Sadlers1999

I am glad that you are aware of this. I was heavy my whole life and didn't date until I was 24. At that point, I got it in my head that I could be happy alone (not married, not in a relationship) and as soon as I started thinking that way, I met my husband who has loved me skinnier and loves me now heavier and doesn't care how I look. You definitely deserve to have someone who loves you regardless of how you look. But, remember, you have to love "yourself" first. Sounds dorky, but it's true.

If you can swallow the shakes, then yes, you can do them. Also, I guess Isopure is considered a "shake"....clear liquid "shake." It has 40 g of protein, but it usually takes me 60-90 minutes to drink due to volume. As for V8 Splash...it isn't on my list of approved drinks. I was told low-calorie only which is 20 cal or less per serving. Does V8 Splash qualify? I think even if it has nutrients, you have to pay attention to the sugar. Day 3, my throat was so sore, I had trouble swallowing even plain Water.

I disagree with the last three posts. I think if you are friends to begin with, in the bedroom after marriage, you will be able to discover what pleases both of you. It's a process. I think the reason there is so much divorce in the world is that people who get married do not communicate. If you want to make sure that you are compatible on any level, you should work on communication now. If you are too afraid to tell the other person what you want or what you need, you will fail in the bedroom as well as in other ways. I would recommend you google the FOCCUS. It is a non-denominational organization which does an extensive pre-marriage "inventory" (how you will handle all facets of your life, including money, children, etc). You and your fiance do the inventory separately and then your answers are compared by a computer program for compatibility. After that, you meet with a married couple who talk to you about areas where you are compatible and areas where you may be less compatible. It gets you to talk about these things before getting married. I am fairly certain that if all couples did this before marriage, there would be less divorce. And, since you have a child already, if you can spare him any unnecessary grief, why wouldn't you?

My personal issues and concerns (since they are different for everyone).... I was pretty proud that I consumed about 40 g. of Protein yesterday. It was a combo of Greek yogurt, Cream of Tom Soup with milk added, 1 Tbsp of small curd cottage cheese and 2/3 of a bottle of Isopure. However, I don't think it has made eating today any easier or drinking and eating goals easier. Like a lot of more advanced patients (people further out), I could see how making protein and Water goals AND Vitamins AND meds alll on one day would be difficult. I woke up today and took my second shower with the intention of going for a 30 minute walk outside. After I showered, I realized that I can't wear my pre-op pants because they would be too tight around my scars. I have 5 incisions. 2 hit around the waistline and 3 are literally under my breast line (exactly where the bra would be fitted). So on day 4, I don't feel like I can wear a bra and I can't wear my pants because my incisions are still tender (and I think my mid section is a little swollen in general)....So, I am wearing black pajama bottoms and a big shirt to coverup the girls. Concluding my shower, dressing and folding some clean clothes that my DH left out for me to fold (I told him to do this), I was exhausted. EXHAUSTED. My sister is staying with me for the first 2 weeks because I have four kids (2, 4, 8, 10). I can't lift the 2 and 4 years old until the end of January (as per general instructions), but even if I can fudge January, I really can't "fudge" the lifting band right now....So I came downstairs and told me sister that I was going to give myself the anti-coag injection (I have to do this twice a day until Saturday due to a family history of blood clots) and then I would need a nap and we could not go out to walk. I went upstairs and literally passed out for 3 plus hours. Now it is almost 2 and I haven't eaten or had anything to drink for all that time. So, I crammed in some Greek yogurt. It's a little scary because it is hard enough to drink and eat in a timely fashion without passing out like that. I am trying to switch over to liquid children's tylenol. (They don't make adult liquid tylenol anymore.) I find drinking 6 tsp of children's tylenol nauseating. TOO SWEET. I also am hating having to crush pills in mix them in other things. They taste so nasty. Finally, I can taste okay, but my sense of smell is whacko. Everything smells bad like halitosis-bad. I realize that I do not speak for all Dec 17th Sleevers. We are all different, but that has been my experience today.

You look great!!

You look great!!!!

I'm an ESL/EFL teacher, and I love stories like this.

I was told to walk at least 30 minutes a day, but wasn't given a distance. I used my neighbor's treadmill yesterday and walked almost 3/4 of a mile in 30 minutes. I was dizzy getting off, which surprised me because I could do 2 miles in 30 minutes before surgery. I'm just going to take it slow, until I see my doc on jan 2nd. I was sleeved one day before you... The 17th.

That is a good point. Not sure how Iggy would prove he was negligent, though, and we all sign consent forms for surgery.

