AvaFern

I had all of my plastics done with Dr. Ankit Desai, also in Jacksonville, FL. Excellent surgeon, with a fantastic bedside manner. Also how long was your surgery? My sleeve surgery was about an hour How long did you stay in the hospital? 3 days- I arrived Monday at 6am, surgery was at 7:30, and I left on Wednesday around 10am. How has your recovery in the hospital? I was miserable. I think I had a major nausea issue with the IV narcotics. I knew I was driving myself home, so I discontinued the good drugs on Tuesday morning which is when I slowly started resolving the need-to-puke problem. I pretty much dry heaved for the majority of my first two days in the hospital, despite being maxed out on Phenergan and Zofran, which when you just had your stomach cut open is even less fun than normal dry heaving. I paid extra for the Bliss insurance, so on Wednesday morning I felt so horrible I asked to stay an extra day. Morgenthal basically told me I needed to suck it up, gave me a huge attitude, and then said, sure, fine stay, whatever. By that point I was so mad, I had the energy I needed to pack up my stuff and leave. I suppose if you actually use the extra $1200 you pay for insurance it makes the doctor look bad, so I guess that was the motivation for pushing me out on-time. I was so sick I could barely walk, but fortunately I was also furious, lol. I drove myself home, felt like death for a few days, and then everything started to improve. Basically once I was off of the IV pain killers, within 24-48 hours I started feeling better. Could your spouse/caretaker stay with you in your room while you were there? Pretty sure they can- I did not have anyone with me. What would you say was the most important thing to bring with you? A warm blanket (I was freezing the entire time) a soft pillow with your own pillow case, comfy, big pajamas with thick, grippy sock and a heating pad. I brought the heating pad because I heard it would help relieve the pain in your shoulder from the excess air in your stomach, but it ended up being wonderful for actually keeping me warm. I was also super glad I brought pajamas because you have to walk a lot and this way I wasn't worried about accidentally mooning anyone with the gown, lol. I brought thick, socks with the grips on the bottom because while they give you some, they are scratchy and not very warm. If you make sure you get the kind with the sticky grips, they don't have a problem with you wearing your own socks. Regular socks make you a fall hazard and to be fair, it is fairly difficult for about 24 hours to not faceplant into the ground everytime you get out of bed. Also, I brought gas-x strips, which I was glad I did because they wouldn't give me any in the hospital. So..I had my own, lol. You are slammed with fluids, so you will need to go to the bathroom A LOT- another nice reason to have pajamas because you can get in and out of bed without giving everyone a show. Also, this might sound weird, but I was glad I had my soft sports bra with me. Make sure you don't bring one that is tight or has an underwire (if they do a hiatal hernia repair you have an incision that is just on your bra strap line around your ribs). I was happy that I felt comfortable walking around the hospital without my girls swinging all over the place, lol...the small things that make you happy when you feel like you want to die. Lastly, bring an extension cord with a power strip. You then don't have to worry about your phone not staying charged...it is plugged in right next to you the entire time.

I was also at Baptist, however I had Morgenthal. I was also cash-pay so from the point of the orientation meeting to the point I was in the OR was like 3 weeks. I never met Hodgett, however I was not a fan of Morgenthal. Surgically he was very competent, but as a person, he was a jerk. I also was not at all impressed with the office. The receptionist was insanely rude on my first visit to the point that I was nearly in tears, however the billing people were generally nice. Ultimately, I think you probably get a very different level of care when there is accountability to an insurance company as opposed to when you pay for everything up-front. I had no major complications though and I'm almost 2.5 years post-op and have been at goal for almost a year, so while I wouldn't have minded a doctor who didn't treat me like a fat idiot, he was a good surgeon and in the end, I'd much rather have someone who doesn't kill me than someone who is nice to me. I would though suggest you have a good rapport with your doctor. I developed a puking problem a few months after surgery where I basically barfed most of what I ate. At almost 2.5 years I have it narrowed down to what I can eat (basically nothing with sugar, oils, or fats, so worked out well, lol) but there were points where I wished I had a surgeon that I could have had some follow-up with. My plastics surgeon was awesome, so that really reinforced for me the importance of having a doctor not just that is good at his job, but also someone that you feel comfortable calling a few months or years down the road for follow-up. I will go to another bariatric office in Jacksonville before I ever go back to Baptist.

