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Surgeon TestimonialDaniel E Swartz, M.D. (COE)Dr. Swartz if a very humorous but yet very disciplined man. I like the way he makes me feel comfortable but at the same time he keeps it real and doesn't sugar coat anything. His office staff is very professional and the wait time to see him is never long. He strongly believes in aftercare and routine follow ups. |
Hi, My name is Mayra and I'm 27 yrs old from Fresno, CA. I'm a very proud mother of two boys. Sebastian 6 and Ramon 4. I have been happily married to my husband, Chef Alfredo (and yes, he does all the cooking) for 7 yrs.  
2 yr Follow Up Appt and Tummy Tuck Consult! on June 10, 2011 11:12 pm
The doc had nothing but good things to say (well at least that's all I clinged to). LOL.
Starting weight 328
Lowest weight 165
Goal weight 160
Current weight 171
Doctor says I’m doing well and maintaing well. Says he couldn't ask for more. Then he says...."oh, your Iron is at a 5 when it should be about 10". "Take 2 doses a day instead of the 1 dose you have been taking". Then this is where I failed to speak up. I didn't mention to him that I haven't been taking my Iron like he told me to a couple months ago. Because I was told not to take iron with my calcium supplement, I tend to forget to take the iron. "It's real important you get your iron back up unless you want a blood transfusion. Besides, I can't perform a tummy tuck on you unless you get those iron levels under control." Now after hearing that from the doc, I was like I have to do this right. Tummy tuck or not, I should have never ignored my iron level being low a couple months ago and made it a priority this entire time. So this was the breakdown of the cost for the tummy tuck:
Hospital $1500
Anesthesia $500
Surgeon $5000
"Let me palpate your abdomen. Yup, you have a small hernia near your belly button. That means your insurance will cover the hospital and Anesthesia fees. That leaves you with a balance of $5000. Depending on your insurance they might cover an additional on the $5000 leaving you with possibly $3500-$3800 fee instead." My jaw dropped. I was expecting to have to pay a lot more. This sounds reasonable and I think I can save this much by the end of the year. I'm going to try really hard to save as much as I can. This made my day, my weekend, my month. Haven't talked to the hubby about it yet. Hope to get the support I wish for. I can't expect him to be excited though since he goes through a lot when I’m sick in the hospital, recovering from previous surgeries, hernias, you name it, he's had to deal with it all.
Wish me luck!
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2 year follow up appt coming soon. AWWW! on May 26, 2011 5:38 pm
2 year follow up appointment is just around the corner. I can't believe it has been this long already. I feel like it was just a couple of months ago. It's crazy how time flys by when you're healthier and keeping active. I'm always working, taking care of my parents (due to disabilities), attending to the husband and kids, helping my brother out on the weekends selling electronics and gaming stuff at the flea markets and delivering water-slide rentals on the weekends. I still find time to go dancing at least once a week with my husband too. There is no way I would have been able to keep that busy when I weighed 328 lbs. I feel burnt out at times like I'm doing too much, but it's all worth it. Up until this afternoon I was feeling like a failure for allowing myself to gain 13 lbs in the past couple months. My lowest weight was 165 and I now weigh 178. My doc wants me to weigh 160. My goal is 165. I wrote a post yesterday about how I felt like a failure for gaining weight. Coming back onto OH has made me realize that I have lost a lot of weight and that I'm practically 1/2 the size I use to be so I have accomplished a lot and should be extremely proud of myself. It's good that I caught the weight gain now and not later down the road. It's good that I have acknowledged that I have to do something to get back on track. I know that I have to stop drinking my 3-4 Coronas every weekend, stop eating candy, reduce my bread intake and go back to drinking/eating my protein first. Protein daily requirement has always been hard for me to reach but I need to remind myself that going back to weighing 328 lbs will even be harder and even devastating. I hadn't blogged on OH for a while and now I realize what I was missing. OH gives me support, confidence, motivation and above all some "act-right". LOL Thanks for reading and i hope to stay connected. Love you All!
3rd Hernia Surgery was a Success on September 17, 2010 4:40 pm
| Date Sent: |
September 17, 2010 - 4:39pm |
| To: |
bebaugh |
| Subject: |
RE: Hello! |
Sorry I blogged sooner. I was in San Francisco at the Hospital with my father. He had to have cerebral artery bypass surgery. He had 100%, 95% and 60% plaque blockage in 3 different cerebral arteries. One of the best Neuro surgeon's in the country is in SF UCSF hospital so that's why we were over there. He is doing very well and should be discharged this Saturday.
Thanks for your support.
I had the hernia surgery 9/8/10. Per Dr. Felix, he stated that I had lost a lot more weight since last hernia surgery and that caused the old stitched lining to pull apart and created another opening (that's how I understood it). States I have no fat in my stomach anymore  . States this time he took a lot more tissue to suture the opening more securely (?). I have a follow up appt in 1 week and I'm gonna ask for images and a better explanation. He said the Hernia was very large and was surprised I wasn't in a lot more pain and I was able to wait 5 days for surgery. The hernia wasn't painful for me as long as I didn't eat or drink but the pain after surgery was worst than the WLS it self and previous hernias. I actually used up most of my Vicodin. I still have my gallbladder, doc stated it showed normal so no point in removing it. I'm just glad that I'm feeling great now and hopefully no more hernias will pop up.
