December Bandsters

[Nathalie 4]

jillrn - I am 3 days post op, and I'm on liquids (special liquid diet prescribed by my surgeon's office) for 19 days. I see my surgeon for a check up on 1/2, and I graduate to mushy foods for 2 weeks. As of right now I am not hungry at all. My surgeon put Fluid in my band for now, so I hope I won't be hungry for a few weeks.

Kay. - I hit you back. Hope you are sleeping soundly! "junked up" is about right.

StephC - glad to see you up and at 'em! You know what you need to do for yourself. Don't let those ole demons make you deviate from your plan. Begone demons! hahahha

bkwalking - thanks, chica! Call me Nathalie - everyone else does. You sound like you're not doing too badly yourself.

mystique - how do you determine "the bits you don't want?" I mean, what if I decided I wanted to be 190? Do I still use 167 as my highest weight? All of that is quite confusing. My ultimate goal is 155. My doc thinks I'll end up at about 170. We'll see.

Anyhow, I'm about to take this last dose of the L-Dopa and put my jelly in the bed.

Hope you're all doing great!

Nat

P.S. For those of you post op, how long did it take you to make poopy? I've been high and dry for a few days now. I'm getting kind of nervous. Should I take something? Should I drink a little Fiber? UGH. I guess there's not too much of anything in there to pass yet, is there? Weird.

[StaceLG 0]

I've passed all of my pre-op tests and have been cleared for surgery on 12/28. I have my final pre-op appt. on 12/20. My surgery will be at Baylor Medical Center in Frisco, TX, by Dr. Hamn.

I am 5'3'' and weighed 251.5 this morning. My high is 254 and my adult low was 130. My doctor's goal for me is 160.

I get a little emotional when I talk about the surgery. I am definitely grieving for the loss of my comfort foods and have been having "last meals" with some favorites lately. My dr. said no pre-op diet is necessary but I'm trying not to go overboard saying "good bye".

My husband has gone from tolerating this whole thing to actually being supportive. He has decided to do a marathon next year. He is not too overweight but is really out of shape so we are going to work on our goals together. We've asked our children a boy (12) and girl (10) to help us by going on nightly walks. We're really stressing healthy living and fitness over looks since both kids are at an especially impressionable age when it comes to appearance issues.

Hubby turned 40 in August and I'll be 40 on 12/21. 2007 is going to be a great year!

Good luck all!

Stace

[beversman 0]

Ugh, another confession... I ate ham. My grandmother made it (made dinner for me because I was coming over) without realizing I couldnt eat... and she had a whole meal made. I didnt eat anything else but I had what amounted to about a 1/4 of cup of ham.

Not only guilt this time, but I feel sick. I haven't had anything of substance in so long I feel ill. I feel bloated.

Me <--- is not a machine

My dad let me know today that he will be happy for me when I lose the weight, but he feels that the surgery is completely unecessary. He said that if I had the will power I could do the same thing without it. If I could lose 16 lbs on the liquids, then I could lose the rest on my own. So, they still feel like I am taking the easy way out...

and they will always think that every time they look at me.

frustrating

sometimes I wonder why I even bother...

Good luck tomorrow girls... you will all be fine :-) we are all here waiting for you to get back. Get some sleep. luv you all!

[Nathalie 4]

beversman:

Don't take their shame as your shame. Don't internalize their negative feelings. And don't think you can read their minds so far into the future. Tell them "I really need your support right now" and if they can't be supportive, then you need to be around people who are going to support you. That is exactly why I didn't tell my mother/sister. They are negative, critical, spiteful and have acid tongues. I'm sorry they aren't more supportive, but you must speak up for yourself. Surround yourself with people who understand and are cheering for you.

Your body isn't used to having to work so hard to digest the flesh. Ham probably wasn't so good an idea. I'm glad you didn't hurl it up.

Hang in there, chickadee! You're almost to your surgery date. 4 more days! FOUR MORE DAYS! And you're 16 pounds down? AMAZING! You go girl! You do this for YOU because you know it's going to improve the quality of your life.

Congrats, StaceLG on your surgery approval! The 28th will be here before you know it! Emotions are great - my therapist said she thought I was mourning fat me in those tears. She suggested I write a letter to fat me prior to surgery, and to tell myself what kind of changes to expect. I started that letter with, "There's a new sheriff in town!"

I'm keeping all of you 12/18 surgery sisters in my thoughts and prayers.

Nathalie

[beversman 0]

Thank you Nat. (hugs) :-) That's why I come here. You guys are the only support that I have.

