meeg

Send Message

Block

Add Friend

I made the following post on the VSG forum on August 8, 2007, and I thought I would put it here on my profile as well:

It's been a long time since I've posted and quite a few people have written to see how I'm doing. You all are so sweet to be concerned! I thought I would make a post & update everyone.

I've got a couple things going on in my life right now. First of course is the VSG... I am very happy with my surgery and I wouldn't trade it for the world. BUT, I will be honest and say that I have had a heck of a time sticking to the diet plan. I have become really exasperated because it seems like no matter what I eat, I don't feel any satisfaction. I get full easily... I know when to stop to prevent the foamies, but even as I sit there feeling full to the brim, the lower part of my stomach is still growling! I mean literally. It's really bizarre to feel both stuffed and hungry at the same time, LOL. So that's been frustrating to deal with. I think that I'm going to ask my surgeon to check to see if I have a restriction, because this really shouldn't be happening. I chew my food very thoroughly and it still doesn't help.

I do not exercise at all, and I know that is the reason why I'm losing weight very slowly. I haven't weighed myself in weeks, but I know I haven't lost much. My clothes are looser though, so that's encouraging. I feel lighter, too... little things like turning over in bed are getting easier. It's the little things that make the difference. :)

The biggest reason I haven't been posting has nothing to do with the VSG. Bear with me here because this is kind of a long story....

My dad and I have a landscape design & installation company, and this is our 20th year in business. Our business is in a central location, surrounded by other businesses, in a nice part of town. One of our neighbors is this evil real estate guy who got in trouble with the city for some serious zoning violations. (His tenant was a landscaping company that had a HUGE compost pile that was breeding HUGE rats.) He ended up suing the city (although he has no grounds to stand on at all), and a judge ordered that all properties near this guy be inspected for code violations. Well, we do have some minor violations, and unfortunately they cannot be fixed, so we now have to move. This is especially upsetting because the city has known about our operations from day one, and they have actually told us in the past that if we lay low and no one complains about us, they will not bug us. But now that the judge ordered it, they HAVE to make us conform. We can't, so basically we're being forced to move out.

This is so very difficult for us. We cannot afford to move and this may very well put us out of business. It's absolutely breaking my heart because my dad has put his heart & soul into this company, and now, at age 56 he's facing the chance of failure. It really hurts to see him have to deal with this!! 

So... needless to say weight loss is the last thing on my mind lately. I just love this forum and I miss coming here... but all my time has been spent with loan specialists, real estate agents, city officials and driving around looking at properties. My stress level is very high and my depression has kicked back in. I've just recently started taking an anti-depressant, so I'm hoping that will give me the boost I need to get through this.

I would really appreciate all the support I could get right now. You all are the greatest group of friends I've never met!! :)

To all the people who have had surgery recently and are scheduled to have it soon... my thoughts are with you, even though I may not be posting. :) I still love my VSG!!!

Well it's been nearly a month since my last post... I can't believe it. I'm gonna TRY to make this one short & sweet, but we'll see, LOL.

I am going to be really honest here and admit what's been going on with me. I was all gung-ho about getting this surgery and even though everyone says "it's just a tool," I was still hoping it would help me behave better. Well, it hasn't. I wasn't able to stick to a diet pre-op and I'm still not able to. I basically went off the diet plan at about 4 days post-op, and haven't done all that great since. My surgeon said I could eat solids much earlier than his nutritionist told me, so I followed his advice, not hers. I did this because I was HUNGRY, and full liquids were just not doing it for me. 

Anyway I was pretty good with focusing on protein & fluids for a while, but I think I bought my first back of M&M's at about a month out. The good news is that it took me days of grazing to eat what I normally could have eaten in one sitting. But still, I feel so guilty! I fell off the wagon so soon after surgery!!!!

I also have been using the hot & humid weather as an excuse not to exercise. So with no exercise & eating candy I have not done great with weight loss. I'm really so ashamed. I feel like a failure.  Others who had surgery AFTER me have already lost so much more than me so it's so hard for me to go on the forum & act happy right now...

I recently stopped weighing myself, too. I did this for 2 reasons... one is that I have no scale right now. I had been using my mom's but she wanted it back so I gave it back. I do have a really nice one but it's packed away somewhere & I have no idea where. I refuse to go out & buy another one, so I guess that's that. It's okay though, because this just means that the next time I get around to weighing myself, wherever and whenever that may be, I surely will have lost some weight. BTW my surgeon is happy with my slow weight loss, so that makes me feel better.

Anyway, I have a lot of very serious stress in my life right now... I'm in a transition period in a lot of ways (not necessarily related to surgery) and I feel very depressed. I was avoiding going on anti-depressants but after seeing how many of the people on the forum use them, I think that I will give them a try. I hope that will help me to kick-start my energy and motivation, because right now I have very little of either.

I know I usually go into more detail in this blog but I'm just going to leave this entry as is for now. I'm so happy for all the people who are doing so great with their VSGs, and for all the new people who keep popping in & deciding to have it done... I am still very glad I had this surgery & have NO regrets at all.

Someone just posted a question on the VSG forum about acid reflux and it made me realize that I've never mentioned this subject. 

Acid reflux or heartburn is also called gastroesophageal reflux disease (GERD). I was diagnosed with severe GERD about 10 years ago by an ear, nose & throat doctor. I think my case is a little unusual because I've never really had a "hearburn" problem... the reason I went to the ENT doc is because I had this thing where sometimes, when I was speaking, my throat would catch & I would kind of cough or choke & not be able to say a word. It was really strange & would only happen every once in a while.

Well when I finally went to the ENT guy, he looked at the back of my throat and immediately said that I have severe GERD. I was so surprised because when I thought of people with acid reflux, I thought of those who would sit around after a meal moaning about heartburn & popping TUMS. I had NEVER had any problems after a meal and never felt a need to take TUMS or anything like that.

It turns out that some people have heartburn before a meal, instead of after. I'm not sure why. But I was one of those people. I've always had a thing where my stomach would hurt if I hadn't had a meal in several hours. And I mean more than hunger pain, it was kind of a deep, dull pain. After being diagnosed with GERD, I learned that this pain was excess acid in my stomach, and I found out that antacids helped that pain. Who knew!

Anyway, once I learned that I had GERD, I learned how to control it a little better by sleeping with my head a bit higher up at night (that's when the doc said that the damage to my vocal chords was occuring), and by taking Gaviscon or Alka Seltzer when I was having the stomach pain. I was prescribed stuff like Nexium & Prevacid but I never really stuck with it, because I never really suffered with the GERD enough to want to take a pill everyday for 30 days. It's never been a big thing in my life really.

