anaxila

@@hcruce, I went through exactly the same experience. I knew it was the right thing and I never got close to actually backing out, but the closer the surgery got the more frequently I would experience waves of panic. The unknown is very scary, and there's so much unknown about each individual's experience even though we know in general where the journey will take us. Don't ignore your fear. Live with it, explore it, study it. Try to figure it out. I, for one, had a lifelong habit of dealing with anxiety and emotional discomfort by eating, so taking that away in the run-up to surgery was extra stressful. And the times I went off the reservation with eating, it was always triggered by some new anxiety or shame about the upcoming surgery. It's absolutely worth it. YOU are absolutely worth it. Don't ignore the fear, but don't let it take your eye off the ball either.

I don't know the origins of this particular pearl of wisdom, but I find it helpful: "Forgive others not because they deserve forgiveness, but because you deserve peace." It's in line with the Tony Robbins wisdom: "Forgiveness is a gift you give yourself." And another related idea, this one usually misattributed to Buddha: "Holding on to anger is like drinking poison and expecting the other person to die". They all get at the same thought - forgiveness and letting go are crucial to your own healing. I don't know how you do it, you just... do. I remember being amazed that a good friend was able to forgive her father for sexually abusing her as a child, to the point where they could have a relationship to benefit her mother in her final days. I am still astonished at her capacity for forgiveness, and was ashamed to acknowledge that I was hanging on to petty grievances on nowhere near that scale. I don't know how she did it, but I know she felt it was necessary to get past it in order to continue forward. There are some good books on this topic that might help if there are particular actions you're having trouble forgiving. I know it takes practice and commitment, just like any hard thing.

@@Tina140, I'm sorry you feel stuck between your surgeon and your husband. It might be worth exploring some with your husband why he feels sleeve is a safer or more conservative choice. To me, something's just not adding up there. For example, bypass has a much longer history and much more research surrounding it. In fact, it's not uncommon for insurance companies to decline requests for sleeve and support bypass because it is so much better understood. To be honest, the sleeve was very appealing to me when I first started this journey, and I was not at all happy that my surgeon recommended bypass instead. I came around eventually and now believe it was 100% the right choice. But it's important to get yourself educated on all sides and make the right call for you. Ask your husband to reserve judgment until you both get more information.

My starting weight was 300, comorbidities include sleep apnea, diabetes, high blood pressure, and high cholesterol. My insurance submission included 6 months of documented physician-supervised weight loss (during which I lost nothing at all), summary of psych eval, 5 years of weight history, lab results, surgeon's recommendation, and letter of support from my primary doc. Insurance accepted on the first pass, no questions asked. Hope this helps!

@@southernbrat, to figure out what to expect, just do what you're doing. Hang out here, read, research, talk to people who've had it done, etc. The biggest help for me was a book called "Obesity Surgery: Stories of Altered Lives" by Marta Meena and Lindsey Ricciardi. It's available on Kindle, which is how I read it; I'm not sure how easy it is to find in stores as it's a few years old (published 2008). The authors conducted in-depth interviews with 33 people who had RNY and told their stories throughout the book. Some of the interviewees were 10 years out from surgery, while others were just 6 months out. It was not all sunshine and roses, but reading and understanding their journeys was a huge help to me in deciding to take that big leap myself. Good luck!

I was pretty useless the first night of surgery. My husband was on hand to look after me in general, but I wasn't much use for company or conversation. My surgery was later in the day; I didn't go under until 130pm, and wasn't out of recovery and into my room until almost 7pm. The whole night was a blur and I didn't feel up to even taking my first walk until the following morning.

