AvaFern

You die. Lol, jk. Nothing happens as long as you get the same amount of Protein a normal person requires as an average for the long term. Protein now is better because it keeps you fuller longer and greatly helps your recovery. If you don't get all of it, which for some people is like 80-100g a day and is a really enormous amount, nothing really happens. I was self-pay and I decided to have surgery about 2 weeks before I was rolled into the OR, so I never got the whole speech about eating my weight in protein a day. I ate what I felt like eating, which in hindsight was not anywhere near the amount of protein I should have had. Now, when I want a snack, I try to opt for something that has at least some protein, but in the end I get about what the average person my age and weight is supposed to be having. So..short version. Nothing bad happens if you don't hit that huge goal everyday, but the closer you get, the better you will feel, the faster you will recover, and, at least in theory, the more likely you will be to lose weight.

So, I am getting new teeth and I have some concerns hopefully you guys can weigh in on. I will get to the part where this relates to sleeve surgery later in the post, lol. If you have veneers or a full arch of crowns and don’t want to read this long post, please skip to the second to last paragraph and maybe give me your thoughts on why you picked the shade you did. To be fair, I have teeth and they work fine, however I recently had two very new crowns in the front of my mouth fall out, so I decided to go to a new dentist who is hopefully a bit more competent than the last one. As it turns out, I am a grinder in the bedroom, and not the good kind either, the kind that apparently wore my teeth down to teeth that look like an 80 year old person in my early 30’s. I have stress fractures in all of my teeth to the point that the recommendation was made to replace several of them with crowns, and in the process redo the top row of my mouth, have invisalign, and then finish out a bridge in the back of my mouth after my teeth are straightened and replaced. My parents took me to the dentist when I was a kid and I never had any major issues, however thanks to the fact that I guess I have ground away all of my enamel, fixing everything at once so the finished version actually works together instead of doing it in piecemeal seemed like a good idea. The fact that my bottom teeth are a little crooked didn’t really bother me and I didn’t even notice that my upper teeth were not the “u” shape they were supposed to be, however given I had a small luxury car in plastics done about 18 months ago, I figured why not make my head match the rest of me, or at least my teeth. Also, here’s the part that relates to our surgery, I have apparently wicked issues along the gum line that the doctor asked me if I had gastric reflux. I don’t, however I spent year 1-2.5 barfing my guts out a few times a week (sometimes a few times a day) because my sleeve hated food. I have since figured out that it tolerates crackers and chicken, but it took awhile to not be yakking all the time. As it turns out, that little bit of gastric Fluid in the form of barf, was enough to kill my teeth. My previous x-rays and images from before sleeve surgery had none of the issues that they have now, which means in less than 18 months of puking, I ruined the bases of my teeth. So, for anyone who has barfing issues or has issues with bulimia, that can be an outcome…although if you brush your teeth after you puke, that apparently minimizes most of the damage. Moving on…I can’t decide on a color. Dental work is ungodly expensive and if I am paying what this is going to cost, I want brilliant, gleaming, Chiclet teeth. Unfortunately, there isn’t a whole lot of help online about color shade results. So, has anyone had veneers or crowns where you chose between either Bl1 or Bl2 or 0M1 or 0.5M1? Much as I want insanely white teeth, I would rather not totally glow in the dark, however I have read several reviews where people were bummed that they didn’t go for the whitest shade possible. If it helps, I am really pale, not albino or red-haired Irish pale, but I’m a distant cousin to Casper, so I can go with a really white shade, I just can’t decide which. So…I am getting new teeth. I got new boobs and a new butt and new arms and a new stomach, so why not get new teeth, right? I want to wear bright red lipstick and smile widely without wondering if people are thinking that my teeth are a little yellow. Before the sleeve, I would never have bothered spending this much for a cosmetic procedure because my thought process was that until I was thin, I could spend money on the gym and everything else was just lipstick on a pig. I feel thankful everyday that the sleeve has let me finally live a life that I don’t feel like my worth is entirely eliminated by my size. Hopefully this time in two weeks I will have a gleaming white smile and be complaining about how Invisalign hurts my mouth, lol.

