Finding_Stacy

Congratulations!

Oh, I wanted Dr. Prachand but didn't want to wait an extra month for him. So, Dr. Zachary is the plastic surgeon who Dr. Alverdy said they refer to afterwards. I'm sure I'll be seeing him in a couple of years or so.

I'm sorry, I can't remember but did you say before surgery you were one week liquids or two?

Congratulations!

This is such great news and so encouraging. I'm happy you are doing so well!!

Oh, you are lucky. I live in Indiana but my surgery is in Chicago. Btw, I used to live in NY and my husband is from Queens. I went to school at Iona College. I really miss living there. I don't have an Instagram account. I'm going to soon since I've been making videos but I haven't posted those either. I'm a person who takes one or two photos of myself a year, so video is extremely scary for me. But once I get my Youtube going I'll have an Instagram account as well.

Oh, I just noticed that my surgery is a half hour before you. I have to be at the hospital at 5:30 and it's 45 minutes away. That means I have to wake up at 3 am to get showered and ready.

I do! Mine is my little ticker at the bottom of this post. 30 days to go!!!!

I don't know if you're asking me or someone else, but my bmi is 59. I will say that in the past I've never counted calories, only carbs. But now that I've been doing this Fitbit thing, I signed myself up for the most extreme weight loss plan they offer, and I'm still coming up with a 1900 calorie deficit a day. I can see this turning people, like myself, into anorexics. I constantly want to beat that number daily .

If it works, then that's all you can ask for, right? I'm not entirely on board with my doctor's plan. His version of low carb is 120 carbs a day. Maybe it works when calories are restricted to 700, which I believe they are after surgery. But for me now, and for the last ten years, I need to keep my net carbs under 20 to take off serious weight. I've lost almost 20 this past month alone and I eat regular food. In fact, I'm eating leftovers from last night for breakfast right now: Tikka Masala chicken with onions, red and green peppers. I still will do a shake when I'm running around, but usually I can make anything work, even McD. I'm old school Atkinsaholic.

Doctor's plan I suppose. My doctor has been doing bariatric surgery for over thirty years and teaches at University of Chicago, and is also the Chair of the Department. He doesn't require a liquid fast before or after anymore. Two weeks before he wants us on a low carb diet, like the one we'll be on after surgery. Right after surgery, after our stomachs are ready he said soft foods. I'm sure I'll get more info on April 17th when I have my preop class.

From the VSG vlogs on Youtube, they said immediate out of surgery. Look up Fighting400. He said his wife put one in his mouth as soon as he was in his room and he never had too much gas pain. I think that and walking a lot can ward off a lot of it.

Yes, oh and don't forget the Gas-X strips. We need to have the Gas-X strips. People swear by them who took them immediately out of surgery.

Don't forget, after all your testing is done and you're officially waiting for approval, you can call the insurance company to check on your status. Sometimes they will approve you, but take a day or two before sending something out. I'm too excited about getting a good amount of weight off by fall. It will be nice to go through a corn maze and not want to collapse twenty minutes in.

What insurance do you have? I have BC/BS of IL and my approval came within five hours. She submitted in the morning and by two she had an approval. Hopefully you'll hear something soon, if not today!! Fingers crossed for you

It's all happening so fast now. I hope recovery happens even faster.

All this proves is that you are human. The biggest lie you could tell yourself is that once you get this surgery, you'll never slip up. You will. We all will. What matters is how you handle it. I've been doing really well on my low carb diet for over three weeks. I lost twenty pounds, cruising along. Then cravings hit me on Monday and Tuesday of this week, causing me to go slightly off plan (thank God for fitbit and my calorie/carb tracker). Yes, I panicked. But, finally on Thursday I really stuck to my program and now I'm two days back on track...until my cruise next week. I still don't know how I'm going to handle that one. But, here's the thing. I know this will happen at some point after surgery. If you're anything like me, once I cheat, I'll feel like I blew the whole day so I'll eat whatever I want. This is something I really want to change about myself. What I need to work on is isolating the event to a period of the day, not the WHOLE day, week, month, or year. It's hard...damn hard. I think this is the single most important lesson we can learn through this process. Not stay away from crap forever, but learn to have it selectively without going all 'cookie monster' on it.

Only 2 hours left now...good luck!!!!

I have low Vitamin D, Thyroid, and Chromium. The only thing that effected my surgery scheduling (not insurance) was my thyroid. Doctor wants to see it in the 4 range and mine was 10.5. But as soon as I was accepted by insurance, they emailed me a ton of information and attachments in preparation for the surgery and afterwards. One of them was about my vitamins. It said as soon as I received the email to go ahead and start taking them right away. I will say the B Complex-50 has been a Godsend. If you feel sluggish and have a slow metabolism, that is the vitamin among all vitamins.

I think you and I are talking about two different things. Yes, there are dozens, if not hundreds, of things we can prepare for before the big day. We can change our diet and start exercising. We can start taking vitamins and research the crap out of protein shakes. There are numerous things, but I'm talking about the things we all read about, but can't truly grasp until we're in that situation. The reason being is because all our bodies are different. Why can some get down water and protein shakes two days out and some can't? That's not because they didn't prepare enough, there's a biological issue happening. It's those things that I'm talking about when I said I'm prepared as can be for my surgery. Also, generalizations are the crux to all arguments. Since I didn't have a wait time, but still managed to lose 20 pounds in four weeks so far, with a month to go before my surgery, can I say "See? All people who have no wait are putting to use their knowledge beforehand." I can't, but neither can anyone who says no wait time equates to being ill prepared. Truth is, some are going to fail no matter what because it's an individual battle. If it were based on wait time, people would be gaining weight after the first month. Have you seen that? I haven't. What I keep seeing is that many plateau around the ninth-twelfth month and regain happens after the twenty-fourth month. It's hard to prove a lack of wait time was the reason to regain since years go by before that dreaded spike in weight happens. And the McDonalds thing I want to see. If that's true, maybe that was an anomaly, I don't know. I've never read anyone stopping by McD on their way home from the hospital. The stomach is so swollen I can't imagine anyone woofing down a Big Mac within forty-eight hours of surgery and I definitely think that would have zero to do with no mandated wait before surgery. That's an idiot problem, wait or no wait.

My personal feeling for insurance companies having a required 3, 6, 12, (and once upon a time) 24 month wait, is in hoping people will have second thoughts and not do it, therefore, saving them a crap load of money. As of 2014, my insurance company doesn't make patients wait anymore. I feel as prepared as I'm ever going to be. Will I still wonder how I'm going to get my protein and liquids down three days out? Yes, I probably will even though I read that this is a common worry straight out of surgery. Some things you just can't prepare for until you're in that situation. Truth is, many people who gained back their weight from bariatric surgery had their surgery years ago when all insurances required a wait. So, to me, those statistics are kind of dubious. For some people, you can make them wait two years, and still, three months after the surgery, they'll still post about how they were able to drink milkshakes instead of protein shakes. For some people, wait time does not equate to suddenly having common sense.

I'm April 24th too. I've been doing my low carb plan for the last three weeks on my own and have my pre-op class on April 17th, along with all my last appointments crammed on that day. I can't believe it's almost finally here! I'm more excited than scared, but still scared.

Yay!!! Congratulations and what a great quote!

Raynetta, did you try Gas-X strips? If not maybe someone can get some for you. I hear they help. I hope the pain phase will be over soon and the real journey begins!

Good luck, tomorrow!! I wish you a safe surgery and fast recovery and look forward to hearing how it went. Congratulations on beginning the journey to the new you