SpideyMom

That's really cool! I want one of those cards also! (I also want to go to a Chinese buffet right about now....... lol)

Welcome, everyone!! Glad to have you here with the Mayo Banditos! I know we're all getting anxious as our surgeries approach... mine is in 4 days! Here is a link to the Mayo Banditos forum. I bookmarked it to make it easy to find all our threads: May 09 Bandsters - Lap Band Surgery and Lap Band Discussion Forum Cheers!:smile:

Great to hear from you, Doug. Glad it all went so well! :thumbdown: That's funny you told the nurses to stop their small talk and get down to business -- you really wanted that operation! Your story puts my mind at ease about the pain afterward. Thanks for coming on the board so quickly and letting us know how it went. Hope it all continues to go just as well!

Oh, thank you, everyone for your kind words of encouragement! :thumbdown: I did find that blending the SlimFast with ice, some milk, and a scoop of unjury chocolate powder makes it taste better. Melissa, thank you for telling me that your doctor said this is the hardest part of the diet. That gives me hope in a weird kinda way. I'm going to the mall with my friend today, to get some walking in. That will help keep my mind off of things. Thanks again for the suggestions and support. You all are the greatest!!!

HELP! HELP! HELP! :wink::sad: I'm on day three of my pre-op diet and I feel like I'll never make it for another 4 1/2 days! My diet is 6 cans of SlimFast a day, nothing else but Water, and I'm about to vomit at the thought of drinking another SlimFast!!! I've reread this thread with all the encouraging words (including mine) to gather some strength, but I'm seriously feeling ill. I've been "cheating" by not drinking all 6 drinks, but then I'm starving and exhausted and headachey all day. Last night I had a cup of unjury chicken Soup, which helped because the texture is so different and I got something salty to taste. But do you think that's okay to do? Unjury actually has half the calories, zero fat, and twice the Protein than the Slim Fast can, so I figured it couldn't really hurt that it wasn't "Slim Fast" brand. (However, it did have twice the sodium as SF.) I used to think the SF drinks were okay, until I had to drink six a day!! Any suggestions or thoughts are greatly appreciated!!! TIA!

I felt like you, Hallelujah, ah, do I really want to do this?? But all of my wonderful family and friends whom I've told are all so supportive and being great cheerleaders, which is exactly why I chose to tell those particular people. I knew they'd be there for me! As far as the preop diet, I think most doctors put everyone on a diet of some sort or the other. Hallelujah's is the only doc that I have heard of who doesn't require one. I also carry most of my weight in my hips and thighs (classic pear), but I still have a preop diet. My surgeon told me he gives the same preop to all his patients -- one week of Slim Fast. (yuck)

You don't have to crush the BCPs. They are definitely small enough. I was really surprised at how big of a pill the doc said could be swallowed. Pretty much anything that is a gel capsule (the kind that can be separated) can be swallowed, he said, because it will slide down easily and dissolve easily. Anything smaller than an aspirin (approximately) should be fine, also. If it is the size of an aspirin or bigger, you should cut it into halves or quarters. He didn't think that many pills really had to be crushed per se. He thought cutting into pieces was sufficient, unless they were already small enough (like your BCPs). I personally think it will be easier to swallow the pills rather than crush and mix into applesauce, etc. Hope that helps!

My sister has a long history of eating disorders, and I haven't told her yet that I am going to be banded. She is always competitive, even when there is NO competition. Case in point -- my weight vs. hers. I have always been overweight. She's always been thin. But, sometimes when I have been able to lose weight, she tries to sabatoge my efforts because she's jealous (with no reason at all) and it has caused her eating disorders to get worse. So, I haven't told her about my surgery yet. But I want to because I love her. Has *anyone* out there had to deal with a situation like this? If so, how did your relative/friend react when you told them or they found out about your WLS? Were they jealous, supportive, did they try to sabatoge your diet? Did it trigger a relapse for them? Any suggestions for how to tell her? Any advice is appreciated. TIA! :thumbup:

Good luck to both of you! I know you must be terribly nervous! I get banded in a week, and I'm nervous already. I'm sure you will be fine, though. We will all be thinking of you, as you are the first Mayo Banditos to have surgery!! We hope you will come back and tell us how well it went. There is a thread started called "Surgery Stories.":smile: Jada, where are you in VA? I'm in No. VA.

Wow, way to go, everyone!!! :thumbup::thumbup: It's the little things that all add up and make a big difference.

You are kidding me!!! OMG! I had no idea they were so small and so expensive. Well, hopefully they will taste good! :thumbup:

Welcome to the Mayo Banditos, Neil! Glad things are going so well for you. :thumbup: You are one of the first Banditos going through surgery! We'd love to hear back from you about how your surgery went and how you're doing when you feel up to it. There is a thread for "Surgery Stories" that you can post to. My surgery is a week from today, and I'm getting very nervous ... yet excited, too!

