How much family support did you have? I’m concerned because I’m 99% certain my wife will be hostile to me having surgery. She needs one for herself a lot more than I do, but she has major league issues to deal with first.
Me? I’m simply tired of the drugs and bullshit, and I’d like to see my crank again without a mirrror.
As many times as I’ve had to administer shots, change dressings, clean surgical wounds, etc. after one of her operations, she owes me bigtime.
How do you handle eating out at a sitdown restaraunt? I’d presume buffets allow you to find what foods work for you. Are the portions on a Seasoned Citizen menu still too big?
May I try this one? Choosy’s gotta be getting tired.
I have a little card that you can slip to the waiter. It simply states that
'this patient has had an abdominal surgery and must eat very small meals of about 1/2 cup of food. Please allow our patient to order small portions or from the child’s menu."
Never had to use it. Just order a cup of soup.
My family and friends were amazing. After a minor initial attempt to warn me/make sure I wasn’t going into it with my eyes closed, everyone got behind me. My sister’s comment was, “I don’t want you to do it because I’m worried about you, but if I were you I’d be doing the same thing.”
I also took my S.O (at the time) to one of the seminars I had to attend. That helped a lot in getting him to see things from my perspective.
There are lots of reasons people get hostile at those choosing surgery. I don’t know how many of those your wife might be dealing with. But taking her to see the surgeon with you might help.
I’ve heard that people who lose large amounts of weight often have problems with their skin losing elasticity and not shrinking down to fit their thinner selves (yup, seen it on Extreme makover!).
Do you have this problem? If so, what, if anything, do you intend to do about it? I’ve heard that the excess skin can cause chafing and can be very uncomfortable, so some health plans will cover the removal of it because it’s not merely a cosmetic issue.
I have those cards too! I don’t use them though…I figure no one really cares how much I can eat. Ordinarily, I just get a normal meal and ask for a take home box when I order it. Then I eat it for three or four meals (if it doesn’t gross me out to look at it later). Or I order from the kids menu if there’s anything reasonable on it.
I have a lot of experience with restaurant food, since I go through periods where I travel for work frequently. Places will often let you just order a side dish too…so I ask for a side of veggies or a baked potato or something.
It’s doable and since there are much stranger people who eat out, I don’t think anyone thinks much of it.
Wow…there are a lot of folks who have had WLS around here! Thanks Doug!
I was a bit worried about this when I elected to have surgery. I do not think I’m going to have any additional surgery but I may change my mind by the time I’m done losing. My stomach seems to be snapping back normally and even my breasts are perking up. My arms seem a little flabby underneath and I do know that there is only so much I can do about this by way of exercise. I was only 34 when I had surgery, which is fairly young, so I’m hoping I will have minimal skin damage/excess skin.
But this is an issue for an enormous percentage of people who have bypass surgery. If it’s a certain severity level insurance will sometimes cover it. Otherwise, it costs around $7,000 to have abdominoplasty. People I know who have done this say it’s much “worse” surgery than the initial bypass. It takes longer to recover from and is more painful. I don’t know why that is!
It should be noted an established has NO obligation to honor those cards and in a LOT of cases - WILL not honor them. It’s a real hot point on the obesityhelp.com message board - people get all huffy when an establishment refuses to honor it. In my personal view, no one owes me bupkis re: this issue. I order soup and/or a shrimp cocktail and be done with it. Besides - most childrens’ menus are made up of crap food - fried chicken fingers, hotdogs & the like.
VCNJ~
THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU for this thread. I’m in the first stages of getting some kind of bypass done. I had a friend go through it and managed to get ALL the complications, but still insists that if she had to do it over again, she would.
My only real concerns is the skin under my arms being far too loose and my breasts (sigh) turning into tube socks with grapefruits. I’ve had that happen before, on liquid diets.
Still, the information you’ve presented here gives me a great deal of hope. I’m truly tired of fighting it constantly-- I’m almost 400 pounds now, I’ve been as low as 190 in the last five years. Yoyoing is NOT a healthy thing.
Oh, and rant-- for all this talk about “obesity” in society, the media neglects to mention that there are HUGE differences between the severely morbidly obese and the general population (but metabolically normal) population who just has too many big macs. Both groups can (and do) eat badly, but all evidence points to SMOs having to deal with basic genetic problems.
I tend to agree with you. Kids menus suck…they aren’t any good for KIDS either. I think most places will let you order something and then charge you for some equivalent adult meal. Not really worth arguing over.
One of the first things the surgeon told me was, “this is not your fault.” I don’t want to get into a huge debate about why people become obese, but from what I learned prior to surgery I’d say you are right…there is just something different about a person who is a)driven to eat to the point of obesity, b) capable of becoming morbidly obese, and c) lacks normal appetite controls.
I also wanted to say that yes, it’s true, people sometimes gain back some of what they lost. But for every story I hear about a person who re-gained a significant amount of weight, I can point to 20 people who lost it all, became fit and healthy, and kept it off for a very long time. If you’re around the obesity help message boards, then I know you can find them too. 
Mojave:
re: the skin thing. I’ve gone from a 42D to a 38 long - hah! I kill me. I think that loose skin & saggage (is that a word?) is going to be the norm for a good percentage of GBS patients. Age, genetics, whether or not you were a “yo yo dieter” and whether or not you’re a smoker will have some play. Insurance will cover some of it to a point (check your policy), but I went into this knowing I’d most likely be footing the bill.
Good luck in your journey - a good place for information is www.obesityhelp.com
VCNJ~
Followup: I went to the prospective patient seminar my candidate surgeon holds yesterday. Didn’t hear anything that would drive me away from this as a course of treatment; and actually, the only stuff I learned that was new material was some technical details regarding the various procedures. I’ve been doing my homework.
Didn’t ask many questions, because the talkative broads in the audience beat me to them. I did ask about martial arts and taking a shot to the abdomen. His answer was that after two weeks post-op (context was laparoscopic RNY), no problem with that.
Of course, there were usual disclaimers about taking longer for complications and open abdomen procedures.
I’m moving on to the next step: medical and psych screenings.
Much good luck, Bob. You’ll do fine, I’m sure.
At the risk of sounding like a broken record, let me recommend www.obesityhelp.com as a motherlode of information.
Keep us posted.
VCNJ~
I’ve been registered there for about 2 weeks now…
This is really fascinating.
First, Choosy Good on you for sharing what has changed your life for the better. You sound like you have done your homework!
If you answered it, forgive me, but what is Dumping
Yay VunderBob!
How big is the scar? My aunt had it done in the mid-90s and her scar is quite long.
I had my surgery done laparoscopically. I have 5 tiny incisions - each less than 1" long. I’ve had worse dog scratches.
VCNJ~
I have the same. They are fading to nothing. It’s amazing!
Congrats! Hope this all works out for you!