So.... fast forward to my consult with my surgeon in April of this year. I told him I was diagnosed with severe GERD several years ago, and all he said was that he wanted me to know that the VSG has been known to make GERD worse. I told him I knew that and that's the last we talked about it.

Like most VSG surgeons, he does recommend his patients take Prilosec or a similar product after surgery. I bought a big thing of it but never even opened it. In fact on my 2 week surgiversary, I was marvelling at how I had had no problems at all with acid reflux since the surgery. Then WHAM! all of a sudden the next day it hit me bad. That was yesterday. It was probably the worst GERD I've had in at least 6 months if not more. I woke up this morning and still had it really bad so I finally took a Prilosec. It's been a few hours and already I feel better. Of course the fact that I'm upright instead of laying down sleeping helps as well.

I just wanted to mention the whole GERD thing in case anyone else is dealing with this too, so they can see my experience with it so far. I will try to update how I'm doing with it from time to time. :)

Just a short entry (no seriously) that sums up how I've been doing lately. Someone asked me how I'm feeling and if I had any regrets about having the VSG done. Here's my response:

I feel great. I have absolutely no regrets at ALL. You know, for all the talking we do about this surgery on the forum & on our profiles, it's really NOT a big deal at all. I mean that. We dissect every little detail about it on the forum & make a big deal out of everything, but the truth is it's just hardly a change at all in your life. Sure, some people have some minor issues in the first few weeks... others don't at all (like me)... but after a while the only change in your life is that you will be able to eat less, and best of all, you will WANT to eat less, and be truly SATISFIED with less. And you will lose weight. It's a wonderful thing!!!

OK I lied about the short post. I just read over my last entry & realized I never talked about my one week post-op appointment with Dr. Pleatman on June 6th!! I told so many people about it but I never got around to blogging about it.

It went really well. I could tell every detail but there's really not too much to tell... Jo the surgical coordinator & receptionist (& all around great lady) is dealing with some pretty difficult health issues with her husband. I feel so bad for her, but she's keeping her chin up and doing her job.

Dr. P was very pleasant to talk to...we talked for quite a while, and I might go so far as to say he was... charming! We talked about the VSG of course, and how other patients have been dealing with it, and about Pontiac Osteopathic Hospital. I also asked him about why I didn't have a morphine pump, and he said he doesn't give his patients that because he doesn't want them to just lie there, "all doped up." So I respect his decision on that.

One thing about him that really impressed me was this... We were talking about my experience with the surgery, and at one point I kind of timidly said, "Can I make a suggestion?" He responded immediately and very positively with "Yes, definitely! Go ahead!" or something similar to that. I thought that was wonderful... He had absolutely no problem with my saying that. I think some surgeons would have been at least a little less happy to hear that comment.

Anyway my suggestion was that he get onto OH and update his profile. As of right now, it doesn't even show that he does VSGs (except in the fine print) and I feel like that is turning away some potential patients. I like him and I would love to see others go to him, and I really think it's a shame that surgeons don't update their OH profiles more often. They pay to be on OH, I learned... quite a lot of money actually. So why not update their info?

He was receptive to the idea but he said it's kind of a pain to have to sign on and update your profile & stuff. So far he hasn't done it, which I think is a shame. I really encouraged him to. Maybe he's at that big bariatric surgery conference that a lot of surgeons are at right now...

Ok well that's about it for my update... Oh, duh, I forgot to mention that I had lost 11 pounds when I weighed in at the appointment. Yay! My last weigh in was actually a week pre-op, and I lost weight between that time and the actual surgery, but whatever! I'm down 11 pounds... I'm happy! And it's more like 15 pounds now, too. :)

I can't believe how normal I feel. It's incredible. I've been sitting here since my surgery waiting for the other shoe to drop, but it just isn't happening! I've had ZERO nausea, which is amazing for me, and I've learned how to take small sips, so I've had very little pain when I swallow in the past few days. I just feel so... NORMAL! 

I wish I knew where my good scale is... it's packed away somewhere. It sucks because the scale I bought at Target for $20 is a joke. I have stopped even using it because it's pointless. I don't feel like I have lost much weight... I think that already I am consuming too many calories. My problem is that I love protein shakes, and I have SO many samples that I keep trying them, like several a day. It's cool because that means I'm having no problem getting my protein & fluid requirements in each day, but I may actually be exceeding them, and thus hindering my weight loss.

One concern I do have is that I do still feel hunger. Head hunger but also REAL hunger. In the first few days, I thought it was maybe just my stomach healing, because the hunger pangs happened right along with all the other strange things going on in my stomach. But as of yesterday, I can say that I really am feeling genuine hunger. Like my stomach growls, and my body feels hungry. I have been drinking protein shakes or Crystal Light or diet juice to calm the hunger, and it works... for a little while. Sometimes more than a little while, sometimes not.

I haven't posted anything about this on the board because I'm not SUPER concerned about it.... I know a lot of others have already said they feel hunger early on and are worried... I have taken note of the responses they get. Mostly people tell them that it's normal right now, but the hunger will definitely be better once you move on to solid foods or even mushy foods.

I'm trusting that in the future, I will feel full and satisfied after a few bites of solid food, and will not be trying to eat a large volume of food at once.

Silly me, before surgery I went out and bought a bunch of food that I knew I'd be needing in the next month or so, without thinking about the fact that it may spoil before I ever get to it! I bought ricotta cheese, fat free sour cream, a bunch of string cheese, cottage cheese... So now it's all sitting in my fridge taunting me! MAN I swear I almost had a piece of string cheese yesterday... I wanted something chewy with some texture SO badly. Ug. I really hope I can make it through this full fluids stage for the next 10 days without cheating! 

I have my one week post-op appointment with my surgeon either today or tomorrow... Can't remember which & I didn't put it in my calendar for some reason. I'll post again after that to tell how much weight I've lost. I hope it's a good amount! Like... at least 10 pounds. I'm crossing my fingers!

I had my surgery!!! I left my house at 10:30am on Thursday, May 31, 2007 and was back home by 2pm the next day. Unbelievable! Here’s how it went…. 

Got to the hospital at 11:15am, checked in and paid them the $5,400 fee. They sent me up to the surgery waiting room, where I barely sat down before I was called to go back & get prepped for my 1:15pm surgery. They asked my mom to stay in the waiting room while they got me prepped, so they wouldn’t have to maneuver around her in the small prep area. They said they would come and get her when they were done prepping me, and they did. Took about 45 minutes.