I didn't have a pre-op diet in the sense that 6 months before surgery I was on a diet, but I was told that a week before surgery I was allowed clear liquids only. This sucked. chicken broth got me through it because at least that tasted salty. I also cheated 4 days before surgery and had some organic cheese puffs and something else small because I was starving and I got a head cold. My friend's dad was not given a pre-op diet and they went out to a giant meal the night before surgery, which is such a bad idea. In theory, you really only probably should do clear liquids for a few days before surgery because it shrinks your liver enough that when they go under it to access your stomach, they don't crack it, which if that happens you are stuck in surgery for hours fixing a disaster. The general rule for surgeries is nothing by mouth from midnight onward on the day of surgery. They want to make sure your stomach is totally empty in case your gag reflex isn't totally gone by the time they intubate you. If you puke what's in your stomach and then inhale it into your lungs because you're laying down and basically otherwise paralyzed, then you get pneumonia and they get sued. That's the rationale behind why we don't eat before surgery when we have the option to plan ahead.

I was told that after 6 weeks I could eat whatever I wanted to and I remember having lettuce (which is not exactly soft) at about a month post-op. In theory, at the 6 week point you should be about 90% healed and at 10 weeks there shouldn't really be any reason to not be eating a salad, especially if you are making sure you chew, chew, chew those raw veggies. I found though that my stomach does not like raw veggies...my mouth likes salad, my stomach likes to puke it right back up. Maybe if you're nervous about raw veggies, you could make a salad with steamed spinach. You can use things like egg, turkey, a little bit of fat free dressing, a little cheese, diced tomatoes (raw vegetable but not hard at all), and maybe some cold, cooked Beans (like black beans- soft but full of Protein, not like green beans that haven't been cooked to the point of being mushy). That gives you a ton of protein, nothing is sharp, and if you only steam the spinach to the point where it is just getting soft and then quickly dunk it in a bowl of ice Water, your "salad" would probably taste good and not stress you out about eating hard, raw veggies.

I also think Tanita is the best for the extra measurements. I have had mine for probably 10 years, like the other person posted, and it has consistently been a very good scale. I use three scales. I use the Body From, which has big, blue numbers and it was the one I got before surgery. It was cheap, it weighs consistently the same weight (like if you weigh yourself at 9:00 and then at 9:02 you haven't magically lost a few ounces), and it's good if you're taking pictures of your weight, which I have done every single day since before surgery (weird, but when i go back and look at all of the other pictures on my phone I know exactly what I weighed at each point). I also use the Aria scale because it uploads my weight directly to MyFitnessPal. The Tanita and BodyFrom almost always weigh the same as each other and the Aria is about 8 ounces heavier. They all have different positives.

I like the Red Hot Assets, by Spanx line. Kohls carries it and I actually got the idea to try that line because I read an article that Selena Gomez, that super skinny, pretty, singer girl wears this brand to enhance her otherwise lack of a butt. http://www.kohls.com/search.jsp?search=red+hot+assets&submit-search=web-regular

Your surgeon does not care about your toe, however if you tell him about your toe and he considers this something that might be an issue, your surgery will get moved. Medically there is no need to inform your surgeon that you broke your toe. You need to be able to walk slowly, to hobble, not to run a marathon after the procedure. When you tell your surgeons about things that have no bearing on the surgery or your recovery, you put them in a position where legally they have to respond and document the issue and if they see this as something they could potentially get sued over later, then you basically screw yourself for no reason. I got a wicked cold a few days before surgery, but by the morning of surgery I had a very low fever and my airway was clear. I felt like crap, but there was no way I was going to tell them that I had been sick because then they have an obligation to push the surgery, when in reality as long as I could breathe while I was sleeping (since you are sedated and need to maintain your airway) and there was no fever that raised questions, there was no medical reason to delay the surgery. Your toe is fine and your surgeon doesn't care, so don't complicate things for no medically valid reason. And ice your toe- I know a broken toe hurts more than it seems like it should.