@@LipstickLady Lol ok, yes good point, I forgot about the 20oz steak questions. That would be a NO on the "should" and the "can", haha. And, for the record, this is an area where you and I substantially disagree, but I don't feel like we do so in a way that is offensive, or at least I've never been offended by you not agreeing with me, lol. There are a few others on here who also disagree with me on a lot of things, but that's kind of the point of being part of an online community that isn't ruined with groupthink. You can have everyone always agreeing, which really accomplishes nothing, or you can have respectful conflict...the latter is far more fun and ultimately far more valuable. XOXO

@@mrsNilla Yes, you will end up dead immediately if you jump out of a plane without a parachute, not in 10 years as an indirect result of a compilation of single actions. You kind of missed the entire point of my post, but you made some new friends. Congrats, lol.

I think that when there is an extremely negative reaction toward someone who is new to the process when they ask a question about if they "can" eat something as opposed to if they "should", this really helps no one. When the question is "can" I have a taco when the person is first on solids, the correct answer is that yes, you can with certain modifications (I suggested skipping the hard taco shell, enjoying low fat turkey, and going easy on the fatty stuff). Should you? Probably not, but medically, yes, you can. If the question is "can" I have a drink or two a weeks after surgery or the week before, medically the answer is that, yes, they can. I tend to reply a lot to the "can I eat this" threads because I think that it is important for people to understand the difference between "can" and "should" because when we tell people they CANNOT do something, when in reality, medically they absolutely can, we just perpetuate misinformation. You can eat PB&J in the soft phase- this will not hurt your new stomach. It's not going to help you lose weight, and it would have made me feel crummy, but nothing physically is going to break in your stomach if you eat that. On the other hand, "can I eat almonds and sharp, hard crackers" 3 days after surgery is a "h*ll NO" that is going to mess up your stomach. As examples outside of surgery...can you eat that entire box of brownies? Yes. You can. You are not going to immediately die from it. Should you? No, of course not, but the long-term health consequences are your concern and you have the right to do what you want to do. If you eat a box of brownies once a year and you are a healthy weight, then good for you! It's not my business! This to me is comparable to...can I eat cake on the soft foods stage? Sure you can! You're not going to lose weight, but that piece of cake is not going to be the single thing that kills you because it somehow caused your stomach to rip open and if you can learn to eat junk food in very moderate amounts at an early stage and this is what works for you, then who am I to judge the way in which you get healthy? Comparably, can you smoke cigarettes while you are on oxygen? Yes, physically you can, but you are likely going to burn your face off, thus causing an immediately bad result. This to me is like, "I am 2-days post-op, can I eat a jar of peanuts?". Sure you can, but you have a really good chance of jacking up you stomach, so medically no, do not eat that. When people are asking if they can eat something, my impression is that the vast majority of the time they are seeking clarification as to whether they are physically going to hurt their stomach or themselves in the immediate short term. Whether they happen to die of a heart attack in 10 years because they kept eating junk is not the question, but rather the question is if they are going to rip open their new stomach and die from a leak. As such, it is important to differentiate between the "should" and the "can" and flipping out on people because they ask if they can have a few bites of junk food when it is entirely safe for them to do so accomplishes nothing. I have had junk food as part of my diet since the first point it was safe to do so. My first "soft" meal was a chicken taco salad. I ate the chicken, the tomato, and some of the sour cream. I ate about 5 bites of it and was no longer hungry. I used to regularly eat 1/4 a panini from Panera when I was losing- it was my lunch and calorie wise it fit into the plan. I have been at goal now for over 18 months and I am almost at 2 years of being within 5 pounds of goal and there are plenty of times now and when I was losing that I did not follow the rules. Sometimes I eat sweets, sometimes I drink alcohol, sometimes I eat other gross things and because I have been allowed to have them in very small amounts since the start of having the sleeve, they are not some banned substance that I crave and feel like I am being denied. This is what works for me and what may work for someone else. So yes, you CAN eat the vast majority of things people ask questions about, whether you SHOULD or not is the issue and frankly, I have no interest in telling an adult what they should be doing with their diet when I am hardly a 100% compliant patient and I ended up just fine. I see no value in telling an adult that they should not eat cake, judging them for their choices and their questions, and acting like I am better than them because I lost weight and they are still fat. They have a mirror, they have a scale, and they likely have a basic level of education about nutrition. The question is CAN not SHOULD and I am a little over the holier than thou comments that treat people like they are a complete moron for wondering if they are going to hurt their stomach by eating something they SHOULD not be eating when every single one of us has at some point eaten something we SHOULD not be eating, but which, medically, we absolutely CAN, in moderation, enjoy. I am now going to go drink my sugar free Red Bull and eat my carb-laden, protein-lacking, sugary Cereal for Breakfast. Yum.