Let’s see, here’s what happened during the prep phase… They took me back to an area that had several beds, separated by curtains. Other patients were already in their beds, with loved ones sitting nearby, everyone awaiting surgery. My nurse – I don’t remember her name – was very nice and had me get undressed and slip into a disposable gown. It was the coolest thing! This paper gown (it was several layers thick – almost padded) actually had the ability to heat up, via electricity, so when I was coming out of anesthesia I wouldn’t be cold. How cool is that!? Anyway I got up on my bed, did a lot of waiting & answering questions… “Are you allergic to any type of medications,” the same questions over & over. One nurse gave me a Celebrex pill to swallow, and about a tablespoon of water to wash it down with. It was the best water in the world! I was SO thirsty!!!

Then they hooked up my I.V. on my left hand… The poor nurse had a hard time getting my vein to puff up… I was SO dehydrated it’s no wonder. She ended up having to try in 2 places, and when she finally hit the vein, she wasn’t able to connect the tube to it fast enough so blood poured out everywhere. It was probably about 3 tablespoons total but you know how it is with blood… a little looks like a LOT ! Good thing I’m not squeamish. It didn’t bother me at all. But my poor nurse felt so bad… another nurse walked by as that happened and I called out to her, “She’s torturing me!” I thought that was pretty funny & so did the other nurse. After that, all the nurses gave the one who did my I.V. a hard time about it.

The anesthesia guy came to see me and ask me some questions, then left. Then another person came & introduced herself as part of the anesthesia team, then she left. Yet another anesthesia guy came and I paid him the $500 fee… It’s so strange to pay cash for medical stuff. No insurance at ALL, they never even asked to see my insurance card the whole time I was at the hospital. It was like a la cart… I paid Dr. Pleatman $5,000 back on the 25^th, the hospital $5,400 that morning, then the anesthesia people $500 right from my surgery bed!

The last anesthesia guy who came by pulled up a seat next to my bed and started going over the stuff on his clipboard. Asked me my name, the type of surgery I was getting, blah, blah, blah… Asked me if I’d ever had a reaction to anesthesia before and I said, “YES!” He looked up from his clipboard & said, “What was it?” I said, “Nausea! Really bad! I was told it was a reaction to the anesthesia.” I had been waiting for this moment because I DID NOT want to feel sick after this surgery, and I just knew that I would. Anesthesia and I do not get along. I was hoping he would offer me a bunch of good anti-nausea meds after hearing what I said.

But he didn’t seem too impressed with my answer… He said, “Oh, ok,” and looked back down at his clipboard. He asked me more questions then went over what they were going to do to me. In the end he asked if I had any questions. I said, “Yeah, so um, this nausea thing. Are you gonna give me some good meds? Because you know they’re chopping half my stomach off and I am afraid that throwing up is going to blow my staple line.” He looked at me for a second and considered what I said, then looked back down at his clipboard and started flipping the pages. Then he started writing. He said, “Okay, we’re gonna give you some good stuff.” I was SO happy I asserted myself with this, because it turns out this man HOOKED ME UP. After he left, the nurses looked at the list of stuff he ordered for me and kept saying, “He gave you EVERYTHING!!” It took 45 minutes for them to put all that stuff in my I.V.!!!

After I had all the anti-nausea drugs, they gave me a sedative and wheeled me into the OR. I remember the lights overhead and people bustling all around me, but that was it. The next thing I remember was people saying my name and shaking me and saying “Megan, it’s over! You’re in recovery!”

The first word out of my mouth was “PAIN!” OMG the pain in my chest was so bad. But thank goodness I had NO nausea. Zero, zilch. They were all sympathetic about the pain and said they were giving me pain meds.

I think I was waking up as they were wheeling me into my room on the 8^th floor. (Surgery was on the 3^rd floor.) I was grateful I didn’t have to wait around for a room. I was pretty out of it when I was first in the room, but my mom came in soon after and everything kind of settled down. I had a roommate, and my mom and she talked… I was pretty much just lying there in pain, but they told me there was nothing they could do about it but give me the morphine shot my doctor ordered. My mom was great, she had my bag that I packed with my pillow in it, and other stuff I had packed as well. She gave me my pillow and that was great. The plastic one they have at the hospital just doesn’t cut it, you know?

After a few hours, my mom decided to leave, and that was fine with me. She was great to have there, but there was really nothing she needed to be there for at that point. I just wanted to sleep anyway. So she left, and I just laid in bed waiting for the pain to die down. I knew the second I woke up from surgery that the pain wasn’t from the incisions, but from the carbon dioxide they used to inflate me during surgery. I knew this because the pain was in the upper right of my chest, just under my breast. For some reason, that’s where the gas migrated in me… I guess in most people it ends up in their shoulder. Well anyway, it hurt like hell and the morphine they gave me did very little to help.

Ok, here’s my first and biggest complaint about my surgery. Even though the hospital had me sign a release for a morphine pump the week prior, I did not have one during my hospital stay, because Dr. Pleatman did not order one. Instead, I had to call down to the nurse’s station every two hours, all day and all night, to get them to give me my pain shot. Do I even have to explain how annoying that was?? They couldn’t just assume I needed the shot and show up with it, I had to actually press the button to call them, wait for them to answer (which sometimes took up to 10 minutes), ask for the shot, then hope they got around to bringing it to me. That could take another half an hour. It was a complete waste of my time AND theirs. Frankly I think it’s unacceptable that Dr. Pleatman didn’t order the pump for me. I am going to talk to him about this at my one week post-op appointment. It’s inhumane to put a surgery patient through that kind of treatment, when morphine pumps are so common and readily available. My roommate had one, although she wasn’t a patient of Dr. P’s. I’m still kind of angry about it. I was too out of it to even realize that I should have requested one as soon as I realized what was going on. [NOTE added 6-8-07: I spoke to Dr. Pleatman about this at my 1 week post-op appointment. He told me that he purposely does not give a morphine pump because he doesn't want his patients laying there "all doped up," just pressing the button over & over. He'd rather have us call and get the shot when we needed it. He also said most people don't need it much. I have to admit that looking back, I don't think the shot did much for me. I just kept calling for it because I was afraid of possibly feeling more pain. The gas pain in my chest really didn't seem to be affected by it... that pain just went away slowly and steadily over time, and I think the hot water pad did more for it than the morphine did. Anyway it made me feel better to know that he had a real reason for not giving the pump, and it wasn't just irresponsibility on his part.]

Well aside from that, the stay at the hospital wasn’t too bad. It took a long time to get anything done, but I will say this: with only a few exceptions, every single person at that hospital was cheerful and friendly. I mean even the lady who cleaned the room after my roommate left was a sweetheart. I thought that was pretty cool! I think that like most hospitals these days, they were horribly under-staffed, and chronically behind on everything. But they sure were cheerful about it!