I'm doing a happy dance (and song) for our December 18th ladies!!

(i think that is safe to say "ladies" ... no men here unless they are hiding)

Strangely, I'm not nervous yet... even though it is only 4 days away.]

Uggh.... the Dr. just called and had to reschedule my surgery for 1:30pm(instead of 7:30am). Some lady had a latex allergy. I don't mind helping, but damn it... i was hoping to be home by then. gggrrrr

Confession!! Well, everyone at work found out I was having surgery though. (small town grapevine) And finally the question came out the other day.

"What are you having surgery for?"

I stopped for a second... like deer in headlights. Then, I did something I NEVER do. I lied.

I told them it was for my gallbladder. :cry It was a spilt second decision.

Probably a wrong one.

I never am dishonest, but I didn't want to be rude and tell them it was none of their business. (it isnt good to piss people off in a small town like this) BUT I don't want to tell people until I know this is going to work for me.

I am not happy with the way I handled it. I was just put on the spot and didn't know what to do.

I didn't know it would be that hard.

I'm mad at myself.

[Nathalie 4]

beversman -

*HUG* It's hard to know what to tell people, isn't it? Word got out at my job (bunch of nosy small town people) and I told them it was "woman stuff." Not 100% true, but I didn't want to tell them "I'm having fat bitch surgery" either. You can even go back to them and tell them you were untruthful when you said "gall bladder" and tell them it's personal, and you're not comfortable talking about it. OR you can say "women stuff" in a whisper, like I did. I mean, any of my parts/organs belong to me and I'm a woman... So technically it's not a lie. I'm sorry you feel badly about it, but I'm more sorry that people feel it's their place to nose into our business. If I'd wanted them to know I would have told them in the first damn place.

Rescheduling to 1:30 isn't that bad. You get to sleep a little later, too. I was grateful to spend the night in the hospital. I had no gas pains, but I had terrible nausea, my bladder was screwy, I was dizzy, and I needed that one night of attention from a professional staff who knew more about what to expect than I did.

Are you exercising at all on your liquids? How many calories per day are you getting in on your liquid diet? I am hovering at about 320 right now on this post-op liquid diet. I am getting 60 grams of Protein, though, so that's kind of cool.

I'm not ready to turn to food yet, but i am assuming that within the next week or so I will suddenly be hungry and ready to eat. I'm still kind of sick at this point. I'm 4 days post-op. Not bad at all. I stepped on the scale today and the MFer still shows me to be 4 pounds heavier now than when I went in for surgery. WTF? I know, I need to put the scale away. However... ((laugh))

I bought a journal today, and I am going to transfer my notes from my old 1/2 used journal to this one as of 12/1, the day I started my pre-op diet. The journal is called "ME, MYSELF and I." The first page has a spaces titled: Day; Date; Weather, News and Events; Mentally/Physically I feel; I am excited/happy about; I am indecisive/concerned about; I am proud/grateful for; Personally I woud like to; Professionally I would like to; Projects/goals/ideas/plans for tomorrow. The back of the page is called "Notes" and you can write freely. I thought it was a cool journal, and a cool place to track my first year or so of my LB journey.

I'm jabbering...

Nat

[thininde 0]

Nat - I like the idea about the journal, that is a great idea. I may start doing that also. Don't worry about the scale, if changes a lot over the next few days, weeks, and months. I had my surgery 12 days ago and I still don't crave food, it makes me sick to even look at it, especially when I'm cooking dinner that I can't eat. It gets better, I'm back to work and feel relatively normal. Good Luck.

[beversman 0]

I get about 100 calories per meal -- eating 5 to 6 meals a day (every two to three hours) when my tummy grumbles.

So probably from 500 - 650 calories.

I am getting about 80 grams of Protein a day.

I am excerising, but unfortunately it has not been as much as i should be. I walk about a mile a day and some minor weight training. Nothing spectacular.

Nat -- dont you worry about the weight. Make sure you are getting enough calories and Protein though, or your body is going to think it is starving and hold on to all the weight it is carrying (as a defense mechanism).

I have a feeling that is just Water weight. Our bodies hold onto Water after and injury. So, when you do weigh yourself... becuaes you sound like me and I know you will get out the scale even if you do put it away... hehehe... just remember, that is your body healing itself. Give it a few more days. :-)

[StephC 0]

Hi girls! I went to work today - saw my buddy Charlie, he's the only one I've told at work or plan to tell. I told him I just didn't want the rumor mill to be grinding on me. Seriously - most of the members are over 70 with no lives so they enjoy talking about everyone elses and I just don't want to be the one they are talking about. I had 27 messages on my answering machine and they all want to know when I will be in - see the good thing is that I broke my knee last month so they all think its all about that.. hehe... let 'em wonder. So all that was just to let you, beversman and Nat, know I know where you're coming from. I'm smalltown too and I know its going to come out eventually but I'm not going to help them along by sharing just yet. But my church now knows - at least one of the ones I didn't want to know - oh well - I wasn't being completly secret about it anyway - I had shared with about 4 -5 people and figured it wouldn't be long until the rest of them know.

