Hey everybody!!
I lurk on OH all the time, but the MS board sure is quiet.  I've never seen it when it was busy.  OH has been a great support for me.  I'm down 147 pounds, below my surgeon's goal and at my goal, still losing though.   I had RNY on 10/30/07.

Janet is supposed to be going to a class about running a support group.  I may try and go with her.   She and I have been talking back and forth about some ideas to gear the meetings so that they are more useful to those of us farther out.  I have told her what I encounter here on the boards hanging out on the graduates board.  I tried explaining that our issues this far out are so very different from the early outs or soon to be post ops and that the oldies quit coming because the meetings are just not useful anymore to them.  So, we are going to try and come up with some topics and speakers that maybe can help us with long term success and maintainance.  I have explained that the surgery is not a fix all and that weight can very easily be gained back if not diligent.  So, those are the issues we deal with  now.  Once we figure out our plan and what we hope to do, we will send out a mail out to everyone with the plans for the group and a schedule of events/topics.  And hopefully we can get it in the paper as well to reach those that had surgery eslewhere that don't know that our group exists.  I am hoping that we can get the group back active and close.  If you have any ideas, please share them, girl.  Love ya.

Melissa

Gosh Melissa... where do I start??!  lol  I saw my hematologist yesterday concerning my platelet count. She thinks she has come to a conclusion to what my problem is. It's called ITP. If I tried to pronounce it, I would probably be sent to hell... do not pass Go, do not collect $200... type of deal. ITP stands for immune thrombocytopenic purpura. With ITP, the body may not make enough platelets or it may destroy too many platelets. The latter part is my problem. It was a problem I had before I even had RNY almost 2 years ago. So, there is no telling how long I have had it. The good thing is that she doesn't seem too concerned about it right now. My count is in the 100's, if it was 50 or below, then she would seriously be worried. I have been in the 100's since I started under her care and I have been stable, so she's not too worried about it. With me being pregnant, my platelet count drops anyway, so its something that just will have to be watched closely. So, as of right now, we're just going to wait it out and see how things go from here. She isn't sure if the low platelet count is pregnancy related or just always that low, so she's going to re-evaluate me 6 months after the baby is born and decide on a treatment. It's curable though, but with steroids. And neither her or my ob/gyn want me on steroids right now with me being pregnant. We're all worried about the weight gain with steroids considering I had gastric bypass to get rid of it, so we're going to start low on the dosage and see how things progress from there. If the steroids do not help, then I would probably have to have my spleen taken out, but we won't know until much later about that.

As for everything else, it is good. Baby is doing good and growing. Doctor is concerned about my lack of weight gain, but its like I tell her, I'm trying. I'm constantly eating, so not sure what to do about that. I have even tried eating fattening stuff, but thats not helping any... lol. 

Thanks for asking...  :)

Karine

We had a new post op and a soon to be post op join us so we mainly focused on those early days out and all the questions and concerns that they had.  And then at the end, I discussed post op life from the far out side of things and what to expect the farther out you get.  I am going on five years out from Rny, and I help Janet coordinate the Hattiesburg meetings.  We hope to have some guest speakers lined up for the fall.

Melissa

Please post when it will be as I would love to try and participate.  Thanks bunches.

Melissa