The beginning of the rest of my life, a new me..

I decided that because I don't really use this blog anymore for anything, I was going to begin blogging about my journey with weight loss surgery.
I hope that this is informative, helpful, and possibly inspirational for others considering lap band surgery.


I first seriously considered WLS at the end of 2008. My sister who is a nurse had a friend who recently had gastric bypass & she was doing great. She wanted me to consider surgery myself. I have dealt with weight issues my whole life. Since puberty, my weight has yo-yo'd. I could lose weight on fad diets, but i would always gain the weight back, usually I'd gain a little extra.

When I was 20 years old, I was diagnosed with Hypothyroidism. This caused me to have a very hard time losing weight. Even after getting my thyroid under control, it was still difficult.

So I researched WLS, and put in all of the necessary paperwork to my insurance company. I was accepted & placed on a wait-list. After about 6 months, my insurance co. called & began setting up my classes. It started with a psych evaluation and a physical. From there, I went to 6 weeks of informational classes. In those 6 weeks, I met several other people who were also waiting for the surgery that would change their lives. I loved this class, because so much information was given. Questions I asked were answered, questions I hadn't even thought of were answered. Now in this class, there were people who wanted Gastric Bypass, others who wanted Lap Band, and then there were some of us that just had no idea which one we wanted to do. By the end of the 6 weeks, I had my mind set on Lap Band. Don't get my wrong, both surgeries are great, but for my own personal reasons, Lap Band was right choice for me. For one, I wanted to still be able to eat most foods, just less of them. Also, the thought of the permanancy of bypass scared me. Even though, at first, having a foreign object in my body was an uneasy feeling, I know that if anything ever went wrong, it could be reversed.

My last class was on December 9, 2009. After the new year, I was called by my insurance's weght loss managment department. To my surprise, they had an availability with Dr Thomas Brown at Presbytarian St Lukes for Monday February 1st. I was THRILLED! Of course, a little anxious now too because it was less than a month away. So I hurridly took my 2 weeks of nutrition classes, my 2nd psych eval, and any other necessary pre op classes.

While all of this was happening, my grandmother passed away in Topeka Kansas. I had to make a very unexpected, last minute trip to Kansas less than a week before my surgery. Her funeral was on a thursday, and on friday I had to start my all clear liquids pre op diet. I was worried about this because my family are "foodies". They are chefs, and restraunt owners, and food advocates! Well the liquid diet went surprisingly well, and over the 3 days, I lost 10lbs!!






Now...Monday morning, Feb 1st, 2010 rolled around & I put on my comfy pink & black plaid pj pants and headed to the hospital. I checked in at noon, got my iv, did all the pre op stuff required. At 2pm, they wheeled me into the OR. I got the anesthia in my iv...here we go...





..when i woke up at around 330p in recovery, it was all over. I was done. I was thrilled! I went home that night, minimal pain, no hunger.
This was it, the beginning of my new life!


So now I'm going to blog about this journey I'm on. Whethere its relevant to the surgery or not, just a new blog about my day to day life as a bandster.

<3Erin