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My son and I are on for tomorrow, too!

My turn tomorrow, too! My son is also having it tomorrow. Good luck to all of us.

Good luck, mattuti86. I am being sleeved on Thursday, as well, but in Nevada. Hope your trip goes well for you.

Maybe it's just PTSD. I get that way with my panic attacks.

The liver stores carbohydrates. That is why we have large livers, since most of us overdo the carbs. I may be wrong, but I think most patients who do not have to do the two week preop diet, may be starting out at lower BMIs. Can anyone confirm this?

Hi, desteney. Don't worry about the catheter, really. It goes in when you are sleeping and does not hurt coming out. I've had one a couple of times. Having one does not prevent getting up and moving around. In a way, it is freeing. You don't have to think about getting up to pee constantly. You may actually miss it when it's gone. I have also never had a urinary tract infection from one, so if you hear they cause them, it's not true for everyone. If you are prone to UTIs, any disruption of the system may give you one. Good luck on your journey.

I don't do it for the the extra protein. I do it for the taste sensation. Thanks for the info, though. Have you told the body-building community?

Good luck to you lindrule. You are a very brave young lady. Much success to you.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, everyone. So yesterday, I had a breakdown. Crying and all. I have not had qualms or fears until the last few days. I knew that would happen. My son (22) is having this with me and he admitted to a little fear about the anesthesia and he is one who claims no fear to anything, ever. So, the closer you get to it, the more your fears start emerging. I'm afraid I will be a basket case as they are prepping me for surgery and hopefully they will give me something for the crazies. I had a hysterectomy in 2007 using just a spinal (which I requested) and happy juice. No fears, no intubation and I don't remember the surgery at all, just one or two flashes, because I just slept. I wish they would do that for this. It's funny how you missing eating. Not the food itself, really, just the eating it part. For me anyway. We were Skyping with our family in Connecticut last night so we could be together for Christmas eve (we have no one here in our new state of Nevada and we are really not even celebrating this year what with the surgery and the expense of it and all, it is kind of lonely ), but I kept asking everyone to eat things in front of the camera so that I could watch their enjoyment. Living vicariously through Skype! Sad. I was also thinking about my sleeping arrangements for the next week or so after Thursday. My bed is very high and my sofas are very low. Here is me; climbing up to get into bed or pulling myself up off the sofa, which will be easier? Oh, the dilemma. It has been tough. We've been living paycheck to paycheck since I don't have a job here in the state with the worst unemployment. I'm hoping to start CNA training after I lose some of my excess weight and hopefully get back some energy. I would like to be able to help people and give back to my community and if I can get paid doing it, that will be great. I am not sure what the job market is for CNAs here, but when I look for listings for the jobs, it says they're available. I am normally a secretary, but those jobs, while out there, have so many applicants for each, it is a very tough market. Well, I have probably rambled enough. Good luck to all of us preoppers and once again, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all.

Thank you, Nancy. That was so nice of you. Good luck to your husband also and continued success to you.

NORCALRN, good luck. I really hope everything turns out to be OK for you soon.

Thursday is my day. Hope we all have a very, merry Christmas and the happiest of new years!

Hi, Strangefruit. My surgery is Thursday (getting scared ) but I think your surgeon is nutty. That is almost 5 pounds a week. If your profile is right, it is almost the same as mine and with luck on my side, I can't expect better than that. Hang in there and just keep losing at your pace. Don't let him get you discouraged. I know what that can do. Good luck.

WOW

I didn't want to waste the surgery, so I'm glad it is after the 21st We pre-registered yesterday and had the chest x-ray, blood workup, EKG and I had to have a CT scan of my surgical hernia (from my 2007 hysterectomy) to see how bad it is. If it is worse than they hope, the surgeon will put a "temporary" fix on it to try to hold it together until I lose weight, and then we will fix it permanently. I have to be there at 6:00 a.m. next Thursday and my son is supposed to be there at 8:30, but we will go together at 6:00. So far, so good.

