anaxila

@@MisforMimi, I'm so excited for you! It looks like you've got everything in order and just the right attitude. I also strayed on my pre-op diet and guess what? The sky didn't fall! Time to move on.

@@amponder, I am not a violent person, but I would have been sorely tempted to punch your MIL in the face. I couldn't handle snide, b*tchy, and condescending all in one neat little package. And it's nice she had you there so she could show off her superior fitness to her friends. I think you showed remarkable restraint.

I tried to look you up myself, but couldn't find you under this screen name. I'm "anaxila" on mfp as well. If you want to connect there, please look me up. Cheers!

I did the exact same thing! Throughout the entire process (I'm 5 days post-op), I resisted the idea of setting a finish line goal for how much weight I wanted to lose. I finally knuckled under and picked a number (half my current size) so I could have a useful ticker in my sig here, but I don't really put any stock in that number or care if it's bigger or smaller. I'm just gonna follow the program and obey the rules and my body will know when it's done. But I did make a huge list of all the things I wanted to DO. Those are my real goals, and those are the ones I intend to Celebrate with abandon. The numbers are just numbers; I want a body that DOES things. Most of my goals are modest - cross my legs in a meeting, put on socks without rocking back and forth first - but some are big. I can't wait to snow ski again. Last time out I skied very conservatively because I knew if I fell I wouldn't be able to get back up, and that was probably 50 pounds ago. I miss roller coasters. And some of the goals are really big. I was in China last May and hate that I couldn't tackle the more challenging portion of the Great Wall because I was too out of shape. I'll probably never get back there again and I was too big to enjoy it. In April I am going to Peru and I *will* enjoy Machu Picchu without huffing and puffing like a great wild beast. That means 1000x times more to me than the numbers on a scale.

Oooooh, I hadn't thought of this option! I just got a Vitamix for Christmas and would love to make my own peanut butter! I'll have to check that out. Thanks for the idea!!

Congrats, @@Mark in Ohio! I didn't realize your surgery was so close! I had mine on 1/6. We're practically neighbors. How is it going? My first night back was really rough, but each day since has been a bit better than the last. Today I actually got all of my Protein and Water in. Woot!

@@chasing3, how is it going? I had surgery the same day. I've had some rough Patches for sure (Wednesday night home from the hospital was the worst), but I've been so grateful for a pretty smooth ride so far.

If you're approved by insurance, do not delay. You don't want to risk having to jump through all the same hoops a second time. How big is your company? If it's more than 50 people, they are required to provide you with a leave of absence for medical reasons under FMLA. If you work for a smaller company then it's a bit more of a negotiation, but if the surgery wasn't medically necessary you wouldn't be having it and your insurance wouldn't be paying for it. Just keep that in the forefront of your mind when you talk with your boss. There's a little bit of leeway on timing, but the fact is that the surgery has to happen for your health. Every surgeon is different about how much time they suggest you take off from work. Some people here will say that they went back to work in two weeks (or less!), but those are generally office jobs and they definitely report feeling run down by the end of the day. I am planning to take much longer than that (6-8 weeks), but I work at a large company with well-established medical leave policies and I am taking full advantage. I feel guilt about this because I just changed jobs within the company and am leaving a new team before I've established much of a relationship with them, but the timing couldn't be helped and I wasn't willing to delay. Hope this helps.

@, I don't know if the absence of the automated drug delivery system was a personal preference of my surgeon or if they're all like that, but I had to ask for meds to get them. They were super responsive and would let me choose the dosage and such based on how I was feeling, so it wasn't an issue. I think part of the reason was that they would give a variety of meds for different types of pain, whether there was a lot of nausea too, etc., so they wanted to know what exactly I was experiencing in order to make a suggestion how to manage it. I was also very nervous about pain management but it has not been a problem. I am five days post-op from RNY.

