I am back from Mexico, and yes I'm alive! I don't have a laptop, so I wasn't able to post until now. I have never experienced such great bedside manners as I did with Dr. Alvarez. He explained everything to the "T". He used a 36F bougie and removed approximately 75% of my stomach. The stomach size ended up being smaller than 25% because of the three rows of staples he used. He said that my stomach has about a 4oz capacity. He also stated that he removes ALL of the fundus(sp) so my stomach should not stretch. 

There was a language barrier between me and the nurses, but they came with my pain meds on time so I was happy. I also used homemade sign language to help them understand what I was asking. I suffered from really bad back pain after surgery. I already have chronic back pain, so I think it was agitated by being on my back for such a long period of time. My stomach pain was very minimal. If my back wasn't hurting, I wouldn't have even needed pain meds. Today is day 2 post-op and I rode 2 1/2 hrs from Mexico to San Antonio. I flew 45 mins from San Antonio to Houston. Then my mom drove me another 4 hrs to Louisiana. I had no pain or complications during my journey back home. I thank God I found this forum and all of the lovely people here. If anyone has questions, feel free to pm me or post here. I'm so happy to be on the loser's bench now. I will try to post my pics tomorrow. I also met Betty (Buhlgal) before I was discharged. She was wonderful and we took pics together too. She is now on the loser's bench as well.