I like it and I still eat it periodically. When I first tried it, I stayed away from the roasted red pepper version and stuck with the bland original, because my stomach was not a fan of things with flavor. Now though, in small servings, any variety is a nice treat. I try to avoid eating it very often because it has a lot of sodium and calories, although the calories are not the bad kind. Hummus for me is like avocado...good fat that is nice to have in limited portions.

@@proudgrammy Thank-you!

So, last Friday was my 3-year surgiversary. I had good intentions to post on that day, but this is the first day that I haven’t been slammed with work or other stuff. This in itself kind of makes me smile because while I was busy before I had surgery, it was never because I was away from my desk for huge amounts of the day and not really thinking about weight at all. On surgiversary day, I woke up at my goal…I was 129.2. I have been at goal for about 18 months now, although I do fluctuate down to 127 and up to 133, depending on the day. The only way I have been able to stay at goal is to weigh myself every day and take immediate steps to correct any weight gain. As an example, while 9 days ago I was 129.2 and 3 days ago I was 129.8, this morning I woke up at 132.8 (yikes). This happened because I spent two days eating sweets. I had a mini scone from Starbucks…and then two more. I had a pumpkin spice latte, several pop tarts, a cake pop, and I’m sure I’m missing something in there. I really didn’t eat much more than that, so I wasn’t much over my calories for the day, but sugar and sweets are one way that I gain weight almost instantly if I eat them more than occasionally. So, this morning I’m back to my normal routine where I can have sweets sometimes if I want to, but I’ll be more careful for the next few days and I will be right back around 129 by about Tuesday. In the event any new person happens to be reading this, getting to goal is difficult, but being aware of the fact that you never get to just ignore the scale and think you get to stay skinny once you’re at goal is also not exactly the most fun realization. I am fine with it because my size 2 clothing makes me far happier than cupcakes, but it is a sobering thought to know that if I want to be thin, every single day for the rest of my life I will need to be aware of my weight and the actions I take to maintain it. On that note, maintaining is not terribly difficult as long as I don’t eat too many sweets. I was one of the people who didn’t follow the vast majority of the rules after I hit the 6-week post-op mark, and it worked for me. When I want cake, I eat cake…I just make sure I weigh myself and then if I gain weight, I eat carrots instead of cake the next few days. Most days I don’t workout anymore. When I was losing I worked out for 1-3 hours a day- now I don’t have time for that and to be fair I’m kind of lazy. I eat about 1200- 1500 calories on average, which means that on days where I am out of my house all day I eat about 800-1000 calories and days where I am at home all day I munch my way through probably about 1600-1800, but it all averages out to roughly 1200-1500-ish. Most days I have sugar free Red Bull and a Bevita bar for Breakfast, I snack on goldfish crackers throughout the day, and then I will have either half of a pick 2 from Panera for lunch and the other half for breakfast (ex: a cup of chili for lunch and half of a sandwich for dinner), or a turkey and cheese lunchable for dinner without much lunch, a few bites of a Chipotle salad as kind of a lunch-dinner ongoing chew-fest at my desk, or some other variety of something that usually involves some form of meat, vegetable, and mild carbs. Past that, I drink coffee like a fiend and I mix in the full fat caramel from Starbucks with skim milk, I drink diet soda, I never use a straw, and I drink and eat during all my meals. If I want to