CapGal26

I'm a middle school teacher and I'm hoping to schedule my sleeve surgery for mid-July, after I finish working summer school. If I can get it scheduled at that time, it would give me a total of about 4 weeks until the first day back to school. I'm just wondering if there are any other teachers out there who had the procedure done in the summer, and if so, how did you feel (physically) going back to school? Most of the other "back to work" posts I've read are about going back to desk jobs, which is very different from the demands of teaching all day. About me: I'm on the lower end of the qualifying BMI spectrum (35) and 34 years old, otherwise in pretty solid health. I've been sticking to the pre-op diet religiously and exercising every day in the hopes to give myself the smoothest, must successful chances at surgery and recovery.

Thanks for the advice!! Sorry that happened and that you've been struggling. I am kind of a control freak, so I have been sticking exactly to the diet and recording all of it in a daily log (with weights/amounts of food) , except that I've eliminated the starches at breakfast and lunch. Are you just struggling to keep to the diet, or to write it down the way he wanted? I've found a routine with the diet that works pretty well, let me know if I can be supportive at all. The diet is working amazingly well for me... in the 2 and a half weeks since orientation, I've lost 11 pounds. Hopefully what I have written will work! I'm really hoping to get the psych eval done so that I can schedule a mid-July surgery date.

Hey friends, how's your progress going? I met with Dr. Mostaedi yesterday and he gave me the go-ahead for surgery. Now I just have to try and get an appointment with Dr. Z... the next one they had available was June 25th. :/ So I just have to call every day and see if there's a cancellation. Really hoping to get that done so I can get a surgery date scheduled for this summer!

I'm the same! I had my orientation at Kaiser a little over 2 weeks ago, where they told us to start on the pre-op diet. I had a BMI of 35 -- I'm 5'4" with a SW of 215. I've already lost 12 pounds, which drops me down to a BMI of 34. I have my first meeting with the surgeon tomorrow... I'm hoping to schedule surgery for July. If I keep up the weigh loss, I have to imagine I'll be at least at a 33 by then. Thankfully, I'm told that Kaiser goes by the orientation weight, so it shouldn't matter. If anything, I want my body to be as healthy as possible by the time I have surgery in order to reduce complications. But I'll also see what the surgeon says tomorrow when I meet him!

Hey, so glad to have an educator friend who has a similar situation to mine! Kaiser has a very clear pre-op diet that everyone is supposed to follow, and I've been sticking to it pretty religiously. If you'd like, I can take pictures of those pages of the binder! Basically it is: - No alcohol - No caffeine - No carbonated drinks - Breakfast: roughly 3 oz. protein, eaten first. Then fruit and a starch and fat. (There are very specific serving sizes depending on what food you're eating.) - Lunch & dinner: roughly 3 oz. protein, eaten first. Then veggies and a starch and fat. (Again, serving sizes in the binder. The result is that you're consuming roughly 1200 calories per day. No snacking allowed -- they really impressed upon us that the people who struggle to lose weight (or gain weight) after surgery are the people who snack. Happy to take pictures of the serving sizes for you if you want! It's basically my bible right now. I just went to the orientation a week ago and I've lost about 5 pounds already.

Wow, holy crap, that's so impressive! Thanks to everyone who responded. You all are making me feel a lot better about this.

Thanks for that info! I'm looking forward to meeting him. I would imagine that if you have been keeping a food log and can show what you've done to make progress toward your goal, they'll be happy with that, but obviously that's just speculation on my part. Good luck! I bet you can definitely do it.

Hey! I just attended the orientation at Kaiser Richmond today. My next appointment is May 14th with Dr. Mostaedi.