Hallelujah, I also ate a big dinner with dessert last night. I had done Slim Fast for Breakfast and lunch, but my dh wanted to make me a special "last supper." It was really good. But today I'm on nothing but SlimFast. I'm also freaking out about this being just a week away!! Skinnybyrd, my 4 1/2 year old son will be at the hospital with my dh, mostly because I have to be there at 6:00 am! My guess is that he will want to stay at the hospital and not go to preschool that day, which I'm fine with. He is a little worrier, especially about Mommy, so whatever makes him feel most comfortable is what I want. I think, personally, it will be very comforting for me to have him there, also. :thumbup: Maclynn, what an interesting post-op diet! I don't believe I have heard of such a short time for liquids. Good for you!

Wow, everyone is doing so well! Sbush, you have given me inspiration! 12 lbs in 8 days is awesome! I got home last night and my dh had made a "last meal" for me -- steak, broccoli, mashed potatoes, and chocolate cream pie. I really wasn't expecting all that! But, he was being very kind, so of course, I ate it, seeing as today was technically my official start date for the preop diet. So, here I go, nothing but SlimFast and Water today!! WE CAN DO THIS! YES WE CAN!!! :thumbup:

This is a really good idea. I had mine on Tuesday also, and I brought along a whole sack of meds (sad, huh?) and asked which I needed to crush or cut. I was surprised that he said most of them were small enough to take whole. My problem is, I have to take 10 pills in the morning and 12 at night, so I will be spending a looooonnnng time swallowing pills. But, that's one of the big reasons I'm being banded -- to get healthy enough to get off a lot of these meds!!! :thumbup:

Welcome to the Banditos! Congrats on your approval. The same thing happened to me -- BAM! I had no idea it could go so fast. I'm glad, though. :ohmy: Let's get this party started! :thumbup:

Jennifer, I am on my first day of SlimFast pre-op also, but I'm lucky (?) to get 6 cans a day. I had two for lunch. Now I'm starving. My dh wants to cook a big meal tonight because technically I didn't have to start preop until tomorrow. Ugh... what to do, what to do? BTW, I saw you got your insurance approval in 4 hours! I got mine in just one hour. I was told it would take up to a month! I think they must have looked at ours and thought we really needed it, huh? LOL

Melissa, that is awful what your coworker did! I hope you reported it. That person should be fired! I like your analogy about the soldiers ready for battle. I wish I was that organized. *sigh*

What a great thread, hallelujah! I am so excited one minute and then scared to death the next. I started crying at the surgeon's office yesterday. I have had a LOT of surgeries (breast cancer, gallbladder, etc.) and I told the doctor, I wasn't as scared with those because those weren't optional. This is! He told me he would be nervous if I weren't nervous. It's all normal, he said. If you've never had surgery, I can tell you from my experience with the other surgeries, that it is so quick! Once they get the IV started and they give you the sedative, you are off to LaLa Land (whoa, it's a cool feeling as you drift off... :ohmy:) and then you wake up and it's 2 hours later! What a trip! So, obviously I'm not too scared about the surgery part, but I'm scared about this huge, monumental decision that I've made! What if I fail?? What if it does change my relationships with family and friends? (They talk about that in the AP LapBand literature.) What if it erodes or slips?? Yikes! For those of you going in on May 1, we want a full report as soon as you can! :thumbup: Good luck to everyone!

Ooh, scary story -- broken liver. :laugh: I had my pre-op appointment yesterday, and my surgeon was very nonchalant about the pre-op diet. I have to do all SlimFast for 7 days. He believes that if tells his patients to do more than 7 days, they are more likely to cheat. :ohmy: Good luck to you!!! And don't worry about broken livers any more. :thumbup:

Hooray! Hooray! Hooray! :w00t::thumbup::w00t::thumbup:

Doug, you're one of the first to go in!! How exciting! You will definitely have to come back to the board and tell us how it all went. John set up a thread for Surgery Stories. (Thx, John!) I was reading about the Biggest Loser contestants in a magazine two days ago and had the same thought you did! But then I had to remind myself of all the times I have been successful at losing but just as successful at putting it all back on! The LapBand will definitely help us keep it off! Hooray! :ohmy:

Welcome to the Mayo Banditos! :ohmy:

Hello, fellow pre-oppers! I started my diet today (though technically I could have started tomorrow) and so far, so good. Of course, I get an invitation to a surprise party at an Irish pub for Friday night, and I think I'm going to have to say no because it will be way too hard to just sit there drinking Water. :thumbup: I haven't told any of the people who would be there, and it would just be too uncomfortable. *sigh* BUT! It's all going to be worth it in a few months! :ohmy:

Glad you liked the Unjury, Melissa. I just bought some Low Carb SlimFast but haven't tried it yet. Only two more days til my preop diet starts! My preop appointment is tomorrow. I'm scared to death suddenly!!!!!