GoldnGirl6677

Hi there - just thought I'd check in since it's 14 May already! Hard to believe one month has passed :-) Yes I've had some downer days but grateful I've had mostly up days! My incision that was infected is now healing properly! Yay! Off to see surgeon and nutritionist today for my monthly check in and the anticipation of being able to move onto soft foods is exciting me just a tad :-) How have the rest of you been going? Update: Start preop diet + HW: 10 Mar 2014 410lbs (186.4kg) DoS: 14 Apr 2014 377lbs (171.2kg) Today: 14 May 2014 354lbs (160.6kg) Weight loss Preop: 56lbs (25.8kg) Postop: 23lbs (10.8kg)

My super took 2 weeks for Federal approval and 5 working days for QSuper approval! My Surgeon quoted $7500 + $1500 anaesthesia as an intermediate patient at PA Brisbane when I thought my insurance was not going to cover it. Not sure how long they will continue to do this for people. Anyhow I ended up having it done at Wesley as a private patient as Bupa gave me incorrect information about my coverage and I could go private. Good luck!

I found walking was absolutely the best, but also used dissolvable Dulce-Gas crystals from Terry White pharmacy probably other Chemists here on Oz too. They did help me during the night so I had one sachet 1 hour before bed. Saying that though I only used them for three nights.

Wow - well done, you are looking great. Keep up the positive progress. I was a similar starting weight and only 3 weeks + into my journey and need to see updates like these and those reminders to choose what I nourish my body with as I can only have little bits :-) so have to choose wisely! Thank you - inspirational

Well we will have you in our thoughts - so you have some long distance support x

Yes - JessM11, I oooked 1 small potato, 1/2 sweet potato and about two tablespoons of mixed carrots baby peas and broccoli. Then puréed it all with a small piece of steamed cod. About the consistency of runny potato mask by adding low fat milk. It made 6 meals LOL Good luck going onto purée! It's such a nice change - one step closer..... :-) Sounds like our waist incisions are similar - glad to hear yours is healing well.

My Dr said pre surgery that I would have 5 - but had to do six as my liver was still fatty so a very small sixth incision was required to help hold the liver up and out of the way.

My incisions are healing nicely and so much smaller now, except one that is right on the crease of my waistline! My surgery was 14 April. I am now on a second antibiotic as a second swab from within the wound showed a different bug to the first swab test - so that's why the first course wasn't working - the bug was resistant to it :-/. However it is starting to heal a bit better now and not feel so hot and pleased to report it's only about 1cm wide by 1cm deep now. So lucky it doesn't appear to have spread. Still can't wear anything on my waist for now and the other problem I'm having is wearing Bra! Maybe it's because I had the hiatal hernia done at the same time - it's a killer wearing anything firm across the centre under the breasts. I'm getting around it with a shape wear singlet ATM :-) Food: I'm lucky - I'm onto puréed food now, been having puréed casserole, bolognaise sauce, steamed fish with sweet potato and vege mash, even tried a scrambled egg this morning :-). My stick blender is getting a workout ( my Ninja is getting jealous ). I laugh so hard at the 1/4 cup servings - as I'm pretty sure that was the size of a taste test while I cooked these meals not all that long ago . Now that's a meal size and I'm full. Not big on sweets everyday but for those moments I made up a mixture of mashed banana, vanilla custard, no fat plain yoghurt and Nutella and whipped it up with stick blender and froze it in little portions - it's like chocolate banana gelato. My partner suggested adding a small amount of peanut butter to the next batch.

I just read this - so sad. Absolutely sending healing to the family.

I'm glad you will now have someone with you. - Best wishes and a speedy recovery :-)

Since post surgery I use cold processed natural whey protein from organically raised grass fed cows (no GM) made locally in Australia - Mirrabooka, not sure if it's available outside Australia. I have heard Protein 17 being used by another sleever on another site. Hope that helps :-)

Hi - I'd be interested in this thread. Great idea. We eat where we can organic fruit, vege and meat. I'm not at this point wanting to go vegetarian although some of our meals are - I try to balance it out alternating vegetarian, white meat, fish/seafood and red meat (pre op of course). I practice TM meditation - twice a day for twenty minutes each. I see a naturopath for health issues especially where I am not comfortable with the big Pharma solutions or should I say 'masking of symptoms'. I'd love to get back into Callinetics as I used to do this many moons ago and found I liked it better than yoga. I too want to be more consistent in my overall health and well being. Now I have a tool for assisting me with portion control I do believe I can do it - it would be nice to discuss and share from time to time too :-) Even 13 days post op my foods are organic drinking yoghurt, organic and non-organic Soups with home made chicken broth made from organic chickens. It hasn't been that much more expensive to shop organic considering my portion sizes are so much smaller it kind of balances out to what I would otherwise spend. I use coconut oil on my skin and for cooking - I haven't tried pulling with it yet. Have you?

Hey camper girl - Can't tell you what to do - but what I did was think about, what if I had a rough time coming out (not saying you will at all) who would be the best support person for me. I got down to my son, my partner and my Mum. I went with my Mum. I knew one person would be plenty and went with the person who could both deal with issues if they came up and also give me comfort. No serious complications for me thank goodness, but I was really happy to have her hold my hand and stroke my forehead and check nurses were looking after me ( my nurses were awesome) good to know someone of mine was there. Maybe I'm just a sook lol!

