so frustrated, and concerned, and ANGRY that I see so many posts for my VGS fellows that are hurting, and it does not seem to always get enough attention - and the more it persists, the less attention it gets. My science theory and eval teacher would now tell me that I have pinpointed my general topic, isolated a target, recognized the problem, and now I find a solution...but I can't find a solution for everyone, for anyone. I am not a doctor. This is damn frustrating. Does anyone know of a general advocacy group for post-sleeve chronic complications?

Thank you. I am sorry your son was diagnosed, but very glad you were able to catch it!

Good call! When you begin to weed out the most likely, then you basically have to make a list, and diligently note it and just keep marking off possible things it could be...I have, over the last few years, become absolutely dismayed at how difficult it can be for some people - so many people - to live in pain while accumulating doctors and tests and speculation from wellwishers (guilty!)... I was an undiagnosed diabetic for 5 years, before that had recurrent abcesses that would get septic they would be ignored by the doctors for so long - once almost causing a lower leg blockage. I have seem my mom waste away to 85 lbs on a 3500 calorie a day diet, and my sister was the same as a young child. I lost a friend to a degenerative neural disorder when she was 20, and another took a weeks worth of valium because they never could tell her why she hurt everywhere, all the time.

I do not want to be disagreeable, but you can have symptoms of a heart attack that can last for weeks or months before the actual attack, can point to ongoing undiagnosed attacks - you can have a heart attack(s) that are 'silent' - only determined afterwards and confirmed in an EKG. Abnormal abdominal pain is an accepted symptom in women for heart attacks. Not my original sources for the information - I doubled up on emergent morbid conditions while I was getting my Mortuary Science Degree - 'doubled up' describes it only, lol. It wasnt a double major or a minor. But cooborative sources can include: http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/heart-disease/HB00040 http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/silent-heart-attack/AN02146 http://www.intelihealth.com/IH/ihtIH/EMIHC275/333/20781/454962.html?d=dmtICNNews

Very true. I went undiagnosed as a diabetic for about 5 years. The doctor doing my VGS is actually the doctor that diagnosed me! He has helped me save myself once, I am counting on him doing it again!

(((hugs))) I have lived with so much pain. I wish you relief, and soon! Get a full panel of bloodwork through your surgeon. Do not rely on the ER! Compare all levels of EVERYTHING against at least two panels prior to surgery. Get a white blood count reading. CT scans are not enough, in my opinion. CT scans have missed fibrous inclusions the size of softballs...medical istruments - swallowed toys - even a stick that was jammed into a liver during a hiking accident - pardon my language but WTF! lol Now - take those panels and get online and understand any serious differences you see. Especially white blood counts. Do you experience shortness of breath, dizziness, nausea, pain in your arm, neck, or jaw? You are not out of the wood for a heart attack...I don't want to worry you but generally consistent pain is a sign of something wrong - even inflammation is nothing to ignore, it is a serious complication that can be a sign of an autoimmune condition. Not a doctor - do not play one on TV....

MeMeMEEE & Lissa - Thank you so very much! illgeturhairdid - Do not ever apologize for your faith, dear Sister! If someone cannot handle you expressing your Christianity, it is not your fault and we should NEVER apologize! No one ever turns down our charity or good deeds and I have NEVER been stopped when I was offering my time or support or money and asked "Are you doing this because you are Christian?" - you know? Off my soapbox! Thank you. It is hard. It will be harder. I will do my very best to, well, do my very best. Friends like you online and in this social network - and not forgetting my warm bodied frends, lol - will be the lighthouse in a strong storm. "I will instruct you and teach you on the way you should go. I will counsel you and watch over you." - Psalm 32:8

4AM and a full day ahead and whatever sleep I get from here till 6 is what I get. I just can't seem to have a moment free from this being in my head - and my Hubby is really, truly scared. It breaks my heart that I am causing him to worry. Last evening after my nap (I nap now as soon as I get home because I can't sleep at night) I found him sitting beside me on the couch - he had pulled me over to him and was just holding me. I catch him staring at me and he looks so worried. This evening I woke to him asking me to come try some things he made - he spent hours on different types of broth combinations, Jello and Gelatin, sweet and savory. He wants to know if he should get a juicer, and what am I going to replace my wine and soda and coffee with, etc. I feel like the one thing I did not prepare for was my big, strong man to be so scared. I wish I could find a way to approach this that would help him.