One concern I had was the fact that the staff was not well-informed about the VSG procedure. I knew that going in, because some other of Dr. P’s patients warned me about it. And sure enough, within hours of my getting to my room, a woman brought me an apple juice and a jello. She also handed me a piece of paper that showed the food order, and it had another patient’s name on it. I didn’t say anything though, and I was so thirsty that I decided to drink the juice. I wasn’t aware that I wasn’t supposed to have ANYTHING by mouth for the first day… I thought for sure they gave you ice chips fairly quickly. I hadn’t gotten around to asking for anything yet, so when this arrived, I was pretty happy. I was able to sip about one ounce of the juice over a period of an hour, and I was glad about that.

After a few hours, a new nurse showed up to check on me, and told me I wasn’t to have anything at all by mouth. This was the first I had heard about it. She then saw the apple juice, & took it & poured it out. I felt like a bad kid, LOL.

For the rest of the night, my roommate and I just laid in our beds, fairly miserable. It was kinda cool though, because it turns out that whenever I had something that required me to make noise (like calling the nurse every 2 hours for pain meds, or having to get up & go to the bathroom) she had something, too. And vice-versa. So about every 2 hours we were both up for something or other, then we’d get a half hour to an hour of rest.

Here’s a tip for anyone going to a hospital for the night. BRING EARPLUGS!!!! I can’t emphasize that enough. And if you’ve never used earplugs, or don’t like them, well, START getting used to them, because they are a GODSEND in a hospital. I was blissfully unaware of most of what was going on around me most of the time. Go to a drugstore and look for the brand called Hearos. Buy them. Learn how to insert them properly. Then, when you get to your hospital room and want to get some rest, PUT THEM IN. Because folks, hospitals are LOUD, at all hours of the day and night. Hospital employees, bless their hearts, have no problem with talking at the top of their voices out in the hallway right outside of your room, or even in your room, even when they know it’s 3am and you might just be trying to sleep.

I didn’t have an eye mask, but if having bright lights flipped on over your head wakes you up, you might want to invest in one of those as well.

When the morning hours finally rolled around, I was starting to feel better. The gas pain steadily faded during the night, and although it was still there it was much better. I think part of the reason is the heating pad I made them get for me the night before. What an ordeal THAT was! I had read on OH that the heating pad helps dissipate the CO2 that causes you so much pain, so I asked them to bring me one. (I had brought a hot water bottle, but quickly abandoned it because the weight of it was too much for my sore tummy area.) Well, they had to contact the doctor in charge in order to get the heating pad, and he gave the nurse a hard time about it, apparently. He told her, “That’s not going to do anything.” And the nurse said, “Fine but the patient wants it, so can you just approve it?” (I know about this conversation because she told me about it later.)

It took a while, but eventually she showed up with this big old machine… Apparently they don’t give normal heating pads in hospitals. They have to use a water-pump heating pad. It was a pretty neat device! It had a pump that sat on my table, that had to be filled up with water. The water then circulated through the thin pad part of it, and it maintained a PERFECT temperature all night. I tucked it right under my breasts and it covered my whole belly area. What a wonderful thing that was. It never got too hot, and really helped me to sleep. And as I said, it must have helped with the gas pain, too, because it was much better by morning.

At 7:30 am, a tray of food arrived for me. Included with the tray was the menu of what items I had received. It was labeled “bariatric breakfast.” It included decaf coffee, 2 apple juices, a protein shake, and cream of wheat. I wasn’t supposed to have cream of wheat, or anything except clear liquids! But I figured this would happen, since others had told me it had happened to them. I drank the juice as best I could (MAN it hurt to swallow those first few hours! Teeny tiny sips were all that would go down without causing pain. More on that later.) I didn’t touch the rest of the stuff on the tray, and eventually they came and took it away.

Interestingly, as I was getting ready to leave a few hours later, a woman came in my room and identified herself as “the dietitian.” She asked me about what lunch I wanted. So I took that opportunity to talk to her about the inappropriateness of serving VSG patients cream of wheat. She said that the orders for bariatric patients were usually “clear liquids; full liquids as tolerated.” She said that even though they were only supposed to give us clear liquids, they figured they would give us full liquids in case we could tolerate them & wanted them. I told her that’s a no-no, that we we’re not supposed to even be offered cream of wheat (since when is that a “full liquid” anyway?) I told her that although I knew this, other VSG patients might not know this, and might end up eating the cream of wheat and it would be hard on their new stomachs. She was very attentive and concerned, and sure enough, about 10 minutes after she left, my lunch tray arrived – with all clear liquids. How cool!

Sorry to skip around with my times like this, but I keep remembering things I want to say…

Dr. Pleatman’s intern, Dr. Le, had come in to visit me at 7:05 am. He asked me a few questions and checked my incisions, then he left. He was nice. Dr. Pleatman came in around 11am, told me my surgery went well, and that I could go home if I was keeping fluids down. He stayed for less than 60 seconds, and he seemed rushed. He was fairly business-like, not warm at all. That’s just him I guess. He said nothing about me needing a swallow test either, and I didn’t realize until later how strange that was. I thought it was standard practice to test for leaks before a patient was sent home. But I guess it would have been obvious if I was leaking stomach acid, so why bother, right?

I was happy to hear I could go home, but I kept thinking about Sevana (aka lilqtboo) and the problems she had from going home too early. She had dehydration & had to go back to the E.R. And Margo (aka mlbmichigan) had also encouraged me to stay for 2 days. So I debated it for a while, but I just couldn’t see spending the rest of the day and a whole other night there. I was really nervous though. I sipped as often as I could, with the phrase “sip, sip, sip” going through my head constantly. Now I knew why all the post-ops on OH tell you that!!! You HAVE to sip constantly… otherwise you’ll never get all of your fluids in. Because the sips are not normal sips, they have to be like an 1/8^th of a tablespoon…. TEENY TINY, otherwise they really hurt going down.

The pain of too big a sip is like this: Have you ever taken a gulp of a drink and accidentally swallowed some air, too? And it hurts going down the whole way? THAT’S what every damn sip is like immediately post-op. You just feel that pain with every sip, and it takes a while to realize you must think about every sip you take, and make it SMALL, and do not swallow air with it, for heaven’s sake. It’s definitely a learning process. As I sit here writing this, 2 days post op, I’m still having trouble taking sips that are small enough and air-free. But it definitely gets better & easier hour by hour.

Another way to describe the pain is the way it feels to swallow a burp, if that makes sense. Like if you want to burp and start to, but then end up swallowing instead. Just feels like something large and rather painful going down, and you feel it rumbling around in your stomach, too. I will be glad when this stage is over & done with!