The psych exam is a formality...did you tell them that you were having OCD issues? They have an hour to judge you, so the trick is to not be honest if you sincerely have a problem. I would tell your doctor that you are seeking therapy for your OCD, make sure you have documentation that you have scheduled appointments with a therapist and that you feel that you should be fully back to your managed self within a month. Ask if he if would consider tentatively scheduling the surgery 4 weeks from now, with another psych eval at week 3. This time, when you go in, spend that hour acting your butt off like a person who does not have challenges with mental illness. They do not care if there is anything wrong with you, but if you flat out tell them there is a problem, they have no way to have any plausible deniability if they approve you for the surgery. They want to approve you, but if you give them a reason not to, legally they can't do so and not be worried about liability. If that doesn't work, then you tell you doctor that you would be happy to have your attorney contact him to discuss the cost of everything you have paid so far and to review how he feels you should be compensated for the time and money you have wasted when the doctor is no longer willing to follow through on scheduling the procedure due to an illness (OCD) which has minimal evidentiary basis for denying this particular surgery.

To start off with, before I move to tough love, you look fantastic in your picture. Now, why did you not weigh yourself between 180 and 194? 14 pounds is not a big deal and you can absolutely recover from that, but imagine if you had weighed everyday and you saw that, well damn, you were 183 one day and a week later, oh crap, now 185...you'd have known far sooner and it would take so much less work to lose the gained weight. So, outside of going back to basics, the best advice I have for you is to get on that scale every single morning, write your weight down, and be accountable to yourself and that evil scale every day. When I have gained weight in the past, every single time it was because I knew I ate badly and I didn't want to weigh myself, so I didn't. A few months later, 30-50-100 pounds later, and I'd get back on the scale and hate life. I weigh myself every single day because I know that I can maintain if I have an immediate indicator that I am gaining. Back in October I had started moving from 129, to 133, and then I woke up at 137. I saw the weight go up and I didn't pay much attention, however I can look back and see where I had written my weight down every morning and see exactly where I had started to gain. It took me almost 2 months to get back to 129, but now as soon as I see a few ounces or a pound or two gained, I immediately check my food intake and modify and within a few days I am back to where I was. The key to maintenance is vigilance. We don't get to be like people who never weigh themselves, eat whatever they want, and never gain weight. It is SO much easier to make yourself get on the scale every morning and make a correction every couple days if you see your weight going up than to have to lose 14 pounds to get back to where you were because you didn't pay attention to the scale. So again, you look fantastic, but the scale is your evil best friend that will keep you where you want to be because it holds you accountable every day.

I have to say that at 29 months post-op, I no longer have the obsessive relationship I once did with food. I think this is because I know that if I want to, I can eat whatever I want, and I will not be physically able to overeat. Because of this, I have no real interest in food that before would have been something that I just had to have. I feel like this is a little bit like how it works if you feed a dog with treats and don't tell him that there is anything special about the treat...because he can have the treat whenever he wants, he doesn't really care about it anymore. Not the greatest analogy there, lol. I have maintained within a few pounds of goal for almost 11 months now. I eat what I want and I don't think a whole lot about it, which is partly because every single morning I weigh myself. If I see my weight start to inch up a few ounces or a pound, I pay attention to my food that day, and I drop back down to my usual weight in a day or two. I don't eat junk food like candy, Cookies, or chips, mostly because it makes me feel sick, and I don't eat anything with oil, fats, or major sugar because it makes me barf. So far today I have had a handful of granola and a snack bag of goldfish. Later today I'll probably eat my leftover grilled nuggets from Chik Fil A, a half serving of a vegetable Protein steamer, a few granola bars, and another snack bag or two of goldfish. This is not obviously a diet plan that you should use, but the fact that I can eat what I want to, feel full after relatively few calories, and not be overly obsessive about counting calories (I still login everything on MyFitnessPal everyday- I just hit something like 160 days without missing a day). Being able to eat what I want and not having to worry that I will overeat has substantially reduced by obsession with food.

I had a desk job and I was physically working from my hospital bed on day two, working from home by day 5 sitting at my desk, and back to my full-time desk job 1-week post-op. As long as you aren't doing manual labor or something that requires you be on your feet all day, you really don't need more than a week off.

I'm 29 months post-op and I have never taken them.

Tanning is bad for you, lol. I like being tan too, so no judgement here, haha. I have not tanned or been out in the sun without being slathered in a ton of sunscreen since my plastics procedures which were about16 months ago. I still use biocorneum on my arm scars if I will be outside, and I used it all through the summer. I made sure my other plastics scars were covered in lotion too, but those are all under my clothing so I was less obsessive about them. My arm scars started off looking bad, but they're starting to fade. I think being very careful with sun was a big factor. I think I'm just going to accept that I am a pale, while girl, ha.

