gentylwind

I am paying myself and I could have had my band placed by next week (which would have been three weeks from consult to surgery). But yeah, insurance is a process requiring a LOT of patience. Congratulations on your new resolve and good luck!

Three weeks until I start my pre-op diet. I am really starting to get excited and optimistic....Nervous too....

You will be okay if you start now, but the low carb part is essential to shrink the liver.

Being fat is an excellent way to become invisible. I have done the same thing as you....had times when I lost massive weight and kept it off for extended periods of time. I always get nervous. Men start looking at me and not always courteously. Women start being threatened by me again and are actually less genuine in their interactions with me. Being fat makes you a nonentity in society and losing the weight makes you visible again as a person in many people's minds. I think your reaction is not unexpected, but you may wish to talk to someone about it. You don't want to trade food for shopping. :hug:

The dispute over patient care could be anything, but likely it is a screw up with scheduling your surgery...likely, the OR you were supposed to be in got booked for someone else, some other doctor, and your doctor is pissed. Wanting you to proceed as scheduled, he called the surgery center, who were able to accomodate him (and you) in the time frame that he committed to you for. He is trying to keep his commitment to YOU because the hospital probably messed something up. If he is implying he may not use the hospital at all any more for surgeries, it is possible to likely that the hospital itself has done this to him before and he is giving up his assigned surgery slots at the hospital in favor of utilizing the surgery center. This would explain why you cannot have it there tomorrow but could in two weeks. In other words, if you are set on having it at the hospital, he can do that for you, but it is not possible to do it tomorrow, because more likely than not this is a situation where the OR schedule got messed up. They do have to reserve operating rooms in advance and if that did not happen appropriately, you can't have your surgery tomorrow. If something like this did occur, you would likely be given a simplified explanation that comes down to "good patient care" issues rather than going into all the gory convoluted details of what it takes to schedule a surgery at a hospital and for all the pieces to fall into place just so. It could also be that the anesthesiologist is not available at the hospital but IS at the surgery center. All things that come down to patient care and that your doctor really has little control over. A surgery center is better equiped, more organized, perfectly capable of handling ANY surgical emergency and is far less likely to be an infectious risk. I am sorry you are frustrated. The surgery center really is a better choice all the way around even without this hiccup in plans. I wish you the best...let us know how you do!

I just got curious based on another person's post. This is really geared to those who had a two week liquids only diet for pre-op. I have to be on two weeks straight prior to surgery of nothing but Protein shakes, Water, crystal light, SF popsicles and SF Jello. I have been "practicing" the new behaviors and substituting shakes for some meals to start getting a feel for things. I am determined to do my full two weeks without cheating. This other person's post stated her doctor told her that the main reason for the pre-op diet was to kick start weight loss and that it was expected that everyone would cheat some.:laugh: I am curious...did any of you make it through the whole two weeks without cheating? I hope so...I would love to see that it is possible and have that encouragement. If others did it, I know I can too.

It sounds to me like you need follow up with a bariatric surgeon desperately.

Dr. Veninga is an excellent doctor with a fantastic reputation. I am pretty sure the surgery center he wants to use is the same one that TLCEdge uses, as he does surgeries for them as well. It is the newest facility in the DFW metroplex and is state-of-the-art with the hospital a very short ambulance ride away if there were complications needing something a surgery center can't offer. Are you aware it is less risky to use a surgery center than a hospital in terms of infection risk and quality of care? I can understand your fear and frustration, but I would seek to assure you that Dr. Veninga has a great reputation and if the surgery center is one I am thinking of, it does as well...it specializes in bariatric surgeries and is even better equiped for your surgery than the hospital would be.

Don't know if they take Mexico bandsters or not but UTSW is under $150 for a fill even with flouro.