@@Laurac727, it went well. According to the surgeon, everything went exactly as planned, textbook surgery beginning to end. I was pretty wrecked the whole first day, but was up for my first walk at 7am the following morning and got better throughout the day. I went home from the hospital exactly as planned, after dinner the day following surgery. Things at home the first night were definitely the roughest part so far, and not by a little. The ride home from the hospital was terribly painful - I felt like I was being jostled by every pebble we drove over - and getting up in the middle of the night to use the bathroom and re-up on pain meds nearly did me in. It was very difficult to get in and out of a normal bed and I was very emotional from lack of sleep, discomfort, and general dislike of being sick. Today was my first full day at home, and it's been amazing to see myself feeling so much better so quickly. They sent me home with super-powerful meds (liquid Oxy), and with the amount of money I spent on them I plan to get my money's worth. Still, I found myself going 7 hours between doses today (instead of 4 as instructed) and didn't feel terrible. Each dose knocks me out for at least an hour, so there's been a lot of napping going on. The scariest part has been how hard it is to get in my Water and Protein. The meds knocked me out pretty hard, so I spent 6 hours of the day in various naps. But while I was awake and trying to stay on top of my intake, I only managed to get in 19 oz of water and 18g of protein all day. I'm going to have to see what I can do about that tomorrow. I won't be able to heal at a decent rate with that level of intake and 140 calories in a whole day.

Someone somewhere on one of these preparation threads recommended packing a pillow to clutch to your belly in the car for the ride home from the hospital. I did not take this advice and I deeply regretted it. I have a brand new car with a smooth ride, but I still felt like I could feel every single pebble we drove over. By the time the 30-minute ride home from the hospital was done, I was gasping and whimpering and trying not to cry like a big baby. So, yeah... pack a pillow. Maybe you won't be as big a baby as me, but if you are then you'll be grateful for it.

My original plan was sleeve and I was not happy with the surgeon's recommendation for bypass. I liked the simplicity of the sleeve and the lack of rewiring. But the more I researched the surgeries, the more I realized that bypass was totally the right call for me, and I'm very happy with my choice. My reasons were: 1) Complete remission of diabetes is more likely with bypass. 2) Greater overall weight loss. 3) Malabsorption and rebalancing of gut hormones from the bypass makes the process easier. 4) Longer more established history and research Hope this helps!

I take Celebrate Multivitamins so far. They specialize in bariatric supplements, but I'm still waiting on instructions for more supplements after I'm further out from surgery. You can order a sample pack on their website (http://www.celebratevitamins.com/) to see how you like the taste before you go all-in. The sample pack contains pretty much every product they make, but you can also request something specific in the comments box if you need it.

I had RNY, and I have five incisions: four in a row and one above. I just had surgery this week so I haven't seen the size of each incision, but I expect they will be nice complements to the incisions from gall bladder removal in 2012. Those are still visible 3 years after surgery, so I expect mine will never completely disappear but they're not too noticeable.

@@aelovelady, I'm blown away by your report that you had little to no pain and no painkillers. That has not been my experience at all. I had surgery on Tuesday and I'm taking both chewable Tylenol and liquid oxycodone. Last night was my first night home, and I can't imagine how I would have gotten through it without meds. Even with a full dose of liquid oxy I was still whimpering and crying when I had to get out of bed in the night to use the bathroom. If I owned I recliner, I totally would have slept in it. I have a very tall bed and a big cushy pillow-top mattress, and getting in/out was very difficult for the first day. I've been home for 24 hours now and am finding it much easier to get in and out of bed, but the first night was really rough. @@MisforMimi, I don't want to freak you out or anything with this. I may just have a weak pain tolerance or just had a rougher time for other reasons. Even so, the really bad part was just a few hours and I'm amazed how much better I feel already.

I did get discharged last night about 7pm, and the first night home was really rough. Definitely the worst so far. But I'm up and around and doing well this morning, and at least I finally got some sleep.

Good for you, surgery buddy! Today has been a lot of ups and downs but it looks like I'll be able to go home tonight after dinner. So excited to sleep in my own bed!

@@mdnitschke, I love that you "essentially borrowed the money for the surgery from HDFS" and got a new bike to boot! That's awesome! It's got to be hard to downsize from an Ultra, but the Deluxe is a great bike. I'm on a 2014 Switchback right now, but I've got my eye on a 2015 Softail Deluxe this coming Spring! I trade mine in every year (I work for HDMC), and I've been camped out in the Dyna family for 5 years. I mostly just use it for commuting and day trips, so the Dynas have been good to me. Still, I am looking forward to being able to handle a bigger bike and longer trips. Congratulations on the new jacket! I hadn't considered that there will be all new riding gear in my future.

After over a year of warming up, I am finally nine days from surgery. And now, for the first time in nearly a decade, I have developed a UTI (bladder infection). I'm fresh home from the weekend walk-in clinic with a 3-day course of antibiotics in hand that should clear it up. But even the thought that this might turn out to be a major infection or resistant to antibiotics, and they cancel my surgery because of a stupid bladder infection, is enough to make me lose my mind.