I am ready for food - dang I hate liquids and I keep thinking of ways to cheat! So listen to this - I made mac & cheese for supper for dh and dd, so I threw a little in the processor and blendered it up - added some milk and called it Soup. :hungry: :hungry: :hungry: :hungry: :hungry: :hungry: :hungry: :hungry: :hungry:

How stupid is that! Then I start sweating about whether I'll get stuck and I'm thinking how the heck will I even know I'm stuck? I mean I understand being stuck means food can't make it down through the banded passage - right? But the question is what does that feel like? or how do you know? So I got online to see if I could find a post on it - but instead came to my girls instead. So after eating about 3 bites of my mac/cheese Soup I threw it away out of fear.

Jillrn - I am one week out - I had a yogurt smoothie for Breakfast, and 1/2 a boost for lunch, about a half cup of broccoli soup around 3 and then nothing looked or tasted good for supper - so I had a bite of potato soup and 3 bites of m/ch soup - how can a person live like this!!!!???? I almost wish I felt crappy so I wouldn't be thinking about food.

b-man - I had the later surgery, I enjoyed my time in the hospital, let them take care of you. I'm assuming since its a later surgery he'll just keep you over night. But hey - you're almost there!!!

Nat - good luck with your journal - it sounds like a great idea!

Patty - I can't believe you aren't wanting to eat. Are you still on liquids? I feel pretty normal now too - my stomach isn't sore or anything, once in a while my left shoulder aches - I think from the gas, thats what I understand.

Time to spend some quality time with my man - ... so anyone know how long till we can spend some real quality time together? Yeah I'm talking sex - do ya think as long as the belly isn't hurt? LOL I don't want to bust a scar open.

[Ariel 1]

beversman don't feel bad about lying about the surgery. Like NGAdams i also said it was woman surgery lol. I would much rather be associated with woman stuff than fat stuff. But i wish i had waited a few days bcz i found out at my pre op that i have a hiatal hernia so i could have said hernia repair and it wouldn't have been a lie. but oh well, what is done is done.

[hermosa1 0]

Hi Girls,

Looks like you all have been busy the last 2 days. It took me forever to catch up. I enjoying reading it all though. I don't post too much but it's good to know that others are having similar experiences...calms the nerves. I had my 2 week post op today. Total loss 12#. The dr said any loss before the first fill is bonus. Since it's unfilled it's not working like it's suppose to, except for any swelling that might be making feel full. I said that is good since this past week, I have been getting very hungry in between my light and fit smoothies for Breakfast and boost for lunch. StephC, i can't believe you only drink 1/2. I guzzle that whole thing and keeps me good for about 2-3 hrs. Do you know if there is a low-sugar one. I got the high Protein but it has 25g of sugar! Beversman what are you doing to get 80g of protein per day (did I miss it in a post?). Also, who cares what you told the work people. What nerve to even ask you (unless they are good friends). But it is non of anyones business unless you want to tell them.

I feel like I am not getting enough protein and that could be part of the hunger issue.

They took off the tape over my stiches...things are looking good.

Do any of you go to support groups in your area. I went last week to the one at my drs office. It was very interesting. Everyone is at different phases but no-one more than 6 or so months. Some people are doing really good and look great. Others not so much. It was again another reminder that once we are all off of this crazy liquid and mushy diet that this is only a tool and not a magic pill. I know we all know that but seeing people further along than we are it is just a reminder. One girl had the surgery 3 months ago and said she has not lost any weight because she still eats fast food all the time. Someone suggested that she needs a fill because she shouldn't be able to tolerate fast food if she was at a good adjustment. So again a tool... It was just a good reminder since I know we are still focused on the liquid only. Thought I would share.

Take care all! Good luck for those going in this week.