Back to the story… As I said, I did decide to leave, and I called my mom to come get me. I had the nurse bring me the discharge papers, and after about a half an hour, they found someone to wheel me downstairs. The 20 minute ride home wasn’t too bad… Fairly bumpy because of mom’s SUV, but not really painful. The worst part was that I had to pee really bad. My bladder is about the size of a pea, so having to drink constantly is kind of hard on me. I’m constantly getting up to go to the bathroom. But that’s probably good, because it keeps me moving.

Oh, one other thing about my hospital stay, no one ever tried to get me up to walk, which I have heard you’re supposed to do in order to prevent blood clots. Granted, I did have on the compression stockings that they put on me before surgery, and I also was hooked up to electric leg warmer-type things that continually compress your calves & then release, compress & release, the whole time I was in my hospital bed. So maybe walking wasn’t that important. But I did it anyway. Pretty much every time I got up to go pee, I’d head out of my room and do a lap around the floor, using my I.V. stand as support. It was easy and enjoyable – a nice change from being in the bed.

Well, once I got home, I felt pretty good. I was tired and still in a decent amount of pain (I hadn’t had a morhine shot for a few hours), so I took my first dose of the pain med Dr. P had given me the week prior. I had filled the script before I went to the hospital, so it would be waiting for me when I got home. Let me tell you, this stuff is WAY better than the morphine they gave me at the hospital… It has codeine in it, and although I’ve had codeine products in the past and they’ve never done much for me, THIS stuff is the greatest. Within 5 minutes you get a warm feeling go all over your body, and the pain is gone and you feel relaxed…. It’s good stuff! You can take it every four hours as needed. So far I’ve had about 4 doses. It really helped me to sleep that first night home. I can’t roll on my side at all, because when I do, it feel sore, like I’ve done 1,000 sit-ups. So I have to sleep flat on my back, and I don’t like that. The drugs make it easier though….la la la….

Well it’s about 10pm, and I’m about to take another dose and go to sleep… I’m so thrilled to be on the loser’s bench. It still doesn’t seem real. During the night at the hospital, I kept dreaming I hadn’t had the surgery yet. I would wake up and think about my To Do list and think I needed to get everything done before my surgery… But then reality would hit and I would realize it’s DONE! I got my banana! Yay!!!!!

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have been on clear liquids all day and I have to say that I do not like clear liquids. I used to, but not any more! Ug, I am so hungry and I would give anything to eat even one BITE of something. 

I'm kinda ticked off because I just got a call from the hospital and they said my surgery has been bumped to 1:15pm (from 11am.) I have to be at the hospital at 11:15am now. Normally I'd be happy because it means I'd have time to do stuff in the morning, but since I can't even have WATER after midnight tonight, I'm going to be dying by tomorrow at 1:15pm. And you KNOW they'll be late, so it'll be more like 2pm before I get in to the operating room. Not much I can do but grin & bear it though.

Oh, here's a little tip for those of you thinking about what your last meal might be before you go on clear liquids before your surgery: DO NOT eat anything with tons of garlic, LOL! I made that mistake yesterday... See, my surgeon didn't put me on a pre-surgery diet, but I did kind of a self-imposed diet in the 5 days prior to my surgery. Lots of protein shakes and 1 or 2 Lean Cuisines per day. Well my last Lean Cuisine was a chicken & roasted garlic pizza... It was pretty good but now no matter how many times I brush my teeth, floss & use mouthwash, I can STILL taste it. You know how garlic is. So that's not fun. 

NOTHING is fun right now, actually!! Ok well that's not true, really... I'm starving to death but I'm in a pretty good mood. Mostly because of the tons of kind words people have been sending me over the past few days. I'm just overwhelmed by all the love and caring that the people on this board show to each other. To all of you, a great big hug & thank you!!!

I may update again later tonight, or even tomorrow morning. I wish I could just fall asleep right now & wake up and have the surgery be done with. This waiting is driving me crazy!

I woke up this morning at 5:45am. I NEVER wake up that early. I really am nervous about this surgery!! I'm surprised at myself... I really didn't think I would be nervous. Especially 3 days before the big day. Hmmm.

I've been dieting since Saturday, today is Monday.... According to the scale I weighed 245 this morning. (God I can't believe I weigh that much!!!) But it's good because I weighed almost 255 at Dr. Pleatman's office on Wednesday, and he wasn't happy about that, since it was about 6 pounds more than I weighed at my consult a month ago. I blamed it on my period and on the heavy jeans I was wearing (I weighed them later - they are exactly 2 pounds. :)

I'm kinda surprised that I have lost this much weight, because the liquid diet that I said I was gonna go on only lasted about 4 hours. I decided to supplement with Lean Cuisine! I really am horrible about dieting. I have no will power at all. Gee, I wonder how I'll do after the surgery!?! I think I'll do ok. I guess I do have SOME will power, and of course I'll have the tool (the VSG) to help me out. I know I can handle it.

In the last few days I've been cleaning a lot... clothes, rooms, myself, LOL. I'm the kind of person who likes to have everything nice & perfect when I leave on a vacation, so it will be nice when I come back. This isn't a vacation exactly, but it will be great to not have to worry about a messy house or laundry when I get back from surgery. 

My mom wants me to stay at her house (my parents house), but honestly that would be way more stress than I need right now! I don't think it would help in my recovery very much. I'm a very independent person and truthfully, I'd just rather be left alone to recuperate. Sorry Mom, you raised me that way! 

Let's see, what else.... Oh I have to say again what a wonderful place ObesityHelp.com is. I have received so many encouraging letters from people, so many kind words, it's just incredible. I started browsing OH just a few months ago, and I had no idea what a lifeline it would become, and what a rewarding and enriching part of my life it would be. Thank you to everyone!!!

Well I'll sign off for now... This is a strange day because it's Monday, but of course it's Memorial Day so it feels more like the weekend. Whenever Monday is a holiday, the rest of the week is thrown off... you know how that is. So Tuesday will feel like a Monday, and that means Thursday (my surgery day) will be here even faster!! Yikes!!!

Ok! Well on Wednesday I had my pre-surgery appointment with my surgeon, combined with a meeting with the nutritionist. I would have written about this sooner, but my computer got a bad virus, and I've been dealing with that for a few days. I think it's all fixed now, thank goodness. 

The appointment went pretty smoothly. I'd like to tell every detail that happened, but I'm starting to feel paranoid with this blog thing... I feel like Dr. Pleatman knows about my blog and reads it... He had this little smirk on his face when I first saw him for this appointment, and my paranoid brain started thinking, "Does he know me from OH? Has he read what I wrote about him and his staff??" I guess I don't really care if he has, but still, it's just a really awkward feeling, you know? I mean he hasn't said anything to me about it, but I KNOW he goes online a lot... at both appointments I've had with him, he found a reason to flip open his laptop and show me something online... and plus when I was considering getting the Lap-Band, he was a fairly regular contributor to the forum on LapBandTalk.com. For some reason, he doesn't contribute on OH, but I know he knows about it, because he recommends it on his website!