I'm anaxila on mfp, same as here. I am having RNY on 1/6 and am so excited I can hardly stand it!

@@MisforMimi, sounds like we have the same setup - fitbit flex (waiting on the charge HR too) for steps and reminders, aria scale, mfp for nutrition tracking.... but I not familiar with Bodybot. I just searched the app store and couldn't find it. Is it IOS or Android?

Man, the things I learn on this board.... I had no idea, but am fascinated. I just discovered waxing about a year ago (eyebrows only!), and I'm clearly far behind the times.

I just wish the app icon didn't have a big DONUT on it. I mean, seriously... a donut? Really? I tell myself it's a bagel, but with my carb addiction that doesn't make it better. The app is very helpful and easy to use, and I hope they get enough good feedback to hire a nice graphic designer on the next version!

I had all of my pre-surgery appointments on Monday; the last steps in the process before surgery next Tuesday morning. In addition to these appts I had to do a bone scan, but that was last week. On Monday, I met with the surgeon's PA and the head nurse of the program, as well as the anesthesiology team. In addition to the usual height / weight / temp / blood pressure / heart rate, they took very detailed medical history, four vials of blood for all manner of screenings, plus a urine sample and an EKG. The anesthesiology folks reviewed all my meds and gave instructions for which to stop taking, when, and which to keep using. They gave me special pre-op skin wipes to use the night before and morning of surgery, and lots of instructions of where to go and what to expect. There was also a quiz on the content of the pre-surgery class I took last week, which I thought was kind of funny. That was it for me for post-approval / pre-op work. Now I'm just marking time until Tuesday morning!

@@MarylandCrab, I had a ton of difficulty getting started, and don't have a lot of weight loss to show for my 6 months of appointments with the nutritionist. My surgery is next Tuesday (OMG!), and it's only with the pre-surgery diet that I'm actually dropping any real weight. But I very gradually changed all of the habits that were going to be trouble after surgery. I found a nutritionist I like a lot and was able to be completely honest with her, and she helped me to change little things here and there over time. Mostly, I focused on substitutions. For example, my worst habits were around eating out, particularly fast food. So I started with cutting down drive-thru visits for Breakfast, and once they were gone started in on other meals. Then I started bringing a brown bag lunch one day to work, then two, then three, etc. One of my biggest barriers is "all or nothing" thinking. Such as, "I don't have time to make homemade whole food fancy whatsis, so I guess I'll just have to eat this bacon cheeseburger here." Even grabbing a crappy frozen meal from the freezer was better than drive-thru, even though they were nutritionally not that different, because it was the habit I was trying most to break. Caffeine is (was!) a huge deal for me, in both Diet Coke and coffee forms. So I tackled them one at a time. I substituted Diet Pepsi (blech!) for Diet Coke and that cut down my consumption. Then I switched to Diet Sierra Mist (which is caffeine free), and then eventually tackled coffee at the end. They key for me was gradual changes. I knew I wasn't going to succeed in going "cold turkey" off everything at once. I've tried that many times in my life, and maintaining for 6 months on willpower alone is nearly impossible. I don't know if any of this will resonate with you, but that's what it was for me. Hope this helps.

I am 7 days into the pre-op diet, and it's definitely gotten easier the past couple of days. It was rough at first, but now I'm suddenly halfway there and it's smooth sailing. My doc also encourages popsicles. So there's that. Hang in there. It gets better!

My experience was just like @maggie0210. The people staffed by the bariatric surgery program took care of everything. They made all the contacts with the insurance company, kept track of what was done / undone, and submitted everything for me. All I had to do was get my PCP to write a letter of support for the file and fax it over to the program to include in the packet.

Mine took about 2.5 weeks. I was advised to expect about 2 weeks, but the Thanksgiving holiday put them a bit behind schedule. Longest 2.5 weeks of my life. As for time off work, it really depends on the size of your company and your benefits plan. If your company has more than 50 employees, you are entitled to FMLA leave that should take the begging / pleading for time off out of the picture. Likewise, if your benefits package includes short-term disability that would also be something to look into. Good luck!