Milwaukee County????

My surgery date is Nov. 9,'05 @ ELMBROOK HOSPITAL, Waukesha. Has or will anyone also experience(d) Elmbrook, thru BIW??? Need help!

There is a Milwaukee area WLS support group, comprised of folks from programs all over the city. The monthly meeting is tomorrow, 9am-11am, open to pre-ops, post-ops, those seeking information. I know that one of the group leaders went through BIW, probably some of the other members, too. The group is open to all, a good added source of information in addition to the surgeon's support group. There is a guest speaker this month, I think a psychologist talking about motivation. Here's the meeting notice: WLS Support group meeting Saturday October 29, 2005 9:00 am - 10:30 am This event repeats on the last Saturday of every month. Event Location: Johnny V's - 1650 S. 84th Street West Allis, WI Street: 1650 South 84th Street City, State, Zip: West Allis, WI Phone: 414-771-9660 Notes: Pre-op's and Post-op's welcome....bring family and friends too! Here's the website if you want to sign up to the list: (www.)milwaukeewls.com/ We also stay for lunch after the meeting, with a special menu that the restaurant tailors to our needs. hope this helps, Sue O.

The support group meetings are *fabulous* - I highly recommend that you try to make it tomorrow if you can! Nicole Lap RNY 6/7/05 312/213/150

I personally have not gone thru BIW but I have heard Emlbrook is excellent. The one bad thing I heard about BIW is that the 7 days prior to surgery your on a liquid diet. Now the onyl thing I can compare that to is my doctor - he has me on a good healtyh diet the previous 7 days. Good Luck

Julie, The liquid diet isn't so easy, but it does actually help to shrink the liver which helps the docs perform the surgery easier, and the complication rate is lower. Those of us with BMI's +50 needed 14 days.

I, too, am from Greenfield and had my surgery through BIW at Elmbrook nearly a year ago. They are a great bunch. I needed a lot of assistance during third shift, that was bit of an issue. You'll do fine.

Thanx for the support. You seem like a 'neat' person. I love cats too; also have an interesting collection...Found out today there's no 2 weeks of clear liquids! My BMI is NOW under 50 (48.5), so I start the high protein mix diet next week, 1 week before my date. I read your profile & noticed you mentioned Zone Perfect Protein drink; is it tasty? (tee-hee) It MUST be better than this Advant Edge SOY Protein Drink mix.I was told to use this pre-op. Your profile page is gorgeous! I am quite new to 'computering'. Inherited my sis' old iMac, & am learning on my own; the OLD FASHIONED way? Do you ever visit BIW's online support group? I understand it's been recently updated/re-vamped. Thanx again! Gotta go to bed to go to work.

Personally I do like the Zone products a lot because I'm a firm believer in the 40-30-30 balance. I also like that the RTD shakes come in 8 oz rather than 11, as many of the other products. The Vitamin Shoppe has them available for 4/$4.11 where Walmart $5.59 and Jewel $5.99. The powder's not bad. They also now are resealable. I used it during the pre-op. However, I don't know how you will do with it post-op because of the sugar content, since RNYers tend to have difficulties with sugar. Talk with your dietician? Mine is Mary, she's great. I think they recommend the Advant-Edge because the balance is what they want as well as the price is right. A lot of people at MilwaukeeWLS like the Unjury products. I am a member of the BIW online group as well, but mostly am a lurker there.

I had surgery at Elmbrook with Dr. Chiang of BIW. I was very pleased with my hospital stay. I had a couple special requests for my stay that I mentioned to the intake nurse and they were incredibly accommodating. Plus, the staff was wonderful to my family. The only thing that could have used a bit of finesse was my first inpatient visit with the dietician. She went over things when I was still a bit loopy and I didn't remember her covering some things--like using 1 oz glasses for liquid intake. So I mentioned it to the dr. and another dietician came back and answered my questions. Good luck! Jen

Hi Belinda, it's Kathy. I was in the BIW office on Wed, Oct 26 with you and have seen you at the BIW support group. Sorry I left so hastily. I was upset because my chest X-ray had some densities they wanted to have checked out by a pulmonologist in a hurry. I start my liquid protein fast on Monday, Oct 31, and I thought they might postpone the surgery. I saw the doc on the 28th and all is well. My surgery date remains Nov. 7. Just one thing both the nurse and pulmonologist said about BIW. They said that BIW is just very careful and want to make sure everything goes as well as possible for the patient. I've always felt good about my choice of using this surgical group. But as time has gone on, little comments like this just confirm that I made the right choice. The cardiologist I saw for my nuclear stress test said his sister, who lives in Ohio, will be having surgery with BIW in Dec. So that is also a strong endorsement for this surgical group if another doc wants surgery on his family done by this group. I think we'll both do OK. Like I was saying on Wed, there is a possibility I'll have to stay a few extra days so maybe we'll see each other on 6 North. Good luck!