ZackAttack1

I was sleeved a week ago yesterday, and my steristrips are starting to fall off. Most of them look like normal incisions and are healing nicely. This one is my drainage incision and has a weird indention and looks like an open wound. It doesn’t hurt and isn’t leaking anything, so maybe it’s just stitched down under the skin, but seeing a gaping hole is very nerve racking. Is this something I should go in for, or is this type of incision normal for the drainage incision? Thank you!

Hi everyone. Need some serious reassurance. I’ve gone through my full program. I have been approved for surgery (the sleeve). I met with my surgeon yesterday and he was very blunt. I’m one of the highest risk people he’s willing to operate on. I hit 4 out of 5 factors that put me into a high risk. BMI, prehypertension, sleep apnea, and one other I don’t remember. The only one I’m not hitting is age. I will also need to take injections for 28 days of a blood thinner because my clotting risk is so high. He seriously freaked me out. He said while he was still comfortable operating, he was not confident there would be no issues and needed me to be aware that there are incredibly serious risks for someone like me. I’m 35, 6’3”, CW is 497. I’ve lost nearly 50 pounds in the past few months and am continuing to lose on my current diet. I’m having serious second thoughts. I need someone, anyone, who can help talk me through this. Maybe someone who also was considered high risk and went through with it? Please and thank you!

Thank you everyone so much for the feedback so far. So may things I hadn't thought about. @Dave In Houstonthanks for the info. My hospital has a surgeon on call 24/7 so they said I could call anytime if anything didn't feel right. Would definitely take advantage of that.

He's the head of surgery at my hospital, and I was actually warned ahead of time by his PA that he is very blunt and honest, but that he is a damn good surgeon. I did ask him what I could do to reduce the risk factors, and he said it was really too late. The most I could do was continue to lose as much as possible before surgery. I think at my current rate of loss, plus the all liquid diet for the week prior, I could lose a bunch before surgery. He told me the biggest concern is the blood clots. Obviously that is on me to walk a lot and do my injections--which I plan to do. I can try to speak with him again, but knowing his attitude I'm not sure he would offer me much more. He was blunt, went over the risks, and that if I took the bell curve of all the risks, me being in a high risk category would automatically shift me over to the right. He said he couldn't get more into it because he doesn't see people as "risky" as me very often. He's been doing this a long time. I trust his expertise. But hearing he's lost people is just incredibly scary.

Wow, amazing feedback so far everyone. Thank you. I know surgery can never be risk free. I've been under before so I know I won't have issues with that, but it's all the other possible issues. It's nice hearing from all of you, especially knowing you had a lot of the same "high risk factors" as I do. I'm feeling a lot better about proceeding. Part of me still wants to call it off. But I don't want my decision made based upon fear.