have alcohol, I do, although to be fair I think I’ve had a few glasses of champagne and a few sips of wine once this summer and that’s about it in probably over a year. At three years post-op, I know what foods my stomach doesn’t like (too much sugar, dairy, oil, fat, fried stuff), so if I want to eat something like that I know I get a few bites and if I eat more I’m going to get sick. Basically my diet is one that works for me and is something I can do for the rest of my life. I don’t care that I don’t eat Pasta, burgers, pizza, chips, brownies or Cookies anymore, because I know if I want them, I’m allowed to have them, so I don’t have much interest in having them often. I don’t care that I can’t sit in front of the tv and enjoy a giant pile of food like I used to or that I don’t really get to fully enjoy the going out to dinner experience because some food just makes me want to barf looking at it. I am just fine with not being able to eat heavy foods in the morning- no more eggs and waffles, because just thinking about that made me feel woozy, and I am ok with walking through a grocery store and feeling no real interest in actually buying and eating anything. My relationship with food has become one of necessity as opposed to friendship. I eat when I am hungry (and sometimes when I’m bored), but not when I’m sad or overly happy and I don’t wander through the grocery store after a bad day and throw everything that looks good into my cart because I can console myself with it later. Food and I are friends now, because it keeps me healthy, not because it makes me happy. Beyond that, my life is totally different now. When I first debated having this surgery, I was horrified that I was cutting my stomach out FOREVER. What in the flip was I thinking?! The first few weeks after surgery I was sure I had made a mistake and I read all of the stories on here in the hopes that I would feel better. I looked for those of people who were years past surgery to know that I wasn’t making a mistake. I can honestly say at this point having the sleeve was the best thing I have done. For the first time in my life, I am not obsessed with my weight. I had been thin in the past but it required exercising everyday and constantly feeling like I was starving. I very rarely even feel hungry now. I had put so many things on hold in my life because until I was thin, I had no interest in doing anything else. I now own two successful businesses, I am in law school full time (a dream I have had since I was a kid but never even considered seriously as an adult before) and I am working on my MBA. While work was good before the sleeve, any pursuits outside of that were entirely oriented toward being thin. I had no time to improve my education because fat people need to be on treadmills, not in law school (my thoughts at the time- not now!). When I leave my house in the morning, I look in the mirror and 90% of the time I think…damn, you look good. Never once in my life have I felt that way before. When I have a bad day, when someone is not very nice to me, or when something doesn’t go right…my first thought is no longer that it happened because I am fat and worthless, and in fact, it doesn’t even cross my mind. I shop in stores where 3 years ago I couldn’t fit in their biggest sizes and now I am in their smallest sizes. I spend money on makeup, shoes, watches, clothing- things to make me feel pretty, whereas before I never bothered because I didn’t think I was worth it. Although this is kind of a long post, as a three-year update, if anyone is thinking about the sleeve, I wanted to explain how much it gave me my life back, how I really do get to eat normal food and live like a normal person, and because of this surgery, I have SO much more in my life than I ever did before. I am happy, I am healthy, and every bit of misery along the way after surgery was worth it to be at the place I am now.