So that is really crummy, but on a note that might make you feel better, most places will work out a payment plan with you so that it doesn't break the bank and they still get some money out of the deal. It might take forever to pay off, but it's not like the interest on credit cards, so what you pay goes toward knocking down the full debt as opposed to just keeping the creditors at bay. Also, you might contact an attorney. The procedure they performed was not an emergency procedure so if they had done their due diligence everyone would have known what the cost to you would have been.

I read part of that book! I didn't like it, lol. You know which books I did love though "Why Men Love BItches" and "Why Men Marry B*tches". It's not about being a B, lol, just about how much more attractive women are when they have their own life, their own goals, and don't sit around waiting on a man. Also, the books are funny, lol, so even though the advice is good, it's a fast read because you laugh a lot.

Good for you I do remember reading your story initially and I have hoped that things would turn out well for your son. I'm glad you are able to remain on your plan and that you can provide support to your son. If you like Chili, check out the turkey chili from Panera. It was a staple for me during weight loss and while those jokers discontinue it in the summer, they should still have it for a few months. It's something like 200 calories for a cup and a huge amount of Protein. Also, it's yummy and will keep you warm in that cold northern winter!

Lol, the title of your post made me laugh. I went from deciding I might want a sleeve to being in the OR in under 3 weeks. I was self-pay so there was no diet, no nutritionist, no real discussions about Protein and such, so my decision was fairly unplanned. I broke the rules I thought were not valid, such as the no straw rule and the no drinking with meals rule. I exercised regularly because I enjoyed it, but now that I've been at goal for 6 weeks short of a year I don't workout as much. I generally eat what I want to in smaller portions. The sleeve gave me the ability to eat less, and while part of that is the fact that my sleeve doesn't like certain foods, overall my success has not been because I made any huge changes, but because I just eat a much lesser volume of all of the mostly healthy foods I enjoyed in the past. Why people get a sleeve is a personal decision and for those who get it knowing they don't care much about following the plan- that's their call and not mine to judge.

The sleeve lets me eat whatever I want to in portions that are small enough that I don't gain weight. Before the sleeve everytime I went on a diet I knew that I could not eat certain things or I would regain, so the appeal of chocolate and cake and ice cream was constant because it was not allowed. Now I know that if I really want some junk food, I can have a few bites and then I really don't need to eat the rest of the plate, or as was the case in the past, the rest of the pan. Because I'm not technically banned from eating anything and for the most part small portions are now the norm, there isn't an urge to overeat since I know it will all still be there any other time I want it.

@@JamieLogical Your outer thigh lift can totally be pulled into your TT scar then! I'm 32, lol, and I wanted the thighs of a teenager, dammit. Overall though, while I am very happy with the upper half of my body, my thighs are substantially improved from where they started at even if they were not as exciting as my other results. With tights and pants my thighs look great though and I would do it all over again.

Kindle is right- enjoy the time you have now while you can't eat a lot. I am over 2 years out and I have the opposite issue, amusingly. While there are time I look at what other people are eating and I feel jealous, generally I think food is gross. I have found the few things that don't make me sick, I eat those, and everything else is just like, yuck, no thanks. Honestly, this is kind of a nice thing because I don't overeat or eat unhealthily, but there are all kinds of weird ways you end up seeing food after surgery. Being jealous of other people's lunch is entirely normal.

