Holy Mary, Mother of GOD!!!

Yesterday, I fried me up a center-cut ham steak. Yum. It was delicious, very tender but a little salty. I thought for sure it would clog me up or make me retain water and I had zero expectations about losing weight today, so much to my surprise after my rapid-fire poops this morning, I weighed in at 316.4 lbs. What does that mean? Well boys and girls, it means I am down 3.2lbs since yesterday and have lost a total of 200.2 lbs from my highest ... holy crap. I don't want to get too excited ... but pardon me while I dance a little jig in the privacy of my own home ...

Ok then ...

In over a year of keeping this blog, I don't think I ever talked much about the entire experience in Brazil. A few of you may have gotten my semi-daily updates while I was there, but I don't think I have ever really described the whole experience. I am going to make a point of doing that fairly soon. In the meantime, J, asked about my costs for going to Brazil to have surgery with Dr. Marchesini, so here they are:

Passports & Visas: I think we paid a total of about $1100 for 2 passports and 3 Brazilian Visas and we expedited it all so that was extra. We did it all in about 4 weeks. If you apply for your passport and visa early enough, you can probably get it all taken care of for like $200-$250 or less, I think.

Plane Ticket(s): $2100. I had to buy two tickets as there was no way I could manage fitting in one seat. It still wasn't all that comfortable, but it was better than trying to squeeze into one seat going from Atlanta to Miami, then Miami to San Paolo and finally San Paolo to Curitiba and THEN doing the reverse on the way home. My two friends traveled on buddy passes so they paid like $350 each for their own flights.

Hospital Fees: $5500 - At the time I had my surgery, this covered the typical 3-4 day stay in the hospital and up to two weeks if there were complications. I know Dr. M is operating out of a different hospital now, but I am sure this fee covers the normal hospital stay. You may have to contact him about fees associated with complications.

Medical fees: $4,500 which includes Dr. M and any other staff related to the surgery.

Private Nurse: $300 This pays for Durval who is like Dr. M's right hand man. Some people need him more than others, but he takes care of you as needed pre- and post-surgery from pickup and dropoff from the airport, taking you to any pre-op tests, picking up your prescriptions, tightening your binder, picking up and dropping of laundry, etc.

Pre-Op Testing: $250-300. I did most of my testing in Brazil. I had a chest X-Ray, an abdominal ultrasound, EKG, an endoscopy and a psych eval. It was just easier and crazy cheap. My two sets of pre-op X-Rays cost me a whopping $32 US, for example.

Hotel, Meals, Taxis, Souvenirs: $1700-2000. Typically this won't cost the average person this much. During my 3 week stay in Brazil, there were three people in my room for a week which cost me more than if there were 1-2 people in the room. I think the rate went from 150R (Brazilian Reals) for one person per night to 200R for three. Between the Brazilian BBQ place we went to twice to room service and a couple trips to the store for protein drinks, etc it added up. Plus we went out shopping a couple of times for gifts to take home and you really can't go anywhere without taking a cab. A single person can probably get away with $1200-1300 or so.

In total that's around $14,500 I paid which again, is more than the average person. I think if a patient were to travel with a companion, they could probably do it for probably $13,000 or so depending.

Now, I am not sure what the going rate is but I think Dr. M's, the hospital's and the private nurse's and pre-op testing fees are the same. Everything else might vary because it depends on the conversion rate between the US dollar and the Brazilian Real. When I was there it was like 1 US dollar to 2.10 Brazilian Real. As a comparison, it would have cost me over $40,000 to have the surgery here in Atlanta with NO cap. A friend of mine's surgery came out to over $70K because he had some complications.

Anyway, I am a happy camper right now, but cautiously so. Needless to say, I have no plans to deviate in the slightest from my current nutritional plan.