Oh for heaven's sake, of course he reads his patients' blogs! Who am I kidding? If I were him, I would read them! I'm just going to assume he does. :) So Dr. P, if you're reading this, Hi!! How are you? Hope you don't take offense at the things I say about you!!! LOL.

My mom went with me to this appointment, which was great. She’s gonna be with me at the hospital, so it was good that she got to meet Dr. P ahead of time. She liked him and agreed that he seems very capable. 

When we got there, no one else was in the waiting room, but I checked the sign-in sheet to look at the names of the patients who had already been there that day. I didn't recognize any of the names... I was looking for Margo (aka mlbmichigan), specifically, because I knew she had her post-op appointment that day. We went in to see Dr. P after waiting for maybe 5 or 10 minutes. Jo, the receptionist & surgical coordinator, had weighed me as we were waiting, and I had gained 6 pounds since my consult a month ago!! I was surprised because my scale at home said I had only gained 1 pound. But I was wearing heavy jeans this time, plus it's around that time of the month, so I wasn't super-surprised. But I was shakin’ in my shoes because I knew Dr. P would be ticked off! 

Anyway... we went in the exam room and he's like, "Well, do you have any questions?" So I just whipped out my sheet of questions and read them off. I'll just list them here, along with his answers. (Disclaimer: Although I did take a few notes, this was 3 days ago, and I’m only giving a summary of what was said. So please take it all with a grain of salt.): 

Why is carbon dioxide (CO2) used to expand the inside area during laparoscopic surgery? 

His response was, “As opposed to what?” I said, “I dunno, regular air?” He said there are 3 gases that can be used - helium, which is ok but too expensive, nitrous oxide, which could explode if it happened to come in contact with methane from inside your intestines, and CO2. CO2 is better than regular air because on the off-chance that any of it got into your bloodstream during the surgery, it would dissipate much faster than regular air. So I thought that was interesting to learn. I know it didn't really matter in terms of whether I wanted the surgery or not, but I was just curious.

I get really nauseous after general anesthesia, are you guys gonna load me up with anti-nausea stuff? And isn’t retching bad for the newly cut stomach?

He said that they give the strongest nausea med that is available, but some people are nauseous afterwards anyway. It could even last for days. I wasn't too happy to hear that. I asked if I could get extra meds just in case, and he repeated that they will give me the strongest nausea med available, and that's all he had to say about it. I'm still going to bug the anesthesiologist about it on the day of my surgery though. Oh and about the retching - he said he’s never had anyone blow out the staple line in the stomach from having nausea.

How long of a hospital stay is included in the $5,400 I am going to be paying Pontiac Osteopathic Hospital (POH)? [That’s not the entire cost of the surgery; his fee is an additional $5,000 and anesthesia is $500, for a total of $10,900.]

He said it is 3 days, but he had someone stay 4 days once and POH didn't make them pay extra. He was kind of wishy-washy on this subject, which is weird, because you would think it would be cut and dry. And in fact we kind of got off on a tangent... He said something about the fact that you could technically stay as long as you want at the hospital, but you MAY end up paying a huge bill. He seemed to be curious about my opinion on the payment plan he offered, and he asked me, "Would you rather pay $5,400 to cover you for 3 nights or $8,000 to cover you for a full month?” Then we kind of got into a discussion of how much people would be willing to pay up front to cover the possibility of longer-term care, considering the very low risk of complications, etc. He said, "What if you had a leak and low blood pressure and other complications and you DID end up having to stay for a few weeks? Your bill could be like $100,000. People have gone bankrupt paying hospital fees." I'm like, "Yeah, well, that's true... But the risk of that happening is SO slim," and he's like, "True, but..." I don't know why we got off on this subject, it was kind of funny.

One thing he said which I hadn't thought of was this... He said if you do have insurance, then if you go back to the hospital with complications, it will most likely be covered. He said your insurance company doesn't know you had a VSG, right? So all they know is that you went to the hospital for stomach pain or whatever, so why wouldn’t they cover it? I think he's right about that! I think that all the insurance companies know is what the codes are for the services you got while at the hospital. So they will see the code for bloodwork, a code for an x-ray, a code for whatever services you got. But those codes aren't special for bariatric patients... You know what I mean? So that made me feel a little better about what would happen if there were ever any complications. Ok, on to the next question…

I have read that some surgeons will take the gallbladder out automatically during bariatric surgery, do you do that? And if not, will I be on gallbladder meds afterward?

He said that taking out the gallbladder is old-fashioned and not necessary and no, he doesn't do it. He said he puts patients on gallbladder meds to prevent gallstones after surgery. He gave me a prescription for Urso, 250mg, to take twice a day for six months.

Would you automatically repair a hiatal hernia if you got in there and saw that I have one?

(I don't think I have a hiatal hernia, but I was curious.) He said only if it was big... he seemed to kind of dismiss that idea... maybe with the VSG, it's not an issue anymore? I don't know, I trust him, so I didn't press him too much on that question, just moved on to the next.

They told me at the pre-admission appointment that you have your patients take a Celebrex pill by mouth just prior to surgery…

He said he has found that it lessens the pain afterwards. I said, "But... I thought you're not supposed to take any liquids or anything by mouth for like 8 hours prior to surgery! Like nothing!" He was like, "Well you just take it with a sip of water, so..." He seemed surprised that I would be surprised about that. But I AM surprised... I mean, it's drilled into our heads that NOTHING is supposed to pass our lips because it could cause a problem during surgery! And now I learn that he's really casual about having us take a pill and water RIGHT before surgery?!?! You know what he said? He said the reason he does that is because he usually forgets to prescribe it after surgery so this is just easier. I'm like, "HUH??"  I kind of laughed when he admitted that, and I didn't ask him anything more about it... I'm just going to assume that he knows what he's doing, as strange as it may sound.

Do you use glue or staples on the incisions where the lap instruments went into my belly?

He said he does subcutaneous stitches and uses steri-strips.

Should I be on any antacid meds after surgery? Do you give a script for those?

He said he does recommend them, and that over the counter ones are fine. (Prilosec, Zantac, etc.)