My husband and I were open about the surgery with our 8 and 10 year olds. My 8-year old told me that he loved me the way I was and that I shouldn't get the surgery. I told him that I wanted to be healthier for him and his siblings (because I am an older parent of young kids...2, 4, 8, 10...I keep repeating this because not everyone sees your original threads). I said it was a risk, but I said it was a "calculated" risk because other than being heavy and having hypothyroidism, I had no co-morbidities. I didn't use these words with the kids. It was all simplified. The surgery was not about looking pretty. The great irony of me being the heaviest that I have ever been is that unlike when my BMI was in the high 20s/low 30s, I would NOT wear a bathing suit. After having kids, with a BMI in the upper 30s/low 40s, I said, "To hell with this," and bought a huge bathing suit so I could take my kids to public swimming pools. I just blocked out in my mind what I could look like to other people, because my kids mattered more. I agree with everyone else who posted that it is a personal decision to tell people or whom to tell. For me, though, I know that the people who matter most (family and close friends) have seen what a battle it has been for me for 30 years. I even have a close friend (a woman) whose BMI is probably around 17. Very skinny. She and I have been exercise buddies for over a year. We also bond on organic foods and cooking things from scratch and we look totally different. So, I think if I started losing weight and then around month 4 started losing hair, more people might think I suffered from cancer/chemo than anything else. On a different note, in telling people, I found it disconcerting that so many people are used to SEEING morbidly obese people that a lot of them did not think that I was big enough to be qualified under insurance. My husband is ten pounds overweight, but to most people he looks "skinny" because he is tall and if he wears a suit, you can't see his waistline. Most Americans do not understand how overweight we are as a society.

I am in Colorado. My "Bariatric Center of Excellence" is relatively new at Parker Adventist Hospital. I am now 6 days post-op, and nothing dreadful has happened so far, so nothing I say here will be worthy of a lawsuit. The hospital opened its "center of excellence" with Matthew Metz a few years ago. That is when I first heard about the sleeve (vs. lap band and bypass). I had a baby in the summer of 2010 and nursed for a year (until July 2011). After that, my primary care physician said that I could start a physician-guided weight loss. She switched me from a low dose of Zoloft (given for "baby blues") to a low dose of Welbutrin, because the latter has been helpful in reducing appetite in some people. Well, after six months of Welbutrin and exercise, my weight didn't really go down. In January 2012 I "discovered" that I have Hashimoto's (an autoimmune form of hypothyroidism). I was a little annoyed because I had been going to endocrinologists for 10 YEARS and nobody ever mentioned that! It sort of makes a difference because my primary care physician said that auto immune diseases are known to respond favorably to gluten free, dairy free and sugar free diets.... I mulled this over for months and in June I started avoiding gluten. It did not help my weight or my energy levels, but it did help with digestion-related issues. So, at that point, I decided to get to a seminar at Parker Adventist re: the surgery. I wasn't terribly thoughtful about researching the "best" doctors or anything. So, I started the process with Dr. Metz. Simultaneously, my current health care provider, Cigna, reduced the number of bariatric classes needed from 6 months to 3 months. That really lit a fire with me. (In hindsight, is going through the process faster, better? Not sure. I may need to ask if I can attend the classes I didn't get because I feel like I would benefit from the info...even now.) So, everything was going along chuggingly and one week after my last class in December...AFTER I had a surgery date with Dr. Metz for December 17th, I got a call saying that Dr. Metz had left the practice. HUH???? A cautious person would have cancelled the surgery, but our health care provider was changing January 1st to a lesser PPO and I knew that I would not be able to afford the surgery in 2013. So, after a brief visit with Dr. Joshua Long (who had been on staff since August), I had the surgery scheduled with him on the 17th. Neither here, nor there, but you really don't have a "relationship" with the surgeons anyway. Dr. Long did deviate from standard procedure with me based on two things in my health history/family history. He scoped me prior to surgery because I had a bleeding ulcer as a young adult and he just wanted to make sure everything was good in my stomach. (I didn't think I had an ulcer, but I still felt it was relevant to surgery and so did he.) He also gave me anti-coag shots to take home with me because my dad's side of the family has a huge issue with blood clots and since I had never had ANY surgery before, I couldn't say if I would make clots, too. But, getting back to the point of not really having a relationship with the surgeon...I don't think Dr. Metz would recognize me if he saw me on the street and Dr. Long does not appear gifted with remembering faces, either. On the other hand, the NUT, the social worker and the rest of the gang, DO seem to know me and I think post surgery, they are probably more important to my day-to-day life. BTW, I should mention that I have battled my weight my whole life, so it wasn't just having one baby that triggered my decision to have surgery. Like so many others, I felt battle weary and with a BMI of 42 at age 42, I didn't think things would get better without taking drastic measures. Sorry if I hogged this thread on low-BMIs, but Iggy caught my attention with the "Bariatric Center of Excellence" thing. Clearly, if you read her story, it means very little and you can still have a poor outcome.