Dee Dee

I have been lurking here for a while and it's time to jump in and introduce myself. I started the journey in November of 2010 when I attended a meeting on the various WLS. I had been hearing a lot about the lap band and wanted more information. I had seen a friend who had lap band and lost a huge amount of weight. (unfortunately he has since gained most of it back. After doing a lot of research I soon learned the lap band was not for me. I then started researching the vertical sleeve. This forum has been incredible in helping me make the decision. I wanted to hear the good, the bad and the ugly and it is all here on this forum. I am much older than most on this forum. I am 64 but I have always felt much younger than my age that is until May 2010 when I found out I had 3 blockages in my heart. A stent has taken care of the two bad blockages and medications are helping the 3rd blockage. I have carried my excess weight pretty well for several years but now I am getting tired of it and I feel like I am carrying around an extra person and it isn't as easy to do anymore. At this stage of life I feel like I am facing two obstacles one is my age and the other is my weight. I cannot do anything about the number of Birthdays I have but I can do something about all of this weight that is dragging me down. BTW through the years I have tried "everything" to lose the weight and always gained back more than I lost. My Dr has discussed my weight problems each year at my yearly physical and every year I leave positive this would be the year I could do it. This is basically my last chance to make a change. When I first started this last November 2010 I thought my insurance would cover this but I learned in May it will not. That was probably the most dissapointing day in my life. Then I put it in prospective and though funeral or WLS? which are about the same price these days so I chose to make it happen. My Dr and my cardiolosgist are behind me 100% and feel I will do just fine and this will really help me. So I am going to Dr Hoehn in the Kansas City area. I have gone to the nutritionist, the psych eval, egd and everything else that is required. I have my second appointment with Dr. Hoehn on Monday, have blood work and chest xray at the hospital and also get the results of my psych eval all on Monday. Then the big day of surgery is next Wednesday July 20th!!!! I am on my 2nd day of preop diet. I only have to do it a week. I am feeling tired all the time. I keep thinking about food. I have discovered I hate beef broth. I bought the Protein powder at WalMart and it is surprisingly ok. Sometimes I mix it with skim milk and sometime Water. I have the sf Jello and crystal light for my water. I have discovered if I have the shake, sf jello and broth I can fill up and then keep the water with crystal light close by. Not good to wait until I get hungry. This last week I finally told my siblings and husbands family what I am doing. Husbands family took it well and were encouraging. My family had the "worried look" which is normal. I had thought about not telling them until it was over but then I would want to know if they were doing this. I have a close friend I haven't told as I mentioned it to her last winter and she said NO you don't ever want to do that because so and so did it and it was just horrible. Of course this was many, many years ago. So I have chose not to tell her until it is over and I am still alive and well. That will save us both a lot of stress. My husband is very supportive. He just wants me healthy. I am 5' tall and weighed 200 pounds when I went to see Dr Hoehn a few weeks ago. That is the most I have ever weighed. I am naturally nervous about this but also very excited to start this new journey of my life. I have put my picture on here and would like to know how to put the weight tracker, etc on.

Hi Kansas City Group. We live at Lake of the Ozarks but spend a lot of time in south Kansas City where our daughters and other family members live. My husband and I both grew up in the Martin City area. We are also RV'ers and are hoping to sell our lake home and be fulltimers in our motorhome. Unfortunately we keep dropping the price and their are no buyers but that is another story. ;-( My vsg is scheduled this coming Wednesday July 20th. Dr Hoehn is my Dr. Is anyone else having surgery at that time? I am getting pretty excited and can't believe this is actually happening. Today was the 3rd day of my preop diet. The first day I almost bit my husbands head off for which I appologized I needed a nap the first and second day but today was actually better. We went to Walmart this evening and it was strange not to stop and get something to eat before coming home. It was also a weird feeling not to go into the grocery section and buy something. I wandered over to the grocery part from habit and then turned around and left. Can someone tell me how to get the tracker to keep track of our weight loss?

July 20th

oops! My surgery date is next Wednesday July 20th not May 20th. I changed it.