After I was done with my questions, my mom asked him a few things, one of which prompted him to get on his laptop and show us a YouTube video of the VSG procedure that he had found. So he gets kind of excited and starts narrating this grainy video, and kind of helped my mom see what happened during the surgery (her question had to do with the stuff that was attached to the part of the stomach that gets removed.) Anyway he shows us this video and starts talking about how YouTube is a great way to do free advertising, and then he says he just bought an ad on Google for himself... I told him I had seen it, and he said, "You saw it?? How was it?? Was it pretty good??" And I'm like "Yeah! It was good! It said 'Why go to Mexico?' right??" And he says, "Yeah!" Kind of cracked me up... he's sitting here discussing his advertising methods with a patient. :)

At one point as we were finishing up, he was kind of looking through my chart and then he stopped and said, "You gained weight!!" I was like, "Oh crap." I didn't say it out loud though. I just kind of mumbled something about wearing heavy jeans & it being that time of the month... My mom asked him what the big deal was about a patient gaining weight before surgery. He looked at her like she was crazy and said that it shows a patient isn't serious about the surgery. He had the same attitude about it that he did back on the day of the info session, when someone in the audience asked about that. He seemed really incredulous about it, like how could we even THINK about gaining weight prior to surgery?!?! In my opinion, this is one of those things that shows you he's a little out of touch with obese people. I mean, the whole reason we're getting this surgery is because we're out of control with our eating, and we NEED this tool to help us gain some control over it. I understand the thing about losing a bit of weight to shrink your liver just before surgery, but that's not really what he was talking about. He was more referring to the idea that gaining weight prior to surgery means you're not serious about the surgery. Fortunately, he didn't seem too upset with me, he just said something about losing a few pounds to shrink my liver, and then he dropped the subject.

You know, now that I think about it, he really better not get mad at me for gaining a little weight, and he better not dare cancel my surgery or something. Because I'm self pay, and he told my mom (who asked about the possibility of getting the surgery for herself, since she only has a BMI of 34) that he's seen self-pay patients with BMI's of UNDER 30! So if he's willing to do this surgery on people who don't even need it, just because they can afford it, he better not have the nerve to cancel me for gaining a few pounds. I might go so far as to say he can't cancel me. I mean unless I gained like 30 pounds in one month or something, or if I had a really high BMI, which could mean my liver was really messed up.

I don't know why I'm getting all weird about this... I guess I'm just afraid that I might not lose any weight before next Thursday, and how horrible it would be for him to not do the surgery. But truthfully, although he wasn't happy, he never said anything really firm about it, like "YOU MUST lose weight or I won't operate on you!" So I guess I should just chill out. :)

Ok well by this time, I was really hot and uncomfortable, not because of him or anything, but because it was like 150 degrees outside and 1000% humidity and I was wearing a long-sleeved polyester shirt (the only thing I own that looks half-way decent on me), and even though I had been inside for a half an hour, I still hadn't recovered from the 1 minute walk from our car to his office. Plus I was a little nervous just talking to him, I don't know why. Oh and the chairs were small & uncomfortable too... I don't know, anyway the bottom line is that I totally wimped out on asking him the last of my questions… which was regarding the questionable care that people receive at Pontiac Osteopathic Hospital. I wanted to tell him about the things I’ve been reading lately here on OH, from patients of his who have been unhappy with the after care they received while recovering from their surgeries at POH. I am concerned about this, of course, but I also knew that Margo was going to be seeing him later that day, and was planning on discussing it with him.

Well after we were done, he took us out and left us with Jo, and he moved on to his next patient. Jo said, "Well, I guess we're all taken care of then, right? See you on your surgery day!" I said, "Um, I'm supposed to see the nutritionist, right?" And she said, "Oh, right, ok..." I think she's still upset about her husband’s illness, but I didn't say anything about it. She seems really fragile & I didn't want to make her start crying or something.

It turns out the nutritionist was with another client, so we had to go back out into the waiting room for a while. This time, there were like 3 other patients out there, and one of them had her 2 kids with her. All the seats were taken so mom and I just stood there... it's times like this where my size really bothers me, because I was SO hot and just standing there in that stupid polyester shirt made me so much hotter... I was fanning my face with my folder... I know my face was beet red, and I was sweating, while everyone else (including my mom) looked perfectly comfortable. Ugh.

One of the people in the room was a man who recognized me from the pre-op/nutrition class, so he and I started talking... he had already gotten his RNY and he was doing really great... Then this other woman said she just got a revision from a band to a VSG, and she was doing pretty good... Then another woman came in and signed in and I heard Jo call her Margo, so I introduced myself and we started talking up a storm... It was like a party in the waiting room! :)

Margo and I talked about the details of her surgery & the care she received at POH… which was ok, but I got the impression that she felt, as others I have spoken to felt, that the nurses there had no clue what a VSG was or how to treat a bariatric patient. I won’t go into the details of what she said, out of respect for her privacy, but I’m sure she would tell anyone who is interested and who PMed her. She did say that she intended to talk to Dr. P about this issue, which I think is great. I hope she did.

Let's see, what else... Oh finally we got called in to see the nutritionist, Jennie Fox (who is in her late 40’s I would say, not in her 20’s, as her name suggests.) She said, "Well! How can I help you today?" I said, "Um, well, my surgery is in one week, so...?" I was surprised... I thought that she would have gone over the 7-day food journal that they made me do (I was required to turn it in at my consult a month ago), but she acted like I had requested to see her, and that she didn’t know why I was there. I was there because they told me this was a pre-op appointment where I would be seeing the surgeon and the nutritionist! Strange. 

Well anyway, she was very nice once I told her about my surgery... she asked if I had bought any foods for after the surgery, and we talked for a minute about that. Then I told her that I had gained 6 pounds in the last month, and that I was hoping to lose some weight in the 6 days before surgery. Keep in mind that this lady is like 95 pounds dripping wet... she says to me in this sing-songy voice, "Well, just substitute one meal each day with a protein shake like this one." She shows me some protein drink that she had there. I'm like "HELLO?!?! Lady, I eat like 5 meals a day that are 1,000 calories each, plus about 25 snacks in between... how do you think I GOT this way!?" LOL I didn't really say that, but it just amazed me that she could be so naive to say something so simplistic like that. Like I always eat 3 balanced meals a day and all I need to do is to substitute one of them with a shake and I'll lose weight. Ha! Losing weight in 6 days is going to require more than substituting one shake for one meal. That would take me from what, about 4500 calories to 4000 calories a day?

