My BMI is 39.
I decided to have the surgery because I suffer from high blood pressure, high chlorestol, type two diabetes and sleep apnea.
I've tried every kind of diet in the world over the past 20 years and although I can loose the weight with precription diet pills the weight always returns.

7/13/04
Well my bags are packed and I'm getting ready to drive to St Louis where I'll have the surgery. It's a 4 hour drive and I'll overnight there and and check into the hospitle at 8:30 for my 10:30 surgery.

7/14/04
The surgery went well. After being wheeled into the operating room I didn't remember a thing till I was back in my room. They told me that I spent an hour and a half in recovery but I really don't remember any of it. The pain in my left side just below mt rib cage was about an 8 on a scale of 1 to 10. But as the day went on it became more and more bearable. My wife kept hitting the moriphine button for me every 10 minutes and That helped me to drift off from time to time. The nurses kept telling me that the first day is the worst wnd they were right. By the evening the pain was much more manageable and I was able to get up and take a walk around the nurses station.
07/15/04
Much better!!!!
 I'm so much better now that I no longer need any pain medication. I went down for my x-ray leek test and when I came back to my room I was able to get out of bed and take a shower by myself. When my wife arrived at the hospitle this morning I was already showered dressed and sitting up in bed. What a difference a day makes!!!! They brought me breakfast and I never knew that broth and jello could taste so good. I was a little nervous about trying out my new system so I took beby sips and to my delight everything went down without and trouble. I thought to myself "Great, I'm on my way ro recovery.
07/16/04
I got discharged today and the 4 hour ride home was no problem at all. I stopped every so ofter and got out and walked and when I got home I even took my two dogs out for a short while.
Before my surgery the dogs and I walked about three miles a day so I hoping that they will be my coaches as I regain my strength.
07/17/04
It felt soooo good to sleep in my own bed last night. I seem to be sleeping good I just can't sleep on my left side.
I'm not really bothered by the clear liquids yet and I'm meeting my 64 oz goal without any problem.
07/18/04
Wow, what dreams I've been having. I'm not sure if it's because of the meds that I had in the hospital or what but it's like my own private version of La Curque. Very colorful and weird. I would be intrested to know if anyone else has experenced this.
I took my dogs out for a walk this morning and bearly got to the end of my street and I was wiped out. I came home sat down and drank some liquids and felt better in no time. I guess it's because I'm still only on clear liquids that I dont have very much stamana. I went into work today for a couple of hours and it felt good to get back into the office. I still get tired pretty quickly if I'm not careful.
07-19-04
I felt good enough today to go to a movie and take a trip to super walmart. I had no problem at all sitting through the movie but I did have to take a break and sit down for awhile after doing a little shopping at walmart.  
07/20/04
The clear liquids are starting to get old. I feel like by body is craving protine. I'm schedualed to go to St Louis tomorrow for my one week check up and then I can go on to the stage three diet but I want protine now. I feel like I need it to gain my strength back. I called the dietition and left a message of how I was feeling and asked if it would be ok to start with a protine drink.
My wife called me at the office and told me that the dietition called and said a small amount of protine would be ok.
07-21-04
Rode 8 hours today from Branson to  St. Louis and back to get my drain and staples out.
I've lost 16 lbs. The removal of the drain was painless and It was a lot of fun talking to a couple of the other patients that I had met in the hospital that had the surgery tha same day that I had mine.
07-26-04
This is my first full day back at work and I feel great. I'm still having to get used to my new feelings of hunger and just how much I can eat and drink. Last evening I had some cottage cheese and jello and I think that I ate a little too much because I started to feel sick. I got up and walked around in order to help things settle and the sickness seemed to pass. I walked about a mile this morning and I felt very strong. I'm really not missing food at this point. Now that I'm able to have a few things like scrambled eggs and cottage cheese I feel like I'm eating again. I know that my diet will progress as I begin to heal and I've come to terms with the fact that from now on my portions will have to be very small.
 I'm happy about that because I've always known that portion control is the key to weight control and now I have the tool to that allows me to eat less.
07-29-04
It's been just a little over two weeks since my surgery and I'm doing great. I got out and walked three miles this morning and I'm even doing situps as part of my morning excersize routine.
I'm starting to feel hunger now more than I did the first week so I have to be careful not to eat too fast or eat too much. My biggest complaint is that I sometimes feel tired and wiped out during the day. My sleep pattern has been all screwed up so that may be part of it. I'll go to bed around 10:30 and fall right to sleep but I wake up around 2:30 or 3:00 and I cant get back to sleep till around 5:00 AM when I do get back to sleep I sleep very hard till around 9:00AM. I'm working really hard on getting that streghtend out. All and all I feel like I'm healing very quickly. My weight loss seems to be holding at 20 lbs. Now that I'm exersizing more I'm hoping to see it start to drop again.
04-14-05
 I'm now 8 months post-op. I can't believe how good I feel.
I'm eating most anything that I like now but in much  smaller portions.  I don't really dump unless I eat really rich and sweet things. And even then I have to eat quite a bit to make me dump.
I've settled into an exercise routine that is geared towards replacing my fat with muscle. I've lost about 90 lbs of fat and put on about 35 lbs of lean muscke mass I found a workout partner and I'm in the gym 3 to 4 times a week lifting weights. On the days I'm not lifting I jog 2 miles so that I get a cardio workout. It's amazing, I'm in better shape now than I was at 25 years old.
 My workouts are geard towards building muscle so my protien intake has to be high. I'm taking in around 250 grams of protein per day. Because of my high protein intake I really didn't suffer any hair loss.

I just got my blood test results and check out there numbers..
  cholesterol                181 (goal <200)
  LDL (bad cholesterol)      117 (goal <130)
  HDL (good cholesterol)      49 (goal >45)
triglycerides (fat)           74 (goal <200)
What an improvement over last year. 

About Me
Branson, MO
Location
38.3
BMI
May 18, 2004
Member Since

Before & After
rollover to see after photo
1 year post op

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