Mayra
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1 yr 2 months Post Op- 3rd Hernia already! on September 3, 2010 11:13 pm
This is getting redundent. I just finished paying off my last(March 2010) Hernia surgery medical bill Wednesday and here I am diagnosed with another hernia. What luck. Let me explain to you how my week started and so far has ended:
* Sunday night I had a very light Margarita (1oz Jose Cuervo and 12 oz of Margarita mix).
* Monday I wake up with a mean azz temporal headache, dry mouth, body aches, runny nose and sore throat.
* Tuesday i'm feeling a bit worse with the cold symptoms so I schedule an appt with my primary MD for Wednesday morning.
* Wednesday morning i'm feeling great so i cancel my MD appt. I had 1/2 slice of thin crust pizza for lunch which I washed down with water 10 min after eating. I immediately began to have sharp abdominal pain. I thought for sure it was because i mixed the food and liquids too soon (didn't wait 20-30 min) Pain lasted for about 2 hours and then I felt fine.
* Thursday I woke up feeling fine. I ate 6 oz of shrimp for lunch and had 1 bite of my sons cheeseburger. I started to have severe abdominal pain again. It felt like the food was stuck in my stomach so I took a shot of Milk of Magnesium in hopes it would resolve. From 12pm-5pm I was on my hands and knees with on/off excrutiating pain. I had called my WLSurgeon at 2pm and he said he was in surgery all day and would not be able to see me until 9am Friday morning. At 5pm I took some Vicodin for the pain. The water I drank to take the pill caused me pain. @ 2am, 4am, 6am I threw up so much liquids it was coming out my mouth, nose and even from my eyes! After all the barfing I felt so much better and no longer had the sharp abdominal pain.
* Friday morning i'm not having any abdominal pain but I still go to my WLSurgeon appt. By the time i'm at the appt I noticed my abdomen looked distended (I looked 3 months pregnant). He palpated my abdomen and sure enough, he says it's most likely another hernia. He says, "since your not having pain right now we can wait and see how you do over the holiday weekend and I will schedule to follow up with you Tuesday to setup surgery for Wednesday morning first thing. If you have severe pain from here til Tuesday, don't hesitate to call me and we will perform emergency surgery. Also, we might as well remove your gallbladder since it could be a culprit in the future and we might as well get that out of the way to avoid another future surgery". Apprarently I was reading that gallstones are very common after WLS so I guess it wouldn't hurt to get that removed.
This news is just so upseting because I do have co-pays and 20% out of pocket expenses I will have to pay that my insurance doesn't cover. The last hernia surgery i had my surgeon said he was positive and almost guarenteed I shouldn't have another hernia after the way he had repaired it.
For now all I can do is sip, sip, sip water and hopefully avoid getting dehydrated and make it thorugh until Wednesday.
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1 year Surgiversary and feeling great! on June 14, 2010 5:24 pm
1 year surgiversary and feeling great! Can't believe it has been 1 year already. The first 6 months seemed to go by real slow and from there after things just sped up quickly. All in all it's been a great journey. I can't complain about the obstacles in my journey when I compare them to the good things that have occurred since WLS. I've had 2 hernias, 1 in November 2009 and 1 in March 2010. I've lost 145 lbs! I'll take 2 hernias any day for 145 lbs lost. I now have outrageous energy that I could have only dreamed of before WLS. I go to nursing school in the morning from 6:45am-2:30pm and work from 3:00pm-11:30pm M-F. I also have a Water slide rental business and chores that keep me busy on the weekends. Not to mention I also have to make sure my kids and hubby are taken care of 24/7. There is no way I would have been able to manage all of these things weighing 330 lbs 1 yr ago. Not only do I have the energy to get all of these things done, I do them with a smile on my face and my head held up high. I remember telling my kids and hubby "could you please get me a drink out the fridge", "could you get me the remote control", "Go get the newspaper for me", "Can you pick that up for me" etc... I never wanted to get my fat azz up off the couch or bed. Now I'm a busy bee and no one can hold me back. Before WLS I would get so tired and grouchy. I guess because I was so unhappy with myself I became a grouch with my family and friends. My self-esteem is sky high. My relationship with my husband is amazing! My husband has never had an issue with me being overweight but I use to argue a lot with him for the smallest things because I was miserable and I guess unconsciously I wanted him to be miserable with me. Weired... I know. I just hope that this tool will continue to work for me. I need to continue utilizing it the right way. Ultimately it is up to me to keep the weight off which will be the hard part. But being this light taste soo good, it taste better than my large combo pizza I use to eat by myself. The transition of leaving the large unhealthy food portions behind was a little hard but well worth it. All I can continue to say is that WLS was one of my best decisions in life and I wish I would have done it sooner. | Leave a comment.
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Hi, My name is Mayra and I'm 26 yrs old from Fresno, CA. I'm a very proud mother of two boys. Sebastian 5 and Ramon 4. I have been happily married to my husband, Chef Alfredo (and yes, he does all the cooking) for 6 yrs. I have been learning about bariatic surgery for the past 3 yrs and I have finally decided I'm ready to embark on this new journey. I a had a rude wake up call in Sept. of 08' when my dad had a stroke due to his illnesses. My dad has been battling with high blood pressure and Diabetes for the past 15+ yrs. This is when I decided that it was time to stop playing games with these fluke diets and do something serious for my health. I currently have no illnesses but I surely want to reduce any risks. I have completed the entire check list of things needed to be completed per my insurnace carrier for the RNY bypass surgery. Now i'm just waiting for the approval letter from the health insurance so that I may schedule a date for surgery.
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