That would not be a "slip", that would be a choice. :laugh: If you don't think you can stick to the diet, call your doctor and find out if there are any alternatives. I am not looking forward to it either, but I am conditioning myself to view it as the first step in a long line of changes that I am going to have to make. I am practicing now by already not drinking while I eat, taking nickel sized bites and chewing 15-20 times. I have also had days when I did liquids only for some of my meals. I am just very determined I will NOT make foolish choices. One lady here came out of anesthesia to discover her band had not been placed...her liver was still too large to do the surgery. No way do I want that to happen to me. The counselor I went to said the top two causes of band failure are failing to stick to the pre and postop diets and failure to give up carbonated beverages.

noosagirl, I honestly think you are being abused from the sound of things, and that this guy is going to get worse, not better, as you start to change and improve. Be prepared for it and stick to your guns. You deserve to be who you are and not to have to shrink from the world due to someone who is supposed to be loving you tearing you down. Best of luck...everyone here wants to see you succeed.

At the very least, talkign about you in the hall is a legal violation of your right to privacy. And if it was someone ELSE you heard him talk about, it was a violation of theirs. You do need to speak up that you were unhappy with your experience. Not your fault he was rushed and late.

I was thinking the same thing when I read your post.

We are absolutely on the same page. I agree with you whole heartedly. This may belong in a different thread, as I am honestly not even referring the OP at this point as much as the overeating population in general. I just see a lot of people getting righteously angry as a way of keeping from having personal accountability, who seem to feel that kicking oneself and feeling terrible somehow equates to the equivalent of admitting a problem and doing something about it. I am as guilty as the next person obviously or I would not be here and would not be having this surgery. I have noticed that in feeling bad and beating myself up about my eating habits, I actually could in a sense give myself the impression that I was facing it and doing something about it and actually be doing nothing but harming my own self esteem and fueling my own desire to eat more because I feel bad....and then feel bad for eating more and beat myself up and then want to eat more for beating myself up...you get the picture. And then God forbid someone else mention there is a problem, because I am theoretically already aware of it and feel bad enough. Well, yeah, I am aware of it and feeling bad, but not letting that translate into palpable change and action. I used to laugh at myself...I would say "I'd give anything to be thin again!"..and then add the caveat in my head of "Well...except quit eating so much apparently". We all know we can't just quit eating so much and that our eating habits have affected the lives of those around us. I don't think the two are mutually exclusive. Yes, one would absolutely hope one's spouse would stick around, be supportive and loving and share in the excitement of a life getting healthier. But unlike prostate surgery, which is absolutely unchangable by any action of the man having it, I don't think it should come as a surprise that, like other addictions, if one waits too long to not only admit the problem but get help for it, it is in the meantime slowly eroding the relationship, that there can come a point that its too late and that does not equate to a character flaw or failure to honor vows...the addict ultimately chose not to get well. Nobody can blame the spouse of an alcoholic, drug addict or sex addict for being unable to continue to watch their spouse self destruct nor for emotion dying in the face of that addiction. I don't think it is right to degrade the character of the average person for being unable to stick around and watch a food addiction kill the person they have loved nor to degrade them for being absolutely NOT attracted to the results of a food addiction. Nobody tells the spouse of a drunk that its shallow of them to find them repulsive as they lay in their own vomit or are passed out with a bottle in their hand. That is all I am saying. Should that spouse be ugly, hateful, abusive and rude? No. Absolutely not. But its not wrong of them to be unable to live with it either. And that is frightening for us to face..that our actions against ourselves has not only affected ourselves. That we can indeed be responsible for the destruction of a relationship by our eating habits and we need to face it and get well before it is too late. The benefit here comes in taking responsibility. If I take responsibility, suddenly I am empowered to do something. If I just hang out, feel bad, bemoan that I can't stop eating bad things and too much and at times when I am not even hungry and I just don't know what to do etc etc etc...I am creating a helpless place for myself in which I have no accountability. Accountability = power. Power to change.