Yea...never followed that stupid rule. It's designed to make sure you don't wash the food through your stomach too quickly and end up eating too much. I decided from the start I wasn't spending the rest of my life with a dry mouth and I literally have not once since surgery had food without something to drink. I've been at goal for 18 months and I hit goal in 18 months, so it's not a requirement for weight loss or a medical necessity as long as you are completely conscious of not eating too much. Right after surgery you will get sick if you eat too much while drinking, but down the road, you need to pay attention to it because you can easily munch your way through way more food if you're drinking at the same time. Past that...no dry mouth for me, lol.

@@LisaMergs Yes! I actually just got my permanent new fake teeth last week. The entire experience was completely ridiculous, so I'm mostly just glad I never have to go to that dentist again. I was assured they would be perfectly straight and they absolutely are not, but on a good note, I totally picked the right color! They look real, yet a lovely white.

I had a taco salad at probably a little after 3 weeks out. My doctor told me that as long as I chewed everything very thoroughly, it was fine, and that I should stay away from the hard taco shells. My salad had shredded lettuce, shredded turkey, a tiny bit of low fat sour cream, and pico de gayo. I was allowed to have soft taco, like a burrito, but I don't think I had more than a few bites. Guess what, I'm 3 years post-op as of this Friday, I hit my goal weight in 18 months and I have been at or under goal for almost another 18 months. Eating tacos, as in the kind where you focus on getting Protein (shredded chicken was better for me when I was on soft food), and where you minimize the junk part, is entirely fine. My surgeon had no problem with me smashing most varieties of foods that I wanted during the soft food phase with the understanding that the sharp taco was a no-go, the sharp lettuce varieties were not great, and no nuts (if anyone puts nuts in their tacos). The version I described, if chewed to a very soft consistency, is fine for soft foods and a regular taco, without the junky parts when you are cleared for regular foods is also entirely fine. You will want to eat maybe 1/3 of the taco and be completely full. Right now I am eating a fried chicken slider. It is a treat a few times a month and the box comes with two sliders, of which I eat about 2/3 of 1. I also had a pumpkin Spice Latte today (skim milk, regular whip) and later tonight I'm going to probably eat goldfish. You need to do what works for you, not what everyone very sarcastically insists is the only option you have. My blood values are all perfect, I'm at my ideal weight, I have very little difficulty maintaining my weight, and sometimes I eat junk, just like I did the entire time I was losing. It works for me, so it may or may not work for you. One way is not the only way to succeed with this surgery.

I live in Florida, so summer isn't over yet for a few more weeks, lol, but I saved all my fat clothes. They are currently all in storage. I am 90% sure I will never wear them again even if I do gain weight because they are mostly old and worn out, but I felt like I was jinxing myself by getting rid of them. They are also probably a bit too worn to give to Goodwill and I felt wasteful throwing them out, so now they are cluttering up my storage unit.

Guess what? I had half of a pumpkin scone yesterday from Starbucks. I am 5 days short of my 3 year anniversary and I can completely say the only thing that has kept me at my goal weight (and as of this morning I am 1 pound under my goal weight) is the fact that I don't consider an occasional treat to be cheating anymore. If I want a little ice cream, I have some, and because of that I really rarely want any. That stupid scone made me really sick, so while it was good for a few bites, I am not completely not interested in having it again for awhile. Ice cream though does not usually make me sick, so I don't keep it in the house. If we are out to dinner and having desert, then I will have a few bites and be completely content. It's ok to have some "bad" things sometimes, but if you don't think of them as being bad and you just enjoy them as an occasional treat (which is something I never thought I could do), then they become a healthy part of a normal diet. I woke up this morning actually a pound heavier than I had been the day before, so while I'm still under goal, I just didn't eat any junk today and I paid attention to the food that I did eat. Tomorrow I'll be back to where I was the day before yesterday. The trick is to stay on top of it every single day. As soon as I am not accountable to the scale in the morning, I will gain weight quickly, but as long as every morning starts with a weigh-in and if necessary an immediate change in my diet, then that seems to be what has helped me maintain.

No idea, but any questions like that you should just ask your surgeon. I had this procedure as well, although mine was done in two separate surgeries because I had other things done at the same time. Everyday I love the results I have. It was more than worth the money and the mild amount of pain to have a body that looks fantastic in clothing without having to smother it in Spanx.

I don't delete my profile, I just delete the app off my phone. I have a POF profile and a Tinder profile, both of which I deleted off my phone about 18 months ago. I've put Tinder back on for a few days when I was bored, but I don't bother to actually delete them. If they aren't on my phone, I'm not using them, which I figure is good enough. Past that, usually once you have agreed to be exclusive with someone, then you're done with those apps. I don't have a problem with someone not actually deleting their profile, but they had better not be logging in and using it, lol. Until I've made the commitment, I'm not promising I won't use the apps (even though I usually don't, haha), but once I am officially "the girlfriend" and he is "the boyfriend" then you're done with dating profiles.

You can't feel a difference. The only reason you will really notice that you no longer have most of your stomach is because the first week or two you feel kind of blah, and then after that for a few months you burp a lot, which is a lovely reminder that you put too much into your small stomach. Past that though, it's not like cutting off an arm- your stomach and organs don't have the same type of sensory tissue as other parts of your body, so when you cut one of them out, you only feel the pain of the entry wounds for the surgical instruments rather than the actual wound to your stomach.