To be fair, she did eventually ask me what I liked to eat, or what I’m eating these days. I said, “Uh, I don’t know… Lean Cuisine…” Because it’s true, I’ve become so lazy that I just eat frozen crap all the time. She said to round it out with a salad and a dairy product, and that would be great. She handed me a few papers with examples of meals on them, so that was sort of helpful. I was surprised that she didn’t just put me on a liquid diet. But she did mention that; she said that Dr. P has said to her, “Why don’t you just put them on a liquid diet?” And she said that she doesn’t like to do that, because people need to be able to chew on something. She’s right of course, and I imagine that most people who are put on liquid diets cheat a little bit. I mean, how can you not?? We discussed the possibility of perhaps substituting 2 of my meals with shakes, and perhaps making Slurpee-like drinks out of Crystal Light so I can chew on the ice. She’s really a nice woman, very professional, and I shouldn’t joke about the things she said. I guess I’m just antsy because I know I need to lose weight before surgery & I’m afraid I won’t be able to do it. Despite her suggestions, I’ve put myself on a liquid diet starting today (Saturday, May 26). I am REALLY not looking forward to doing this for the next 5 days!!

Well anyway, Mom and I left her office after that, and headed out the door. All in all, it was a good appointment, and I’m SO excited for my surgery date to get here!!! Five more days!!! 

I had my pre-admission appointment at Pontiac Osteopathic Hospital today. My surgery is in 10 days. I've been feeling more and more uneasy about having my surgery done at POH, because of some recent reports I've heard from post-ops... One being a nurse herself, so she knows what to look for, and she said it was "really, really bad." Among other things, she said the nurses had never even heard of the VSG! How can they care for you properly if they don't even know what surgery you had?? The other post-op I heard from was lilqtboo (aka Sevana), who was sent home by the nurses before she was even able to keep liquids down, which Dr. Pleatman requires in order for you to be released. She ended up going back to the ER because of this. Poor thing.

Well anyway, my visit today was not too bad! Parking was very convenient, the pre-admission area was right inside the door, and they saw me right away. The receptionist gave me a few things to sign, one of which was the approval to have a morphine pump... Yay! Glad I'll be having that. (OK technically it's called a PCA - Patient Controlled Analgesia Infuser, but you get the idea.) Then she gave me a little piece of paper with a checklist on it, showing each thing I was supposed to have done while I was there today. The list said: Doctor, Nurse, Bloodwork, and EKG. When each of those steps was complete, whoever was with me had to check off the box. I felt like a kindergartener! Pretty funny! But it was a good idea, no mistakes or omissions that way.

So... First I had my blood taken. The nurse asked me what I was there for, and I told her bariatric surgery. She was morbidly obese, and mumbled something about wishing she could get it done. I said insurance may pay for it, and she said her insurance company stopped covering her because she just had a knee replacement done. She said POH was her insurer! I was like, "Well that's not very nice." And she said, "Tell me about it." She was not very happy. I felt bad for her.

Next was yet another EKG. Third one I've had this year! Don't now how it turned out, but it went by quickly. 

Next I saw the nurse, who went over everything that will happen before the surgery. Her name was Marva, and she was truly marvelous!! She was actually an ER nurse, who works regularly with Dr. Pleatman, and she was just filling in for the person who usually does pre-admission stuff. So she was able to tell me EXACTLY what to expect, and what they do the day I go in for surgery. What a bonus it was to be able to talk to her! She was very kind and professional and with it. And she said she may be present during my surgery, so how great is that!?

Here's some of the stuff she told me. Forgive me if this gets boring, but I figure some other pre-ops might want to know. She said to stop all NSAID's (aspirin, ibuprofen, etc.) 5 days before surgery, and to stop taking my multi-vitamin 3 days before. (I didn't ask her why about the multi-vitamin - seems strange to me though.) She said no alcohol or smoking for 24 hours before surgery, and no recreational drugs for 3 days before surgery. I think I can handle all of that LOL! (They don't apply to me.) You're not supposed to wear nail polish for the surgery, but she says some women do... especially those who come in for breast implant surgery! Kinda funny.

Let's see, what else... Gotta shower the night before or morning of surgery with anti-bacterial soap. No liquids after midnight although I can brush my teeth. She gave me instructions for the person who would be accompanying me on my surgery day, and also some info for them, like the location and hours of the cafeterias, valet parking instructions, etc. I thought that was pretty cool.

I asked her about nausea, and she said to discuss that with the anesthesiology team on the morning of my surgery. She said they have good drugs for that. I also asked about WHEN they take the foley cath out after surgery (the bladder catheter) because for the surgery I had 10 years ago, they took it out before I even woke up, and I was totally miserable because I was DYING to pee and couldn't. She said she wasn't sure when they take it out... she seemed interested in that subject and said I should definitely ask about it the day of my surgery. 

I had a few questions about stuff that would happen immediately post-op, but she didn't seem to know anything about it. I guess after surgery, you get handed off to the post-op department, and they are a different crew of people. Now that I think about it, that makes sense!

She told me in detail all of the stuff they would be doing to me pre-op... I don't remember it all, but I'll try to tell what I remember. She said I'll be hooked up to an IV, and will receive antibiotics through that. She said Dr. P gives patients a pill, Celebrex, to lessen the symptoms after the surgery. I thought that was kind of interesting... I thought Celebrex was for arthritis, and I also thought I wasn't supposed to have anything by mouth before the surgery! I should have asked her about that, but I didn't. She did say specifically that it was a pill, too. Strange! She also said I'd be given Heparin via a shot in my stomach (not my actual stomach, just on my belly) to thin my blood. She said I'd be given a mild sedative as I was being taken to the operating room. She also said I'd be wearing some knee-highs to prevent blood clots during surgery.

That's about all I remember! She was really, really helpful and reassuring and she gave me a great deal of confidence that at least the surgery nurses are excellent at POH, if not the aftercare nurses.

Oh and a funny little thing she mentioned about Dr. Pleatman... When she saw I was having the VSG done, she said that he's been doing more and more of those. She said she was with him a few weeks ago and he finished 3 of them in a really short period of time. She said, "You know, he's ususally a very quiet man, but he got really excited that day about how quickly he got them done!" I thought that was kind of funny... hard to picture Dr. Pleatman excited!  :)

The last person I saw was a doctor (actually an intern), who I recognized as the sneezing guy from the lobby. You see, as I was in the lobby just before my appointment, I saw a guy sneeze as he was walking. He didn't cover his mouth, and it sounded like a pretty wet sneeze. YUCK! And since he was walking, he walked right into it. GROSS! So he turned out to be the doctor who did my exam. EEEEWW! Thankfully, he pretty much just asked me a thousand questions, while standing on the other side of the exam room. :) He went over my medical history, asked me everything they could ever want to know about it, and then did a brief physical exam. He listened to my heart & my breathing, and a few other quick things. He rinsed his hands after touching me... HA! Pretty ironic! I felt like taking a whole shower after he touched me! :P

Well that was it... the appointment lasted maybe an hour, and now my next step is the pre-surgery appointment with my surgeon on Wednesday! It's getting closer! YAY!