I had the groin incision thigh lift and the full 360 body lift, which around the hip area pulls the outer thigh up. It was part of my original TT scar, so I'm sure that would also work for you- it just extends the scar a bit further past your hips toward your back. Like you, I had boobs and stomach done and love the results of that procedure but the thigh lift is, eh, not as awesome. I didn't want the big line running down my legs, so I had the groin incision one and the first time I had it done, I was not thrilled with the results because both of my upper, inner thighs still had wrinkles. My doctor did both inner thighs a second time when I had my third surgery, the back half of the 360 done, and while they are now a whole lot better than they were when I started, it isn't the awesome factor that you get with the boobs and TT. I really don't notice much in terms of the outer thigh lift, however I had all of the extra hip skin taken off and the back skin taken off at the same time, so it's potentially a matter of perspective. I had lipo on both my inner and outer thighs during an earlier surgery so the swelling would be down when I had the thigh lift done and this allowed for an extra degree of lipo to be done during the thigh procedure. In the end, I still have ugly thighs, lol, although nowhere near as bad as they once were. I had hoped the outer thigh lift and lipo would correct my cellulite issues a little, which it did initially, but now at almost a year post-op since my last thigh procedure my thighs are just as cellulite ridden as before. My inner thighs are certainly an improvement, but unlike the nice, tight lines of a tummy tuck, the groin incision thigh lift doesn't give you that. I would still have it done again because it is easier to workout when your legs are not flapping and because I feel like my thighs now just look like a normal, out of shape, slightly flabby girl, instead of a formerly obese, extra skin, floppy girl. In terms of recovery, I am also a runner and the thigh lift healed very well both times. I had it done the first time at Thanksgiving 2014, and I was back to running my regular distance by the second week of January. The second time I had it done, those scars healed perfectly and had I not had giant issues with my back I would have been good to be running again in 6 weeks. The trick to the groin incision surgery is to make sure you keep it clean and dry, almost obsessively. For the first month, every time I went to the bathroom, I would wipe both scars down with a flushable wipe, then use a damp, clean wash cloth and wipe down both scars again, and then use a hair dryer to dry the scars. Every. single. bathroom. trip. I also used antibacterial soap over my scars during the first month whenever I took a shower and again, dried them with a warm hair dryer anytime I got the scars wet. So freaking annoying, but my groin scars healed quickly and without complications both times. Also, as an extra note, they place the scar slightly below your groin, so that if you are wearing a bikini bottom you can see the scar. The rationale behind this is that otherwise it is put in a place where it pulls on your labia. My second procedure they cut out both of my first scars and put the second incision below one and above the other. Because the second incision was just a bit too close to the groin line I had my lady bits pulled down on one side. It was insanely annoying for about 6 months, but my doctor told me to be patient and to let the skin heal and he was right- everything was returned to normal down there, lol, While my one incision is very close to the crease of the thigh, the other one you can still see just under where a bikini would run. The scar fades well, and at almost a year out, I can still see them, but they are very light. So...I would have my procedure done again because I like that my legs are not as bad as they were originally. I would have liked to know going into it though that my results would not be as mindblowingly fabulous as the stomach and boobs were. Also, if you are going to do the outer lift, generally adding the posterior body lift isn't much more expensive, since it's all one big procedure. I notice a big difference in how clothes fit because that hip and butt/back skin is gone now and I only paid for the body lift, so the thighs were a free added bonus, lol.

Get it cut off.

Generally they remove your nail polish so that the pulse oximeter can pull your readings. That is the little thing they clip on your finger that shows your pulse rate and oxygen saturation levels. It works by reading the hemoglobin saturation of your skin beneath your nailbed, so if you have on nail polish not only can it block the reading if the polish is colored, but even if it is clear, sometimes the reading comes back wrong. They monitor your oxygenation levels during surgery with what someone else referred to as "far more modern ways" of monitoring oxygen, which is true. It's part of the machine that breathes for you and it has a constant reading on the screen so that they can see your levels. They may also have a pulse oximeter on your finger, it depends. Ultimately, toe nail polish is fine, but the rationale behind the no fingernail polish is because it screws up the O2 saturation reading. If you have regular nailpolish, they just remove the polish on one nail, and if you have gel, they will scrape it off of one nail. If they don't, then that's cool too, but I would personally find having one nail messed up far more annoying than just not having any polish on at all for a few days.

After sleeve surgery, I can't eat any of those things you listed without getting sick. My stomach doesn't like dairy, eggs, yogurt, or fish, lol and I'm just fine. I eat chicken mostly for Protein, sometimes I can tolerate Greek yogurt if it's frozen in a smoothie mixed with almond milk, I don't care about fish that much, and while I do miss eggs, it isn't something I really think about much. I'm 29 months post-op and for the bulk of that time I have had less than a total of 10 servings of all of that stuff combined. I'm at goal and all of my blood values are where they should be, so you'll be fine without any of those things in your diet.

This is a very common issue. Some people go the route of telling the nurses, who then make sure that you're taken care of. I personally would just use a tampon, tuck in the string, and call it a day. Your surgery is short so it's not like you're going to bleed through it and while you might have a catheter, as long as the string is tucked in not only will no one notice, but no one will care. This makes your life easier, the nurse's life easier, and then you have one less thing to be worried about.