Hi Stars in my eyes - there a few threads that discuss a three week stall - maybe some of the responses there might be useful? I'm just over 1 week out so I have not experienced this yet. But from what I can recall reading there were quite a few who did have a stall at 3 weeks post Op Cheers

Hi and good luck KeeWee! May your surgery go perfectly and recovery swiftly :-)

Just at the start of my post op journey and starting to feel a lot less pain now, still have gas but getting more fluids in these last two days and I feel better on the days I get good walks in. My update so far: HW + Start 5 week Optifast: 10 Mar 2014 - 410lbs Day of Surgery: 14 Apr 2014 - 377lbs Weight today: 23 Apr 2014 - 366lbs Weight let go post op: 11lbs Total weight let go: 44lbs Feeling: a lot more positive about getting my sleeve :-)

It'll help the time pass and I bet you'll be grateful to have something to take your mind off it - keep busy and good luck!

Good luck! See you on the other side :-). All the best for your operation and recovery.

Hey Mokamami! We were sleeved on the same day and although we have had different surgeons it might be worth chatting to your dietician/nutritionist or surgeon about moving onto free fluids. I was clear fluids for two days (broth, Water, like you are now) but then I could have free fluids, wich is basically fluids the consistency of milk (drinking yoghurt, Protein shakes, soups without meat blended with broth to make them thin and add some instant bene protein for extra protein in my shakes or juice etc) it's worthwhile asking the question. My Dr said this was to allow me to get the protein my body needs to be healthy at this time. Week two I go to slightly thicker puréed foods then two weeks after that the mushie foods. We all are different and maybe your body is ready or needs a bit more- I'm only a fellow sleever nit your Dr - but no harm asking. So glad to hear you are doing so well on the healing side. My head is still a bit emotional about it all but I'm very happy I did it :-)

Hey everybody! So glad to see your updates - we did it! So sending positive thought for those to follow. My update: I was reborn as a my new sleeved self at 3:15pm on 14 April! Dr did the hiatal hernia at the same time so that combined with a still fatty liver made my operation just over 2:15hrs long. I was scheduled for 2pm surgery but when I checked in they said I'd go in at 1pm instead. Yep. I sooked like a champion waiting on the bed but some Drs in training and the theatre staff calmed me down. My surgeon said the operation went really well :-) Recovery room however was another story - 1 and a half hours for them to get my pain low enough on a scale of 1 - 10 before they would transfer me to the ward. But we got there. It was hell for me not sure how you some of the others managed, your pain tolerances must be high. I can honestly say at that point I wondered what the hell I had chosen to do to myself..... Right at that point I had real regret. And that regret has now waned every hour since day 2.... Could not fault the nursing staff @ the Wesley - magnificent care in there. Only gripe was after the first night they left me in the room right by the nurses station which was soooo noisy. No sleep anytime of night or day unless knocked out with morphine then only an hour or so at a time. They moved me to another room for my last night though - that was awesome. A lady had the same hernia and sleeve operation as me and with Dr Martin (hers was before mine) wow - what a trooper - she was up off the bed going to the loo by herself during the first night and went home at 11:30am the next day! sleeve star - so happy for her. I ended up staying in for 3 nights due to inability to get enough fluids in. Everyone is just so different. The barium aniseed swallow wasn't too bad - a bit hard to get down but I didn't heave - had a 5minute delay from oesophagus to sleeve - but for day two Dr was happy with this and mainly due to hernia repair. What I would recommend: - Heat packs for shoulders for gas pain nurses bring these whenever you need - adult cegas fast dissolving crystals (no Water required) to get gas moving; first two days teaspoon sized water swallows anymore for me created air trap pain as the entry to my stomach was so swollen and narrow; - Dipping my spoon into free fluids and licking or just sucking off the liquid rather than small measure in the spoon - I found I could get more down taking it this way and less painful; - Asking for liquid pain relief rather than tablets when the injections stop; - sublingual anti nausea tablets dissolved really quickly under the tongue too; -Hydrolyte pops - only half at a time but helps if you are dehydrating when drip is removed - Walking every couple if hours was most helpful of all; - Packing 'just in case' feminine hygiene supplies - I was not due for 12 days but hey - day3 post op saw me having an earlier period :-/ Well that's me for now - I'll be stalking you posts and updating in a few days. Thanks for all you thoughts and well wishes. Get well and onto losses everyone!

Well it's 6:42am on the 14th of April 2014. Today is the day the I get sleeved and so do some of our other April VSG/Bypass/Band mates. Good luck to you all! For everyone in our April group I'm wishing you all smooth operations if you haven't them and speedy recoveries to all. Just in case I can't get back on here for a while. Having my last shake and blood pressure meds then only water until 11am; hospital at 12pm; surgery at 2pm and recovery still 4pm. Our new selves are born today. :-) Still feeling a little anxious but pretty darn excited right now - I'll be typing at you all again soon :-)

Last sleep! Check in tomorrow 14ers!

I'm not there yet but I too was told to start when I'm on puréed diet. However it was recommended I take liquid multi vitamin. I have at the moment pre-op in juice and it's tropical flavour. It also has extras like biotin and b12 eye for hair skin and nails that I hope help alleviate hair loss and assist my skin. This is the one I was recommended http://www.mylifespace.com.au/liquid-vitamins-men-women-australia/best-womens-liquid-multivitamin/ - maybe you have something similar in the US?

Wow Mistysj :-) 6 whole dress sizes in less than year! Congratulations. Thanks for the heads up about the different stages if how you look and that it all evens out - I hadn't read about that anywhere else but it makes sense. I've a lot to lose and my pre-op I've lost about 14kg and YES all in my face lol Nice to know someone else who has gone through the Wesley - I'll be in the table birthing my new self at 2pm tomorrow - and ready as I'll ever be. My anaesthetist called me yesterday and it made me feel better about the surgery. Ithanks and again CONGRATULATIONS!

Yup - Brisbane!