nkcaump

Mandi - Good luck! Sounds like you and I both have similar weight goals and my surgery is Friday - the day after yours! I also lost about 12 pounds pre-op. It can't hurt right? I think just being healthier over the past month makes me feel better. I haven't had a soda pop since late-August and that's been the biggest deal with me. Anyway, I can't help you on the panties question. I haven't worn panties since my sophomore year in college. Oh... TMI... Sorry... Good luck tomorrow!!! I'm thinking of you!!!!!

To quote a famous philosopher... Don't let the bastards get you down!! I'm self-pay also - it's going to be about another car payment a month through the Capital One financing. Somewhere close to $380/month to eventually pay off $17,500. This, too, shall pass. I'm considering just about everything to make enough money to afford this - including selling another car... getting another job... whatever. This will outweigh the financial stuff. When my wife and I met we were about $45,000 in debt total. We chipped away at it and were debt-free in about 3 years. So, getting into a little more debt won't kill ya. Just cut up any additional credit cards, sell a couple of those old "fat" clothes at a consignment shop and do what you can. One thing I found was (probably slightly illegal) to rip all of your CD's to your computer (if you have a big CD collection like me) and then sell your CD's to companies out on the Internet by the box. I've made about $500 so far. Newtownvideo.com - Buy & Sell Your Used CDs, DVDs, and Games For Cash was the place I used. Then there's DVD's that you never watch... Anything you can sell on eBay. It's amazing what you can sell!!! There's some tubby guy out there probably just dying to get into those size 54 slacks that were just gently worn. Anyway, don't worry about the money part. I know that's easier said than done, but wouldn't you totally do it all over again? SCREW the insurance companies!!!!! All my best...

Great work!! How did your flying lesson go? Was this something you've always wanted to do before the banding or since?

Too excited to go to bed yet, but having some random questions bang around in my head. I'll ask the "brains" behind the board for help... (2 weeks today until I'm "banded"!!!) Vomiting... I don't mean PB, but what if you have the real flu sometime and part of that illness is vomiting? I'm talking flu vomiting. Does the restriction of the band reverse the process and actually keep vomit in your larger stomach? What kind of situation would this cause? Sex... How long did you wait after your surgery??? Kids... Has anyone else had the surgery and also have 4 or 5 year olds around? My little boy loves to jump on Daddy, but I want to explain to him that he can't for a little bit. Suggestions on what to tell him? Pre-Surgery Diet - My surgeon has put me on absolutely no diet before my surgery. Only no liquids after midnight the night before. However, I've been on and will continue to be on a "less" see-food diet and it has resulted in about a 10 pound loss. I'm not going totally crazy, but I always start diets fast. My question... as I get closer to my surgery should I be eating more or less? I'm guessing probably less because of the liver thing, but how long can I wait before my "last supper"?? I'll probably have more, but I'm sure some bander can help with these... thanks!!! (I also ordered a Bodybugg today...:whoo: hopefully it will help me drop a couple more pounds before the 28th!!) Thanks everyone!!

Lochnagar, Wow. Great job. It sounds like you have about the same goal weight as me. So, you were up over 300 lb's then right? How did you introduce the jogging into your life? I would like to make running/jogging a <something>K as a token of this achievement, but, obvously, any jogging at 330+ right now is short lived and extremely stressful on the old heart. But... I'm getting banded FRIDAY and might want to make this a goal of mine. Were you a runner before you put on weight (I was NEVER) - did you have any problems with your knees or back when you were heavy (I do and will need to get that improved to try something like this...) Thanks for the info and GREAT JOB!! --Chris

