Hello to all. I would like take a few minutes to let you all know about the exciting and informative support meeting we had Tues evening. A big thank you to all of you that attended the support meeting. I feel this was a fun and informative meeting due to our guest speaker which was Corby S. from the STICK 2 FITNESS. His presentation showed us how to start out exercising after our surgeries. Start out slow and build our endurance up. I feel we all learned something and how we can exercise by just sitting in a chair. And a big thank you to Betty H. for doing the exercise ball. She look like an ole pro on the ball. And a reminder from Corby have fun exercising and changed things up. We had 28 people at the meeting. There was 14 losers with a total loss of 1177 pds. an average of 84 pds. We had 5 support persons there .(THANKS for being there for US). And 8 waitng for surgery dates or insurance approval. And our guest speaker Corby. We had 4 attending who just had the surgery with in the last few weeks. CONGRATULATIONS on your new Journey. Again I would like to say thank you to all of you that drove from out of town to attend the meeting. I will be attending the OH National Conference in Irvine Ca. next week. I hope to bring back a lot of valuable information to pass on to you. I will be going to Ogallaga when the DR. has his consultation and will speak about support groups and other support that we might need after and before surgery. Well my few minutes are about ready to run out. Well I hope you all have a nice Easter and your journey has been going well. Well keep in touch with each other throughout the state, Until next time . jimmy

Hi Michellle- glad everything went ok for you. I had surgery Fri., Mar. 30- so I'm not far ahead of you . My biggest problem has been explaining the bruising on my hand from the IV- it's rather wide spread. I slept in the recliner the first 2 nights home- much easier than trying to get in and out of bed. Keep us posted on how you're doing- Dorothy

Thanks for your story. Last night just before bed, I got the gas pain back under my ribs on the left side and it went up into my left shoulder. It would be there and hurt like he**, then just as quickly go away. Took me an hour to get it to go away long enough to get to sleep. If it comes back today, I'm going to call in just to make sure it is really just gas. My doc told me if I had a desk job I could go back to work in 2-3 days, so I think I underestimated just how much discomfort I would have. Overall, I'm doing better. Much less pulling and I was able to sleep in bed all night last night.

Hi everyone- had my surgery last friday, the 30th, did my swallow that afternoon (boy, did that first taste of ice chips taste good!), and came home just at noon saturday. I even made it through almost a whole day at work today. I've not been brave enough to get on the scale yet- I figure I'll wait till the staples are out. I did make a special purchase, from bariatric eatining.com-- I got the "bariatric survival pack", which has a book (very helpful), with recipies for the early stages, and an assortment of protein drinks, rtd and dry, plus a shaker bottle. One thing the lady who wrote the book recommended taking to the hospital with you is some lip balm- I hadn't thought about taking that, and it sure came in handy. I'll try to keep you all up to date on how it's going. Thanks for being there! Dorothy