Words of Wisdom for a newbie? May 7th

My surgery date is May 7th I am having a gastric bypass. I have quite a mix of emotions: excitment, relief and terror but I believe this is normal. I am very grateful that there are others who understand and are willing to share there experiences and lend support. It means a lot - Thank You I feel the need to more than my weight loss goals in actual writing. I want to commit to improving my quality of life. I want to do simple things, effortlessly, like tie my shoes and put on socks, pick up something I've dropped or walk and breathe at the same time. I hope to go on bike rides, hikes, walks, even amusement park rides with my family and to take my Granddaughter to the park. I want to fit in any car or plane seat and be able to go anywhere and know I can fit, whether it is an office waiting room, theater, ball park, restaurant, or wherever. I want to be able to find clothes and most importantly, cross my legs! Soon after the Doc said, basically, "lose weight or die before your children graduate college", I came to grips with the fact that wishing alone wouldn't change anything, that no fairy Godmother was going to tap me with her wand and no genie was going to offer me three wishes. I knew this surgery was the right thing. I understand that my success or failure depends on me and I will need help and support to succeed and all of you are so giving, it is great to know. Now that I have rambled on, I would like to know what suggestions everyone has about getting ready. Protein shakes vs. liquid protein in the beginning, liquid or chewable vitamins? Have a variety of products or what to see if tastes change like I have often heard? Any other words of wisdom? Bring anything helpful to hospital? Thanks for your help.

I am realizing that it is time to start getting all of these things ready as well...the time has snuck up on me. I hope you get some good answers!

Ditto on all your hopes and goals! as for what you need to get ready we are all newbies here. maybe posting on the May 07 board would be more helpful. They seem to be very helpful over there. Good luck on your surgery, I am May 5 I am actually getting less nervous as time goes by mostly thanks to the things I read on these forums. Cheryl

I bought a variety of protein products for after surgery...I have a list of things I bought to get ready for surgery on my profile...check it out. I love smart-forme products. They gave me samples at my program... I swear the hot chocolate is so good I bought 3 packages... I had to take into account that when I was buying this stuff that it was a little pricey, but its all I will be consuming so its actually cheaper than groceries... I spent about $160 in protein and it should be enough to get me through a month... I know I ate more than that before...lol....I had to get variety because I can imagine doing the same thing over and over again.... I'm doing the B-Complex sublingual liquid, the one I found has 1200 mcg's of B-12 where most only have 1000 mcg's...you can't overdo B-12 whatever your body doesn't need it just gets rid of it... I'm doing Flinstones chewables... my kids use them too so its better for us to buy a wholesale club amount of them at a time.. and its what my nutricianist recommends. I know that people I know brought things to do and ended up not using them...they all said you spend most of the time just out of it and walking and focusing on trying to drink what your supposed to... I'm going to bring comfy pants and shirts because I hate hospital garb...and I heard your either really hot afterwards or really cold.. so I guess I'll bring shorts too...lol... hope some of this helps...Lauren

Lauren - Thank you so much for your post. I know we are all new but the information you gave is great. I was wondering if the Flinstone vitamins were good for us to use. My nutitionist just said chewable vitamins. I already ordered some online from one of the sites but once those are done I am buying the kids ones. I also went out to the smart forme site and ordered a couple of things. I have not yet tried to sample any products so hearing feedback from someone else is great. Good Luck to everyone! My surgery is May 5th. For some reason I am not at all nervous. I am sure next week at this time it will be a different story. Heather