[Evathenurse 0]

Hello everyone, I had my surgery on Friday December 15,2006 and I was released from the hospital on Sunday December 17,2006. Everything went well. I was went in to surgery around 2:15pm and from what my husband tells me I was out of surgery around 5:35pm. I remember waking up around 7:05pm, however everything went well!!!!! I' am experiencing severe gas and excess eructating(burping). My doctor gave me Loratap Elixer for pain and I cant stand the smell or taste....... is it me or is it after surgery every channel on TV I turn to has some kind Tasting looking food on it.. Well my medicine is kicking in so I have to go know...if anything I said dosent make since its the pain medication.

Keep me in your prayers I need it......

[Nathalie 4]

Evathenurse! Congratulations on your surgery! I have gassy burpy bubbles, too. I have been meaning to get some GasX strips, but never made it. The Lortab Elixir - that is like liquid vicodin, right? Girl, you better take that mess and put your butt in the bed! You're not supposed to like how it smells or tastes, but you're supposed to like what it does for you. How come you were in the hospital for so long?

Ariel - my sentiments exactly. I'm not owning up to fat surgery to those goobers at work. I don't know most of them, and don't care for the ones I do know. My true friends know what's going on with me and the rest of them? Who cares.

hermosa - My doctor said that low calorie, high Protein meals will help to keep you fuller longer. Even though I'm only getting 320 calories per day, I'm getting 60 grams of Protein. We have support groups, but I've not gone yet. I'm working on it, but I'm scared that I will see the fat guy from my job there. He had surgery, and he's got a GIGANTIC mouth, so I'm not too excited about bumping into him. He'll blab my business at work, and I'll have to kick his butt. ahahah "Slow losers" are one thing, but people who sabatoge their own success are another issue entirely. We could all eat McDonald's if we wanted, but those who are successful are the ones who do not give into temptation. I hope I keep that resolve after I feel like eating... (laugh)

StephC - I am SO proud of you for tossing the m/ch Soup. It sounded like it would have been okay to eat, but full of empty calories. You did the right thing all on your own. Stay focused on your program - follow doctor's orders. You'll be happy you did in the long run. I had a SF popsicle tonight, and it tasted like Haagendaazs to me. Just a tasty sweet confection. I also had a SF Jello earlier today. I'm good til morning.

beversman - I had no idea the body held onto Water after surgery. I'm trying to figure out why the doctor is starving me with the 320 calorie diet. Who can eat like that? I don't know how I'll lose weight eating under 400 calories per day. But I'm going to stick to program if it kills me. beversman, you're my hero. And I don't say that lightly. You are like Rocky Balboa, girlfriend! Eye of the Tiger and shit. ahahaha

Good news - I found a new daycare. My boy starts on Tuesday, January 2. He will stay there through the spring, when I'll transfer him to this place closer to home. It's more expensive, but the woman is phenomenal. I just spent 90 minutes with her, and she really impressed me. I had mentioned I'd had surgery last week, and out of concern she asked what kind. I told her "weight loss surgery." She smiled so broad and said, "Good for you!" I don't know why I told her the truth, but it felt so good to say it out loud (I thought I was going to cry) and to have her react as she did. My son will be safe and happy there. She's a bit more expensive than the last woman, but we're going to stay with her for the long haul.

So when you all get these crazy gassy air bubbles deep in your chest/in your belly what do you do? I can't seem to burp like I used to, and it's giving me incredible pressure. I don't have gas X strips. THink the baby's gas drops will work on me????? AARGH!

I think I'm going to take a shot of my LV and go to bed. I'm looking for South Beach recipes - high protein, low calories - that I can turn to mushies for the 2 weeks of soft foods. I think I'm going to eat like Mediterranean diet or South Beach diet for a while. Have any of you thought about how you'll eat after your restricted diet? Is anyone doing WW or JC or anything? Or are you just going to hope for the best? I need a plan!

Talk to you guys soon! Thanks for not minding my lunacy!

Nathalie

[smithkr1 0]

Hi all you fellow December bandsters! My countdown is on...the house is clean...the cabinets and fridge stocked with liquids, full liquids and muchies...gotta wrap my girls presents tomorrow and take my pregnant horse to a friends about 30 miles away so he can "babysit" her for a few weeks. You all are great, so very free with your personal experiences...it helps so much!...

[Nathalie 4]

Question for the post-ops.

Are you dry? Your sinuses, your throat, your chest, your skin... Are you dry? I am. I am dry and my nose is killing me. I'm using the nose spray now (saline) in hopes of moistening things up. I'm thinking about using the humidifier in here tonight, but I don't feel like getting my fluffy butt out of bed to go fetch it. That's a whole production.

I didn't expect to feel so wrung out and dry post surgery. I'm still coughing up stuff, and I find all kinds of colorful gems when I blow my nose. It's disgusting.

When does it end??