How far out are you? I noticed I had bad breath until I got back onto solid food. The liquids just kind of stuck to my tongue, while with food, the mechanical act of chewing has all of the pieces of food scraping all over your mouth and sort of cleaning it a little bit more than just liquid. Honestly, not sure if that's a real reason or not, but once I was off liquids, I didn't have to brush my tongue compulsively to have normal breath.

I also live in Florida and I also paid out of pocket. I don't think my insurance covered the surgery, but I didn't want to jump through all of the hoops first. Mine was almost $18k though, but I also still think it was entirely worth it to just pay for it on my own. I'm almost 3-years post-op, and pretty much everyday I am thankful that I was in a position where I could have the surgery. I think you made the right call- good luck in the journey!

Before the sleeve the idea of "cheating" is likely what made me fat. I would lose weight and then as soon as I had a cookie, it was ...well I cheated, now I'm done. I am almost 3 years post-op and I no longer view any food as cheating. If I want a cookie, I eat one, and because of that, I no longer really want them very often. I was in the store today and chicken wings looked good. I got 4 of them, I ate 2 in my car, and I threw the rest out. In the past, that would have been cheating and I would have been robbing myself of my right to cheat if I didn't eat them all. Because I can now eat such a small amount, I largely eat what I want to. To be fair, I also felt kind of sick from those stupid wings, and if I really eat anything that is bad in a volume more than a few bites, I end up puking, so that may be part of why it works for me. Ultimately though, while I was losing I tried to limit my intake of sweets and to not "cheat" very often, because I knew that I had a limited amount of time where it would be a lot easier to lose weight than it would be in the future. Now that I have been at goal for 16 months, I have found it interesting how I don't really have a cheater mentality about food anymore. It's certainly a nice benefit of the sleeve that I did not anticipate.

Are you taking your B12? That contributes to anemia in sleeve patients and once you get back to taking it, it can be corrected fairly quickly. An Iron supplement is also a pretty quick fix. I have never had a blood test that showed I was anemic, and I generally didn't take Vitamins the first 2 years after surgery. Not the greatest plan, but I just tended to forget about them. About 7 months ago (which is about 30 months post-op-ish) I just had no energy and felt crummy. All of my lab work was fine, but I started taking vitamins everyday and despite a few days of being sluggish, I'm better than I was then. My stomach can only tolerate special sensitive iron. I get the Feosol in the purple box, which is specially coated to prevent your stomach from getting upset. I can't even take a Multivitamin with iron in it or I get sick. I also take B vitamins mostly because they give me energy, but it's not like they're hurting the B12 issue either. Usually you want to take the sublingual B12 (it's like $12 in a little dropper bottle at the grocery store) rather than the B-complex pills. Don't start going nuts on vitamins all at once because if one makes you sick, you won't know which one. If you first add an iron supplement, see if it goes well, then add the ones that seem to work for you. I had my labs done again about 4 months after I had them first tested when I felt crummy and all of my lab values are still exactly where they should be, so who knows if my vitamins helped or not. I feel better and I figure that's what counts.

I had a dinner party that was given in my honor 3 weeks after surgery. The very nice people presenting it are Italian, so I knew there would be a lot of wine and it would be rude to not at least sip. Yes, there is the argument that who cares if you're rude...well I did. When someone spends money to honor you and they know you usually have a glass or two, totally shunning it is rude. I got out of it by explaining that I was still on antibiotics for when I had been sick a week before (no one knew about my surgery) and throughout the night I had a few polite sips of champagne at toasts. I didn't die, lol, and as long as you are at least a few weeks out from surgery, the worst thing that's going to happen is you're going to get drunk fast. I don't know if the sleeve really does make you drunker quicker, although supposedly that's what research says. I am not a big drinker, so my first drink other than the champagne was about a year and 80 pounds later. Two shots of tequila got me nice and drunk. After that, my next drink was probably 2 years post-op, and tequila still gets me nice and drunk quickly. I don't know that my tolerance is that much different now than before and it's probably just that I'm not a big drinker, so I'm a lightweight either way. Now that I am at goal weight, no idea if it's my size or my sleeve, but 2 fingers of good scotch will get me quite buzzed and an entire glass of wine or champagne is a really nice, no need to drink much more, buzz. So...medically as long as you are a few weeks out from surgery you're fine to sip (SIP!!!) a (as in one) glass of wine. You'd probably be fine with two, although it might be better to figure out if your tolerance has been impacted at all before you drink more than that. Past that though, @@jessjames called it...there is a habit of people to freak out on people who question not following every single one of their doctor's orders. Ignore them. Do your own research, don't just listen to us, but there is a difference between what you SHOULD do and what you CANNOT do. Having a single drink a few weeks after surgery that you sip over the course of a dinner falls into the former of the two categories. Just don't make it a habit- not because it's really going to hurt you that much but because it's going to impede your weight loss, which is generally a big part of the reason they tell you to not drink at all.