Okay... I'm 5 days from surgery and as the time stamp will attest (5:00am) I'm getting a little nervous. Couple more "random questions" for the brilliant members of the board... (And thanks everyone for their answers to my first set...) I'm thinking about my diet the next couple of days. I have lost about 12 pounds in the last month so I think that has helped my liver. And I want to "do good" this week but don't really want to starve myself. I'm thinking lots of water and salads, eh? I'll try to keep away from the fast foods which is a challenge in and of itself for me, but I've got to start tearing away at some point. As far as today's grocery shopping trip goes. I'm having surgery on Friday. Here's my list so far... Sugar-free popsicles Crystal light in those little packet things, right? Sugar-free kool-aid And that's it? I guess the first week that's your life, eh? Okay, one more... Since I am self-pay - how do insurance companies handle health-issues that "may" have resulted from lap-band surgery. I'm guessing just from some of the other problems folks have had things like dehydration if the band is too loose so you might have to go to the ER for an IV. Or if you get acid-reflux that needs your PCP to look at. Or if you're so hot after you get all skinny, that women literally throw themselves at you and you suffer a broken leg. Will an insurance company suddenly look more heavily at stuff like that and possibly not pay for coverages - I'm not sure how that happens with a "cosmetic" surgery such as my insurance company looks at this as. (The only thing cosmetic is that I'm having the "GOODYEAR" taken off of my side and I won't be flying over the Super Bowl any more...) Just curious. My guess is that if you were to have a nose-job and then needed help with something sort-of unrelated to that it would be fine. But where do they draw the line? Oh, one more thing... I've recently changed insurance companies to United Health Care. And they have a really nice website where you can post your medical history. This is great because I don't EVER keep track of that stuff, so if I have the flu or whatever, you go online and put in your doctor's visits, etc. I'm debating whether to put the lap band surgery in there. Wouldn't that allow them to mess with me later on? I don't want to be dishonest, but I don't want to give "them" a reason to crap on an elective procedure down the road. (Okay... I need to sleep now...) Thanks everyone! I'm getting really nervous, so keep me in yoru thoughts!!! :paranoid :tired

We're learning WAAAAAYYYYYY too much about young crash. So far we've learned about what you dont' want in your penis and your soggy underbelly... <check, please> Naw, just kidding. Hey... can I star in your next romantic comedy about a guy who goes in for lapband surgery and meets Meg Ryan on the Internet and falls in love - only to meet her on the top of the Empire State Building and jumps off of it into a volcano? Wait... I think I've got those mixed up. Dammit. This lack of booze thing is really starting to affect my senses... (T-Minus 7 days for me...) :whoo:

Claramae et. al., Yes, the test went fine. As usual, I was probably making more of it than I needed to, but all things considered, I'll take it. That was NOT what I was expecting a stress test to be. Man, they really jumped your heart up there. And that sonogram - wow. I didn't know if they were looking at my heart or checking my third tri-mester... Since my doctor hasn't yet called me in a panic, I'm going to assume all went well. The cardiologist doing the test said I was fine. Thanks for not letting me jump to the wrong conclusions!!! Onward.... :eek:

Okay, admittedly, today has been a little bit of a day... so bear with me. Today started out great - only one more week until my surgery. I"ve been walking well for 3 weeks and knew I'd get weighed again today and that I'm sure to lose weight. Then I get a call at noon that my mom has had a heart attack while driving on a highway and got in a wreck trying to pull her car off. Okay - good feeling gone at that point. Freak out mode begins. I drive like a maniac to the hospital, calling frantically all the way. Turns out, she's fine. She's alive. She's fine. She had 100% blockage of one of her arteries which they opened with a stint and will do another 95% blocked one in a couple days. Okay. Phew. Good feeling back. Time for my doctor's appointmetn with my PCP to get the final green light for surgery. I go through the routine questions. He compliments me for taking charge of my life with this surgery. Good feeling really going on now. So, he's doing his stethascope thing and his nodding thing when I told him about the day that I've had with my mom. Really, he says. He asks if I've had any shortness of breath. No, well, only when I'm excercising. Have you had any problems with sweating? Well, now that you mention it, I sweat like a pig pretty much all the time. Really. Uh-huh. Okay... good feeling starting to go now... So. He wants me to go for a stress test tomorrow to make sure I"m healthy enough for weight loss surgery. If ever there was a contridiction in terms, I've never seen one. So crap. Now I'm freaking out. WHat if I FLUNK my stress test and can't get my band on Friday? I think I'll just keel over. Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi. You're my only hope. P.S. - I DID lose 3 more pounds last week...

Howdy, I got my bbugg yesterday and have been playing around with it some. I walked a mile and a half today and it said I did about 3,000 steps and burned about 500 calories. Sounds about right. I don't really like the food diary and the program interface. I think the program FitDay has been much easier to use (and only $20.) So I plan to get the activity information off of Bodybugg and enter it plus all my food into FitDay. I like that FitDay allows you to track more nutrients - especially when taking a multi-vitamin tablet. I have my surgery next Friday, so I know I'm jumping the gun and won't really be able to use the BBugg for a couple months while I'm healing but I do like that it tracks your activities. The other stuff (the counseling, the food tracking through that program) you can take with a grain of salt. Seems like it's a big to-do designed to get you to buy their energy bars. But the tool is pretty nifty. Just my $.02.

