A little info about my journey

Sandra Jean Mcclain i have blue cross blue shield of Minnesota through Jake's work and they cover it. so i went through one of the providers they allow. his name is Dr tersigni and he is in coos bay. i originally started at ohsu, but they just jerked me around. first it took me over a year to get a surgery date and when it finally came they started the surgery and ended up aborting the surgery because supposedly my liver was in bad condition. so after a whole bunch of tests to rule out liver problems , which all the test came back fine, they decided not to go forth with it. so i went to the next dr on my list and got a second opinion and he agreed to do it . so from start to finish with my new surgeon it was a month and half(because i already had all my pre-surgery tests done)and i had my band placed on september 17th in coos bay. and i am doing great. i will get my first fill when i am done healing (6 wks) on nov 2 down in coos bay.

Congratulations!!!!!!! how are you doing with the recovery from the surgery and the liquid diet.
is your stomach is sensitive?  I will have my surgery this coming Monday Sept 28 and am in the liquid diet now, it is hard but am exited also about  taking charge of my health.

Good luck to you...

Rossy...

So did you have the lap band?   What was your deciding factor on if you had the bipass or lap band?

I just saw Dr Tersigni, yesterday.  Robin and Dr T said I would be much better off doing the bipass. 

How are you feeling?  Do you have any complications?    Do you feel like you are starving?  Did you feel like you were starving when you had to do the liquid diet?
 

Please help me if you can.   I am trying to decide. 

I hope you are doing well and thank you in advance for any comments!

Hi!  I never had any doubt, from day one, that I wanted anything other than the RNY gastric bypass - and I am so glad I made that decision.

The first few weeks were hard on the liquid diet - not because I was hungry, because I always felt full - but because I was tired of the same foods over and over.  I am not a huge yogurt or pudding fan anymore.

You will breeze through the eating steps (ie: clear liquids to full liquids to puree to mechanical soft to a full diet)!  The thing I find hardest now is to slow down and enjoy my food.  I'm not ever really hungry, but sometimes things just look and smell great - so I get in there and eat like three to four bites super fast and am overwhelmingly full.  The other difficult thing for me is to not drink and eat at the same time...however, this is probably because I do eat too fast sometimes and feel so dry afterwards.

I think you will be happy with whatever decision you make, as soon as you start seeing results.  I had some buyers remorse my first day post-op, but it was very short lived (couple of hours, tops).  If I had it to do all over again - I would go bypass in a heartbeat!

Good luck to you - I know you will make the best decision for you!

Oops...a couple of your questions I forgot to answer in my previous post (sorry!):

Complications - I have only had complications on two occassions - both were related to getting sick frome eating.  I had tried a bite of chicken and followed it up with a couple small bites of mashed potatoes.  The potatoes were too heavy for me and came right back up.  That happened twice, so I have been steering clear of mashed potatoes.  As far as other complications - none.  No dumping, no other sickness, no severe dehydration, etc.  I just stick to my MD's guidelines of 5g or less of fat per serving and 15g or less of sugar per serving - easy to follow.

How do I feel - I was pretty run down the first two weeks post op.  I had my surgery on a Tuesday AM and was back to work the following Monday AM - so not even a full week off.  If I had it to do again, I would have at least taken a full week or two off post op just to give myself time to relax.  After that two weeks I felt back to my old self.

Exercise - I am still having a really hard time motivating to exercise, but purchased an elliptical and make myself get on the darn thing. 

Some books that really helped me solidify my decision of RNY Gastric Bypass: Diary of Gastric Bypass, WLS for Dummies, and It Aint Over til the Thin Lady Sings.

I hope this does help.

Again....you will make a fabulous decision for yourself!  Good luck!

Hi there,
so to answer some of your ?'s. yes i had the lap band, the reason why the dr chose that for me is due to the complication my previous surgeon had with my liver. but after everything was said and done dr tersigni took some pictures of my liver and told me that he was really shocked to see that is was in really good shape. he thought from all of the notes from the dr from ohsu, that it was going to look horrible.. i am feeling great actually, yesterday i had a little setback, but that was from not taking my acid reflux meds for a few days. i have not had any complications. i dont feel like i am starving either, i have had hunger growls a few times but only because i was behind on drinking my protein.  i did have a hard time with the pre op diet, because it was summer and i had lots of weddings and birthdays and family reunions to go to.

my first choice was the bypass because my mom had it ten yrs ago and lost 200 pounds and i need to lose close to that so i was kind of set on it in the beginning , but after all the stuff i had to go through i was happy just to be getting any of them. now i am kind of happy with the lapband, less recovery time. i hope i answered your ?'s . if you have more , dont hesitate to ask =)
sandra