Oh, I hear you on this. I have developed a clothing shopping problem. It is SO FUN to fit into everything and of course that means it all must come home with me. I remember when I first started looking cute in "normal" clothes and I bought all kinds of gym clothing. Haha, now I'm less into gym clothing and more into every possible kind of professional clothing. I still don't love jeans, but dresses...all day long. When it stops being overwhelming, it starts being a lot of fun.

@@dede_mont I've had less than optimal reactions to antibiotics in the past, although none have been anaphylactic since I was a kid, probably because I avoid a certain class of antibiotics because of that. Before my last plastics procedure, an antibiotic that I have never once had an issue with caused a reaction. One minute I was fine, the next I was covered in red bumps and itching. I turned off the drip, they gave me benadryl, and I was fine, so no where near anaphylaxis, but still an new and annoying reaction. Later that day, percocet also decided that it was going to make me break out and itch- a reaction I had never had before on a drug I have had plenty of times. This was a little over a year ago and this summer I had percocet again for a tooth issue and I had no negative reaction. Like Valentina said, until you've had a reaction to a common drug like that- which is an antibiotic that I have also had- there's no way to know you would experience a reaction. The key is to make sure they know it now for the future. Hope you start feeling better soon!

In reading your story, I'd be mad too, although why don't you just ask your surgeon specifically what happened? A duodenal ulcer is something you would have had before surgery and if it was torn, it wasn't necessarily a medical mistake. Ulcers in general can bleed, and where the duodenum is anatomically located, in theory they would have had to cross over it to get to your stomach. Just brushing against the area in a person who did not have a pre-existing ulcer wouldn't cause an issue, but for someone who may have an ulcer, which without being traumatized can bleed, a very minor surgical movement that would have had no effect on someone else could have caused the problem. Also, healing from a torn ulcer takes awhile, but isn't the same thing as if they had accidentally ripped open your duodenum and then told you it wasn't their fault. If they had known the ulcer existed, they could have taken extra precautions, but given they may not have, your complication may not have actually been a medical mistake as much as an actual complication where no blame would be assigned. That being said, that could totally not be what happened and they could have absolutely lied to you entirely, but if you give them the benefit of the doubt and you ask for an explanation, it potentially saves you from having to switch doctors and from all of the anger you're feeling right now. Also, if they can explain it, then it saves you the money of a malpractice suit, because telling you that you had a complication, when you did in fact have a complication that had nothing to do with their "reasonable standard" of care, would not give you a valid claim. I totally get that you're mad and I would be too...but maybe just double-check with them the facts of what actually happened to make sure that your anger is as merited as it seems to be. In the end it saves you time and energy, and costs you nothing. If they stonewall you and refuse to answer the question...then see an attorney because that would be a huge red flag for potential negligence and their insurance would likely settle.

At 5 days out from surgery, if you're strict with your liquid diet, you're fine. Your liver will, ideally, still be small enough that when they go under it to get to your stomach they won't crack it. The reason for the liquid diet before surgery is primarily to shrink the liver. A 7 week liquid diet is a little ridiculous and 1 week is more than sufficient. I had a 1 week liquid diet, and a family friend had no liquid diet at all (lucky jerk). Both of us were fine.