I just bought the Dial gold, which is antibacterial and I will used it the morning of surgery at around 4:30 that morning . I'm sure they must still paint you with betadine in the OR, that is normal practice to reduce risks of infection.

Goals were never mentioned at any of my doc visits. I put down on preliminary paperwork that I wanted to lose 90 pounds since that is what I have gained since 1987. I just wanted to get back to the weight I was happiest at. So, really, I consider my goal to be very reasonable, since I gained years, as well, as pounds and those years make losing weight harder.

After all is said and done, weight loss is hard no matter what, right? And it is sooo subjective. I weigh 251 right now and I wish I weighed 190! When I weighed 180 I felt overweight, yes, but I was doing OK. I would never consider having the surgery. But, now, even if I got back down to 180 on my own, I would have the surgery because I have seen the future. I never thought I could weigh 250+ but it can happen to all of us, even if you think it won't, and I got that way, eating enough to feed a small Ethiopian village. If I had the surgery then, I couldn't have done that, so maybe I would have learned earlier how to be happier with less. I have my surgery the 27th...good luck to all of us!

Becky, you sound like you did great and hope you continue to succeed!

Hi, all. I am also the 27th, along with my 22 year old son, we're doing this together. I'm 53, 251 pounds, haven't started really exercising yet. My son is 6'6", started at 429 is down to 385 already and we are doing our preop, shakes only, two week diet. FUN! and, yum . Just wanted to tell you that I found a delicious shake combo. We are using Premier Protein shakes, chocolate. We get them from costco, 18 pack for $24.99. 160 cals, 30 gms of protein. They are really good. To me, they taste like chocolate milk. Well, I visited GNC and bought some of their Total Lean Lean Shake 25 in pumpkin Spice. 25 gms protein, 200 cals in the full serving of two scoops. I mix them together in my blender. If you like pumpkin spice flavor and chocolate...it makes an awesome shake. I only make this at night to finish my day in a double serving. I am supposed to have five shakes a day. This way, I get four in a day. Anyhoo, I go at 6:00 a.m. next Thursday and my son is supposed to be there at 8:30, but we will go together at 6:00. We pre-registered yesterday and had the chest x-ray, blood workup, EKG and I had to have a CT scan of my surgical hernia (from my 2007 hysterectomy) to see how bad it is. If it is worse than they hope, the surgeon will put a "temporary" fix on it to try to hold it together until I lose weight, and then we will fix it permanently. So, that's my story and I'm sticking to it! To the posters who are nurses, I want to train after I lose my weight (or a good portion of it) to become a CNA. How is the job market for CNAs?

My son and I were supposed to sleeved next week, 19th or 20th. So, as it happens sometimes, today I received a call from the surgery scheduler. My son and I want our surgeries on the same day, so my surgeon offered it to us for 12/27 instead of earlier, when they were more difficult to schedule next to each other. So now we are being sleeved on 12/27 and we will be the only ones he'll have on that day. Also, we won't be wasting the surgery on the 20th, just in case the world ends on 12/21

Hi, t3max, I have to ask, what is C. Diff you are referring to?

Hey O.T.R., I think you may have confused Melanie with Kitkat, the second poster

Hey all. I am being sleeved in two weeks. My first visit to the surgeon was 10/10/12, we did the nutritionist, psych eval, barium swallow (upper GI) had to go to a support meeting, a "steps" class, an resting metabolic rate test, the H-pylori test and we got the letters of support/recommendation from our PCPs. We submitted to insurance (a PPO) {insurance requested a five year weigh-in list} and we were approved by insurance on 12/4. Today we picked our surgery date of 12/27. We have United Healthcare through AT&T and they did not require a 12, 6, or 3 month supervised diet, as many of the insurance companies do. So our whole trip from visit to surgery is about 3 months. Now, just a warning. You can have awesome insurance, top of the line, and they will still request certain things from you before they give away money. Good luck on your journeys.

Just starting the journey at Western Bariatrics. Anyone else?