Well, thank you. That's very reassuring. It's been a sh((ty day so permit me to freak a bit. I've been walking a mile and a half, 30 minutes a day for 3 weeks. If I were to croak from clogged veins it would've been 3 weeks ago. So, thank you, I"m starting to feel better. This raises a question, however. Why don't doctors just check arteries regularly to see how clogged they are? My mom's 1 artery was 100% blocked and had another 95% blocked (whatever that means... can't be good.) Every heart attack story I hear starts with "arteries blocked..." so I dunno. Let's also say for arguments sake that my arteries are 80% clogged with cheeseburgers, gravy and bacon grease. Then I have lapband and then I lose 100 pounds. Does that make the clog better? I guess these are all medical questions and I intend to ask them, but this forum has been 100% right on for everything so far so I'll give you all the benefit of answering... :help:

Interesting that Jack waited until after THANKSGIVING to do his surgery... <grin> Just kidding Capt'n Jack!!!!

Crash, can I call you crash? Okay, Crash. I'm having it done here in the suburbs of Kansas City. I am self pay, but with a wife and a kid, scuffling off to TJ wouldn't have worked. So, if you've got any scratch laying around, friend, please let me know. (Maybe I can start one of those Internet Chain Letters... Dearest Crash, I have recently come into some money, but require the bank of Aminijad to have a second person release it.... Sweet.... I can feel my pocketbook inflating as I type...) I was SPECIFICALLY told that beer (in moderation, of course) is allowed. Once you hit 35 and are old like me, you get pretty schnockered off of 2 Bud Lights anyway. Being one of the "skinny" "beautiful" people, I'll have to learn to live with - but they'll have to take my Bud Light out of my cold, dead fingers. (okay, a little melodramatic, but you're a writer, you should appreciate that crap...) No need for your starting weight. I only divulge it here... My drivers license says I'm 235. :heh: Anyhoo, drop me a line with your surg date... I'm at nkcaump@hotmail.com and we can compare scars or something... okay that didn't come out the way I meant it, but you catch the meaning. (What does the WWJD stand for on your T-Shirt... something tells me it's not the whimsical question about the Man...)

<p>Crash,</p> <p> </p> <p>Welcome. I'm about 5 weeks "unlurked" and am 5 years older than you. I agree that this board has been tremendous in helping my commitment to this surgery.</p> <p> </p> <p>I signed up for my surgery yesterday. It will be September 28. It didn't really hit me until yesterday that this is really going to happen.</p> <p> </p> <p>As for me, I started at 345 pounds. By stopping drinking soda and caffein on August 22 I've managed to lose 10 pounds and am now around 335. (My scale stops talking to me at 320 so I'm guessing off of my last doctor's visit.)</p> <p> </p> <p>Anyway, I can tell from your posting that you and I probably have a lot in common (sans the goatee). Here are a couple of my "before" pix:</p> <p> </p> <p><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/nkcaump/MeAtMyWorst/photo?authkey=7KruS9t82RM#5106046521794033650"><img src="http://lh5.google.com/nkcaump/RtxSQjIm9_I/AAAAAAAABYY/nSoFERVp-8k/s144/IMG_0366.jpg" /></a></p> <p> </p> <p><a href="http://picasaweb.google.com/nkcaump/MeAtMyWorst/photo?authkey=7KruS9t82RM#5106046573333641250"><img src="http://lh5.google.com/nkcaump/RtxSTjIm-CI/AAAAAAAABY8/cA2x82H_2OE/s144/IMG_0875.JPG" /></a></p> <p> </p> <p>Anyway, welcome aboard. Sounds like our surgery dates are around the same time. Maybe we can comiserate together!! Either way, GOOD LUCK!!!!</p>

I'm going to name my Dragon "Mike." Damn, I hate Mike. Baaaaaaad Mike, Baaaaaaaad. :hungry:

My wife just agreed for me to have the banding surgery!! She's going with me on Sept. 7 to my Pre-Op Meeting!!!! WHOOPIEEEEE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2:

Well, without getting too mushie... it was. It SO was. I woke up this morning with a different feeling in my very soul. Like, nothing was too difficult or too hard. So much so, that I'm now going out to mow MY yard AND my parent's yard. (Well, that doesn't sound as fun as I thought it would...) But still... there is an "S" on my chest today. I can do ANYTHING.