Every surgeon is different. If they haven't mentioned a 2-week liquid pre-op diet by now, then they don't expect you to be following one. Mine didn't have one, just a protein-heavy diet of 1300 calories for two weeks leading up to surgery. Some have more, some have less, but just do whatever yours says and you'll be fine. As for the final pre-op appointment, I think there's probably some variation there too. Mine involved a very detailed medical history with the surgeon's office, so be sure to have your facts. They did a general physical exam (temp, blood pressure, reflexes, lungs... the usual). They also did an electrocardiogram, took nine (!) vials of blood for various labs, and had me do the pee-in-a-cup routine for others. I then repeated a lot of the history stuff with the anesthesiologist, though he focused mostly on past surgeries, airways, mouth, etc., as you would expect. Finally, they gave me all of my final instructions before surgery, including providing these wipes for disinfecting my belly skin the night before and again the morning of. Hope this helps!

@@FindingSassy, you're like my twin! We're about the same age, about the same height, about the same weight, and had surgery two days apart. Go us! The only difference is how well you were seriously rocking the pre-op couture look.

That's crazy! How did everything go at work? Did you change positions (new site?) like you talked about was maybe gonna happen? My job change did happen. It's nice to work for a big company because "the company" (via HR) does all the handling of FMLA paperwork and LOA timing, but it's still hard on my little worker-bee work ethic is struggling with having taken a new job and immediately left it for 6-8 weeks. Can't be helped, but it's one more thing to feel guilty about.

@@pak65, every surgeon and team is different in their pre-op process. From having hung out here for a while, I think the most common pattern is to require a liquid diet in the two weeks leading up to surgery, but some require three weeks, some require two days, some require no changes at all. My surgeon doesn't do liquids at all, but restricted me to 1300 calories/day for two weeks leading up to surgery. If your surgeon & team aren't talking to you already about how to eat in the next two weeks, they clearly don't require you to do something special. It's worth asking at your next appointment if there are last-minute diet changes coming, but otherwise don't sweat it.

@@saj54539@yahoo.com, you have my sympathy. Like one poster on the other thread, I quit smoking after a bout of respiratory illness that prevented me from lighting up for a week. Since I'd made it through the "hard part" of the immediate withdrawal and was too sick to notice, I decided to keep it rolling and quit then and there. That was 10 years ago. I think all of us have terrible habits that are ingrained and very difficult to change. I'm not sure what hits the level of "addiction", but each of us as some big obstacles to overcome in getting ready for surgery and then taking care of ourselves afterward. My stress responses have been eating and shopping. I hate going to stores, but my husband can get a good sense of my stress level when the boxes from Amazon start piling up outside the door. It's only through this process that I have come to realize how much of an emotional eater I am. I thought I was eating crappy fast food and junk food because I was too busy to do otherwise, but in the past few months I've come to realize it's so much more than that. I feel immense pressure to eat when I am feeling sad and bored, but also when hit with feeling ashamed, angry, anxious, and the whole rest of it. One of the reasons that many of us consider starting (or increasing) counseling through this process is the awareness that we are all at risk for substituting one addiction or abuse for another. If you take away food, the emotional needs that are met by food need somewhere to go. There are lots of reasons why we all ended up where we are, and counseling can help with some of the gnarliest. Also, there's a book called "The Food & Feelings Workbook" with exercises that I've found helpful for dealing with these issues. Might be worth checking out. Hope this helps.

My weight was basically flat from the beginning of the 6-month supervised weight loss to the end. My surgeon asked me to lose 5% of my weight (for me, that was 15 pounds) to make surgery that much easier on both him and me. I didn't lose any of it until the last 2 weeks on the pre-op diet. I fought like crazy for that 15 pounds, and then they didn't even weigh me before surgery - lol. I believe some insurance companies may have specific weight loss targets for the 6-month cycle, but most do not. You should be able to call and check, but calling one's insurance company with a simple question never seems to be as easy as it ought to be. Mostly, they want you to go through the process and jump through the hoops so they can check all the boxes on their checklist. My surgeon said he'd had patients denied by their insurance for not losing enough weight ("she isn't serious about this") and others denied for losing too much ("she clearly doesn't need surgery if she can lose so much on her own"). In both cases he makes the appeal and he wins even if it means he needs to call and yell at them personally. I think getting yelled at by my surgeon would be a scary thing. He's rather fierce. Anyway, it wasn't an issue with me either way. My insurance was very fast with the approval the first time through. Hope this helps.

