Miss Mac

About the gurgles: Miss Tummy sounded like a dinosaur fight for the first month until I started solid foods.

Those of us who don't like exercise can get some the sneaky way. On days when I don't feel like following my exercise plan, I put the TV on one of the music stations. My favorite is Classic Rock Workout which only plays oldies with at least 100 beats per minute. I crank that puppy up to a high enough volume that I can hear all through the house so that I can diddlybop while doing housework.

At my third month visit with the bariatrician, I was switched from chewables to Bariatric Advantage AE, which I get online from www.bariatricadvantage.com. I call them my bariatric advantage AE horse pill stink a** Vitamin. They are huge like a pre-natal vitamin and have everything in them that I was paying for all of the chewables individually. At my six month visit with bloodwork, my numbers were excellent. No lie, they are big. I could not swallow them. I cut them in half - still too big. I cut them in fours which made them swallowable, but the pieces had sharp corners on them. So now I pulverize it with a mortar and pestle and add them to yogurt (which I put sugar free raspberry jam in it) or fruit flavored Jello Water or chocolate pudding to mask the berry-ish stench. I have even put it in cranberry-grape juice, which was sort of ok. The vitamin does its job, but ewwwwww!

At first, all I could handle was 1/3 cup plus 2 Tablespoons. Now at 10 1/2 months I max out at slightly under one cup, but let me go one bite over and Miss Tummy shows me who is boss by giving me a good four hours of regret. As I get close to that last bite I get my tupperware burp, hiccups, sneeze or runny nose.

In years past I have bought a decent coat on the cheap at Burlington Coat Factory.

I love those moldy oldies from days gone by!

During the pre-op liquid diet, I even had to avoid the food Network and other cooking channels. Most commercials are for junk I have not been eating for a while anyway, so they didn't matter so much. My boyfriend, dear heart that he is, volunteered to eat in his workshop during that time.

Even us wrinkly old broads appreciate a man with slow hands and an easy touch. Congratulations you sexy thing!

I had big bruises from heparin shots in my belly, but that was it. Betcha if all medical procedures had to be video and audio recorded, the doctors would be way more cautious and delicate.

So, clearly it wasn't the gastric sleeve that nearly killed him, since he never got it. He lost his legs due to the ineptitude of the surgical team. If I had been their patient for so much as a tonsilectomy, I would be lucky to be alive. I hope by the time his lawyers are done that this guys owns the hospital! I have even heard that sometimes a doctor will be opeating in one room while a student doctor is doing a similar operation in another room while the surgeon with the creditials monitors via closed circuit TV. Several years ago, it was exposed that this was happening at a teaching hospital here in Chicago when one orthopedist was doing knee replacements. The one thing I hate the worst about surgery (and I have had many in my 62 years) is not being in control of my body for a period of time. But if I totally freaked out about that, I would never allow myself to fall asleep. Unless one decides to be a hermit and never seek medical attention of anykind, the other options are blind faith in a higher being or cautious optimism with the medical profession. Mobid obesity (300 - 400 pounds plus) runs in my family. My parents and most of my aunts and uncles are now gone, and my cousins are dying way too young from the afflcations that come with obesity. My mother died just four years older than I am now from complications of her obesity. I was so quickly stepping onto her path that I could not bear to do nothing. So, I went ahead and opted for a sleeve gastrectomy. I count my blessings that I emerged a couple of hours later with a new lease on life. My heart goes out to those with horrendous complications. Had this man's physicians been exercising due care and best practices, his result would have been totally different. I would suggest that even if you have to travel an inconvenient distance to get your surgery at a Center of Excellence, it is well worth the trip. Many insurance companies require this before they will approve the surgery.

You may as well get one that will fits now and will be loose later. You cannot count on the pounds happily dropping off per your own timeline. I lost 65 pounds easily and then everything came to a screeching halt with 35 left to go. In my closet are some new things the next two sizes down and just waiting on my body to catch up. I went crazy thinking these things would fit over the summer. Now I have sleeveless tops and shorts that will probably fit me in February, and I live in freezy - a** Chicago, which from November through March may as well be Alaska! It's a good thing that I kept last winter's coat. It is loose right now, but wearable.

Pre and post op, my sleepy friend is hot chocolate made with a sugar free cocoa packet and milk, not Water. If I do use water, then I add a little sugar free whip cream. However, making it with milk gives me more Protein.

After transitioning to phase IV, I was instructed to try to get all of my Protein from foods. At my three month visit I was cranked up to 70 grams of protein. At six months, it was 80 grams. Most days that has to include a shake, but I try to get it in by chewing.

For me, it is walking away from the peanut butter jar.

OK, here is a group hug from friends on the forum. As a nurse, I am sure that your advice to a patient presenting the symptoms that you have would be to get hydrated and contact both your primary physician and your bariatric team. Then you would pick up that patient's chin and pat them on the back and tell them "There, there, there, it will be allright in a minute. You will come out of this......just follow your plan and trust in the process." But following your plan means to stay hydrated and start getting some Protein and nutrients in. I don't know if there is any the scientific support behind the curative properties of Grandma's chicken Soup, but maybe you could just boil a chicken with some very tiny veggie pieces, and throw in a little boullion and a bit of salt and pepper in there. And if you are totally dragging, add some pastini or very thin noodles for a few carbs. Please get well.