Oh I TOTALLY agree with you. No part of me thinks it is okay to treat anyone that way..its abusive and wrong. But at the same time, I think it is wrong to say the vows ought to be enough or that someone should be loved no matter how they look or have changed or affected the quality of life, sex or the relationship. Just playing the other side of that coin. Just because we feel bad about being fat doesn't mean we should not be held accountable. Most of the people I have known with an addiction feel terrible for how their addiction has interfered with their lives and the lives of those they love. Feeling bad does not negate responsibility.

Honestly ( and I don't think this particularly applies to the OP's husband as he obviously has addiction issues himself), I wonder how so many of us can consider our problem with food an addiction type of problem, yet fail to recognize that part of any addiction recovery is the acknowledgement of how our addiction has damaged and hurt the quality of life of those we love. This can come in the form of not being able to do the things we enjoy to robbing the people we love of a person who was once fun and vivacious or at least not as obsessive about food nor living a lie of shame. I don't think it should surprise anyone, male or female, that if we were a certian person when we met them and then ceased to even resemble that person, emotionally and physically to expect their feelings for us to remain the same no matter what. We have a responsibility here, as we did this to ourselves and to fail to take responsibility for that fact whether a relationship survives this transformation or not is to fail to take the opportunity for growth and a failure to bury for good one of the excuses we gave ourselves in the first place. It is patentedly unfair to cry "Unfair!" about this. People love to say "But what about the vows?!". Well, aren't the vows valuable both ways? Nobody says that in the case of alcoholism or sex addiction or drug abuse or even anorexia. Why would it apply only for overeating/food addiction? I think part of keeping our own vows is keeping ourselves as someone who they can be attracted to and someone who CARES about themselves. I think every person here who is doing something about their weight is making a very lovable statement about themselves. But I wonder how many have actually apologized to their spouses for letting themselves get that way in the first place?

It is not legal and you can complain to Tricare. If he agreed to accept Tricare, he agreed to their payment schedule and is NOT allowed BY LAW to charge you the difference. Report him. Then find a different surgeon.

It could have nothing to do with the diet. You should see your doctor...could be thyroid, could be you are headed toward menopause (depending on your age of course), could be an infectious disease, could be blood sugar issues. Call your doc.

Yes, he knows. :biggrin: Its all good.

His behavior is deplorable. I do, however, agree with IM_LORI. There are a lot of things that go along with depression and obesity that have as much to do with personality as physicality. And if we gain an insane amount of weight after marriage and still expect them to feel the same about us when we don't even resemble that person, physically or emotionally, I think we are to a degree refusing to take our own portion of responsibility for what is happening in the relationship and being unfair. I see nothing wrong with holding one's mate to a standard of good health. I DO, however, see EVERYTHING wrong with cruelty and abuse. You need support right now, not to be torn down.

I was told sugar is definitely NOT allowed. Sugar gets converted to glucose, which gets converted into glycogen and is stored in the liver. The whole point is to deplete the liver of glycogen and fat so that it will shrink. I was told anything clear, liquid and sugar free plus the protien shakes. Nothing else.

Probably. There are plenty of people who have lost well over 100 lbs with the lap band. You WILL, however, have to be very disciplined about what you eat for a very long time to do it and that is likely the root of his concern. Lap Band is not as automatic in the weight loss department as gastric bypass nor as fast. But this 50% statistic I keep seeing reported (as in, most people only lose 50% of the weight they need to) has not held true in my experience if you stick to your new way of eating and don't try to eat around the band. If you want the band, find another surgeon.

I don't have a clear liquid phase. I have the pre-op phase which is just like lilmissband and then postop I am full liquid after 24 hours and for the next two weeks. Full liquid is all lilmissband listed and also plain fat free yogurt and fat free yogurt smoothies.

6 protein shakes a day, my choice of which ones. Unlimited clear fat free broth. Unlimited crystal light. Unlimited SF jello. All for two weeks prior to the surgery. One day of clear liquids after the surgery, then two weeks of full liquids, then two more weeks of mushies, then two more weeks of soft foods. Then first fill and back to liquids for a few days.

Recipezaar has recipes for low carb pizza soup in the crock pot.