Mid Week With Pete

By the time this posts and you read it, Pete and I will be on our way to the hospital for his surgery.  I'll try to remember to post a follow up Wednesday after the surgery.  It will depend on the Internet access, my brain and how tired I am.  I'm trying to figure out if it's going to freak Pete out if I go to the gym in the morning or not.  He's all about being way early for things and it would be cutting it close for me to get 35 minutes on the treadmill, get home and showered so we can leave in time for him.  And honestly if it's going to make him too anxious, I'll skip it.  After all, it's all about him.

Pete's having a Realize Band placed rather than a Lap Band.  To be honest, I thought Lap Band had cornered the market on the procedure.  But I find out that everyone calls it a Lap Band when it's actually gastric banding.  Much like most people say Kleenex (brand) when they mean facial tissue.

My understanding is that the bands themselves are much the same.  The Realize band doesn't stretch when filled like the Lap Band does and uses low pressure.  The Realize Band has up to 11mm of fill where the Lap Band only has up to 9.  The Realize is not sewn into the surrounding tissue and muscle, it's 'hooked' into tissue in the abdomen to float a bit. 

The actual surgery is scheduled to take less than 60 minutes.  However, he'll be in the hospital overnight.  He's got 1 week of clear liquids, 1 week of clear plus cloudy liquids, 1 week of super mushy/thin foods, 2 weeks of soft foods and then on the 6th week he can start adding in foods as tolerated.  The goal is that he will be eating about 3/4 -1 cup of food for each meal plus drinking about 32-64 ounces of water a day.  In a year they expect him to lose about 30% of his weight.

I am both excited for him and anxious to see how his journey changes after tomorrow.