One of my pre-op questions for my surgeon referred to what steps does he take towards post-op pain relief. Specifically, I was concerned about all of this sharp shoulder gas I was hearing about. In case you have not discovered yet, the surgeon pumps your abdomen up with CO2 in order to create extra working space and to facilitate the movement of his instruments. He promised that he would extract as much of the gas as possible. Guess what? I had zero pain from shoulder gas. I had three tiny incisions held together with steri-strips (not stitches or staples) and one other a little bit bigger (and just below my navel) where the excess stomach was retracted. That one also was small enough for a steri-strip. The only pain that cramped my style was from the underlying muscle near the largest incision. I was on a morphine pump the first day and the hydrocodone the second day. I came home around noon on the third day and only used the hydrocodone at bedtime for two days. If you can, prop yorself up in bed for a few nights to make getting up and down easier without pulling on your abdominal muscles. I have a lift recliner because of some previous back surgery and thought I might need to sleep in that for a few nights, but did not need to use it. Just go easy on yourself and don't be lifting laundry baskets or kettlebells. My biggest incision was tender for about a month, but given that I had just had surgery, that was to be expected. Actually the hardest part of my surgical experience was to just move over to the surgical table. My recovery has been uncomplicated as far as pain and discomfort. The biggest challenge overall has been manipulating a delicate dietary balance to meet all of my requirements. You can do this. In no time you will be able to encourage those who follow behind you. Beyond the professional expertise of your team, you will find great support here on the forum. I hope that your surgery is uncomplicated and that you will enjoy the new you that is about to emerge.

OK, here's the deal........unless your critics are willing to pay for your healthcare (which is surely going to get more complicated if you don't address the discomfort you are having with your weight now) they have no right to undermine your own efforts to get healthy. Enjoy as much of that trip to Mexico as you can. You might be sore on the trip back, but others have gone solo and lived to tell about it. I wish you good luck and good health.

Weight Loss Surgery Cookbook for Dummies by Davidson, Fout, and Meyers The Skinny Rules by Bob Harper

Anytime I go the hospital, I take a good sturdy teddy bear. I have used my bear for an armrest (to help support the hand or arm that has the IV in it) and a neck rest, For my sleeve surgery, I used my bear as a stomach support for coughing and to sit my phone on because it is difficult to reach over to the nightstand. When emotions hit, the bear is simply a comfort to hold. I may be almost 63, but I am still a girl. Thank goodness my family thinks it's cute and not weird. Also, I would have had a tough time of it without my Chapstick.

If I have a shake as Breakfast then I may add 1/4 cup of berries, or 1/2 of a banana. On any day that I have a banana that is my total carbs for the day. I do not eat them after high noon. I like the idea of putting banana in a chocolate Protein shake. When I was a teenager, my first job was at Dunkin Donuts as a donut finisher. Man oh man I loved that job. My favorite was the chocolate frosted banana cream filled, and somewhere along the line DD took them off the menu. Since I don't expect to ever step into a Dunkin Donuts again, the banana chocolate Protein Shake would be a good way to have the memory without 400 calories.

Until I get to goal this is a journey for me. Maybe when I get there I can start having some adventures that are a little more fun than this.

It varies. My pre-op liquid diet was ten days. For the original poster, please consider that I lost my oldest brother at the age of 47. He died of a heart attack and weighed over 420 pounds. He left a widow, a ten year old daughter, an eight year old daughter, and a six year old son. My mother died of an abdominal aeortic aneurysm at the age of 67, way too young for women in our family who typically live well into their 90s. Grandma made it to 98. Mother weighed 320 pounds and was 5'2". At some point in time, you will have to tell your children that not every circumstance in life is comfy and cozy. True, the liquid diet and first couple of weeks post-op suck, but are you willing to trade two weeks for possibly extending your life by years? Think of the liquid diet as a right of passage. If you are concerned about the surgery, here is the way it usually goes down. You are given an IV of something soothing before you go into the O R. After you get on the operating table, The anesthesiologist will ask you to count backward from 100. 100, 99, 98......wake up - wake up - you did just fine. When the nurse is sure that you are ready to go to a patient room, they wheel you down there and get you situated before the anesthetic wears off. Actually, I had a morphine pump all the next day, and then hydrocone before I came home on the third day. Yes, they had inserted a catheter after I was out cold. That was removed later in the day after I demostrated that I could walk. This is a quality of life situation. One of the reasons that we have the three to six month supervised diet is to get us used to making sound decisions about what we eat and drink. Going it on your own takes equal dedication to a plan, but the surgery literally is a tool to help you. Sure, a farmer can hoe a row with oxen, but boy what a difference a tractor makes! Indeed, your smaller stomach will be the boss of you, and that's ok. It limits the amount you can consume, which gives you time to get disciplined to the plan your team gives you. This is hard, but not so hard that it can't be done. I wish you health and happiness and a long life to enjoy your family.

Same warning here. I was told to not have gum until further notice.

Pre-op, I had a problem with peeing every 15 minutes or so. By the time I had lost that first thirty pounds, the problem resolved itself. Now I can sleep 4-5 hours at a time without having to get up to go the bathroom and I drink 80+ ounces of Water every day.

Scant butter or olive oil