Squishy

Hi Steve!

My wife and I recently had open gastric bypass. We originally planned on lap, but the surgeon explained that we should consider open because at our age (45 and 46) if he is going to do surgery, he would like to make sure that they do not have to open us up again later for other things. he said that by doing it open, he can look and feel around and sometimes finds other problems.

In our cases, he did find other problems that he corrected while he was in there. My wife ended up having a hysterectomy, a small hernia repaired, her gall bladder removed (full of stones) and her appendix removed because there was evidence that she had had some scarring that indicated that she had had a mild appendicitis issue at some time. Needless to say, it was nice to have this all corrected at once instead of finding out later and having to have more surgeries.

In my case, there were some issues with some strange scar tissue that he had to resolve and also fixed a small hernia that I didn't know I had.

So in our cases, the open procedure saved us a lot of trouble later.

Obviously, with the open procedure you will have a scar from your sternum to your navel. This was really not a big concern for us though. The recovery period seems to be a little longer for open vs Lap.

The control the pain very well in the hospital. You feel really exhausted and have some discomfort, but we really did not have "pain". When we got home, we also had some good pain medicine so it was not too bad at all. Jane was able to come off the pain medication a couple days after getting home and I stayed on it for about 4 days after I came home.

Getting in and out of bed was the only thing that was a little difficult, but the physical therapists show you how to do that properly. Oh, I almost forgot...we also picked up a raised toilet seat which I would recommend to anyone who has the open procedure.

Jane is now 5 weeks out from surgery and I am three weeks. We've both lost around 28 pounds so far. We are feeling a lot stronger every day. We have no regrets and are actually really excited about our future. Jane had high blood pressure and type 2 diabetes and after only 4 weeks was near normal in both.

It is definitely a personal decision but, for us, it was the right thing to do. Best wishes in your decision!

-Mike and Jane-

__________________
TT Squishybear

"If you are going through hell, keep going." - Winston Churchill

05/30/07 Open RNY
430/346/240.5/225?
Highest/Surgery Date/Current/Goal
6' 2"

TT Gym Rat Club Member #65