My understanding is the same as @wannaBthinsoon. My surgeon tests for tobacco products, and any at all in your system WILL cause the cancelation of your surgery. The book they gave me with their instructions does not specify how long you have to be tobacco-free before they will schedule you; they may have said it verbally, but since I had already quit I didn't note it down. I do recall him saying that if you can't break the tobacco habit, you have zero chance of being able to follow the instructions and requirements for recovery and care of your pouch for the rest of your life, which is why he has a hard line on this item. At some point, you will have to quit completely and stay quit for the rest of your life. Just like you will have to follow a severely restrictive "cold turkey" diet for a few days or weeks leading up to your surgery, and there are some foods and habits you will need to say good-bye to forever. These are not easy - not by any stretch - but that's why this site and others exist to help and support you through it. We've all been there, and it's miserable at first but gets better with practice. Hope this helps.

@, don't stress out about this requirement. Everything is adaptable to circumstance; your surgeon and team will help you with this. And just think about how amazing it will be when your body can keep up with your mind and walk all you like!

Is your co-worker a bariatric surgeon? If not, I'm not sure what makes him-or-her qualified to recommend one procedure over another for you. The only value of this comment is to give you practice on how to respond to well-intentioned but off-base comments from outsiders. I'm sure he-or-she means well, but that sort of thing is just supremely unhelpful.

Preach it, sister! LOL. Nicely said.

That we did! How are you doing today? I had a bit of a rough spot when I drank too fast, but that was 15 minutes of good education on what NOT to do. I was having lots of gas issues (gurgling, burbling, making funny noises), but the spouse went out for gas-x and I was a million times better almost immediately. This evening has been really great - making some food, doing dishes, feeling almost normal. The pain is always there, particularly when I inhale deeply, but I'm still able to do so much more than I would have guessed when I was a puddled up weepy mess on Wednesday night. My body's capacity for healing feels miraculous today.

Mine too. They said to spice the heck out of foods to make them interesting when your base meals are basically the same. My group even said not to worry about salting things, as I'd be eating so little volume that the usual concerns about sodium and high blood pressure wouldn't really be an issue. I'm 4-days post-op and my purees (chicken, chicken, chicken, and chicken) have a lot of variety.

I'm only 4 days post-op so I don't have anything to contribute to your question about what others have experienced. I can say that this is exactly the thing I think we're all at risk for in the first couple of months. If we lose focus for even an hour, our bellies will remind us that we live in a new world now and need to plan conservatively. I don't know that I would have remembered to pack a shake either, but I am so glad you could find what you needed from the Magic Google Machine. That was some quick thinking and quick acting, and you should be proud of how you handled it.

@@Crosby, I think you're already doing what you need to do, which is take a step back and think about why you're hesitating at this stage. I completely understand both #1 and #2, and can see why they would make it hard for you to sign up for this right now. I suggest putting one foot in front of the other. The whole situation will take care of itself if you just take it one step at a time. You won't be able to go in for surgery TOMORROW, so it doesn't matter that you're not yet ready TODAY. Just keep moving and it'll be there when you're ready.

That may be the most level-headed and generous description of a Grouch Pouch that I've heard. I love it!!

Yes, this is brilliant! We talk so much about the things we have to give up to be on this journey, but there are so many other things we've already given up as a consequence of our weight. Getting some of those things back (mobility, agility, health, energy) is worth everything new I have to give up, a thousand times over.