<p>There are very few days in a person's life where you wake up one person and go to sleep someone else. The day of your birth. Your wedding day. Your graduation day.</p> <p> </p> <p>Is today one of those days for me?</p> <p> </p> <p>Today I go for my pre-op meeting. Today is also the day where I will "officially" sign the papers for my loan and agree to the surgery. I'm taking my DW and she's going to be the one tugging at the chain a bit. She's still not 100% although she's given her "okay" but not really her "blessing."</p> <p> </p> <p>Still, I think it's a positive that she's going and listening.</p> <p> </p> <p>Just curious if pre-op day was "the day" you put it in your heads that you're finally getting banded. Or, if it's just another day along the road to health?</p> <p> </p> <p>It really seems like I will go to sleep different than when I woke up.</p>

Just an update... met with Dr. Selim at the Weight Loss Surgical Center for my Pre-Op yesterday. The Doctor is from Egypt, and when he began speaking with some broken English, internally I started to roll my eyes. And that's a bad habit for me which I fully admit. Plus, he was about an hour late, which is understandible because he was driving from Lawrence to OP. However, he was very well spoken, had a sense of humor, and was really able to set our minds at ease. That's really all anyone wants in a Doctor. I would say our experience with him has been positive. I'll probably see him just that one more time, but that'll be a biggie!!!!

Just a quick update to say that DW and I had our Pre-Op appointment yesterday and it went really well. She still has a LOT of questions, but those were more questions about what she can cook and what to buy at the store. The doctor even told her to take all the chips and remove them from the house!!! (She didn't like that part...) But then we saw a flyer in the office that mentioned to take all the chips and put them on the highest floor of your house (we have a guest bedroom that depending on where you are in the house could be 2 full flights of stairs!) So she's going to try that. No WAY I'll want to go up there for chippies!!! Anyhoo, just waiting on the Anesthesa (sp?) Doc to clear me and I'm going to get it scheduled. If I can't do it this upcoming Friday because they're booked, then it'll have to push to the first Friday in October because of family commitments (he only does surgeries on Friday...) But still... great day!!! This is REALLY going to happen!!! (Plus, lost 8 pounds in 2 weeks just getting ready for this thing!!) :whoo:

I've always been on the fence about people who run to HR with their problems. I think it waters down those who have legitimate discrimination issues. However, I think you definately need to talk to someone at that company. Or at least start a documentation file on times you've felt discriminated against. To some, the selection of a shirt is the same and picking paper or plastic, but to us, it can be a life-altering event. You said it yourself that you'd consider LEAVING the company because of a shirt. That's discrimination by anyone's book. Regardless of where you work, I would think the owners wouldn't want qualified people who do their job every day leaving because of the actions of others (who are probably morons, at least that's my experience.) My wife came home all the time telling me about so and so who is getting picked on for this or that. Then, finally, they got around to her. Her decision was to quit, which actually was for a lot of other good reasons, but it's just sad that morons win with this stuff. HR CAN do things to help. Even if you do end up quitting in a few months, at least you might take a couple of morons down with you!! If people focused on their jobs and not on jerking around other people, we wouldn't have the problems we have!!! ..just my $.02

This is a great post. Thanks for the giggles this morning. As those guys on the Blue Collar Comedy Tour say... "When life gives you lemons, make lemonade. Then find someone whose life has given them vodka, and have a party!" ...my sincerest condolances. I think it's clean Canadian drugs that you should've gotten instead of dirty Mexican drugs. You could tell your sister that it's all related to NAFTA in some way... or the result of Global Warming... People love the drama, don't they??

Wendell, This is a great post, thank you very much. You've really helped answer a lot of questions (or at least synchronized those answers with what I thought...) A couple other questions, if you please... Is it common to go on a diet during those first six weeks or even a couple of weeks before, just so you get a "running start" at the weight loss, or is it a lost cause to try? I, personally, am a stress eater. I'm guessing that having a post-op lifestyle will still have its share of stress. How is the best way to handle that in the first six weeks after being banded? Thanks again for your post.

Only a few more days before my pre-op meeting and I've already started to feel better after about 1 1/2 weeks of drinking lots of Water and (kindof) watching what I eat. Now, to some, the following might seem like a practice in abject humiliation, but you've really got to understand how my mind thinks. Can I get some help from the lapbanders out there to help me choose my "Before" picture? There weren't a lot to choose from, but I think the three finalists are pretty worthy. See the finalists and leave a comment to vote: Kamler's Space: Choose my &quot;Before&quot; Picture Thanks!!!:eek:

My 4 year old actually took that picture. Funny, that's how my 4 year old sees me every day! If that isn't motivation then I don't know what is!!!