6 days to go...

Tomorrow is the day that I go to Boise for my Pre Op appointment with my surgeon. I go in for Pre Op testing before that, and then go see the Dr. I have been very excited and ready to go for the last, oh I don't know, year or so. And here I am 6 days out and I am starting to panic. I have an extremely complex and pain in the ass of a medical history whi*****ludes bleeding out. I take blood thinners (Coumadin) and 2 years ago, the same day as my surgery is scheduled, I literally almost bled to death. I lost 50% of my blood volume and took 10 blood transfusions in 3 days to get back to a semi normal state. So, it is still very fresh in my head that even though it is from different cir****tances, I have a very justifiable fear of bleeding out on the table. My only fear before this was the intubation. I work in an emergency room and I know a little bit about medicine. I know how hard it can be to tube a patient, and I am not super thrilled about relying on a machine to keep me alive. I also don't love the idea of a catheter. Really I guess you can say I don't really care for the idea of any tubes being inside me at all, except an IV. I can handle that one just fine. I think that on here, we see a lot of success stories, and I am experiencing a fear of the unknown and I will not know until I am in recovery and I wake up and am fine. Hopefully when I go see the Dr tomorrow he will be able to put some of my fears at ease and I will be able to spend the next few days just making sure I am really ready to go.

I want to ask all of the people who are post op, what was the absolute best moment of your life since your surgery? How has your life changed since you have had the surgery? 

Trying on a pair of pants that I was positive would be too small for me and needing a even smaller size.

However, the reason I finally had surgery was because I was in so much pain every day in my knees and back.  Daily naproxyn, daily vicodin.  The pain is gone and I no longer take pain meds.  I can walk places and do things now that I would avoid in the past because I knew I would become exhausted, sweaty and desperately looking for someplace to sit.

That's so awesome! I'm glad you have gotten so far and wish you continued success! 

Playing with my son in the park and feeling like I'm 15 -- except better!  Life still has goods & bads, but I'm lighter.  So many things are easier b/c of that. :)

I never really thought about how much my weight did effect everything I do until I considered weight loss surgery. And now I see that it impacts everything I do. I can't wait to be on the losers bench and enjoy life. 

Best moment so far?  I ran a 5k on Saturday!  Never in a million years did I think I'd be able to do that.  Never.  But I did!  And I'm already signed up for my next one :D  I love that I really enjoy exercise now that I'm smaller.  I've lost 110 pounds so far and it makes a huge difference in how well I can move.  

Congratulations on the 110 lb weight loss! That's so amazing!  And the 5k! That's one thing I'm looking forward to giving a try once I slim down some and get some stamina going. 

Thanks :) I started running once I got around 250lb.  Before that, it was just working on walking faster and walking longer.  I started running once I could do an hour at 3mph on the treadmill.  

That's good! So you were building yourself up and increasing what you were doing all the time then huh. I love to go out and walk but the weather is not amazing here in the winter so I will probably join a gym and start like you.

Yup.  I started walking in the hospital as soon as they'd let me.  Once I got home I walked to the end of the street and back and added one "lap" every day until I could walk for a mile.  Then I started going to the gym to walk on the treadmill.  

It was winter when I had my surgery, but I just bundled up for walking outside.  But it was a bit nicer at the gym!  Eventually, after I started running, I fell in love with running outside so now I do that.  Another thing that changed for me after weight loss - I enjoy being outside now :)