GeezerSue

Missy, I'm not trying to be a smart ass...some say it comes naturally. Anyway, if no one taught you that CHRISTMAS was based on the ancient celebration of the Winter Solstice, you have been cheated. Short version--Wheetsin is far more spiritual and far less skeptical than I am--days kept getting shorter, people got scared, smart guy who noticed this happening last year told everyone not to worry, just fork over some dough and it would all go away..and guess what! Right around December 21st, it did. Every year, as the sun started to "die out" and the people got together and made sacrifices to keep the world from coming to an end, suddenly, the days got longer. Okay, about 1700 years ago, a pope decided that since the pagans were all having a big party right then anyway, there should maybe be a good CHRISTIAN reason to have a big party (there is as I recall a long tradition of saints' days and miracles happening when the locals were already geared up for a party anyway...politics? miracles? Eye of the beholder)...and the Winter Solstice birthday of Jesus was announced. But then another pope changed calendars and a few days were lost in the translation and Christmas moved to December 25th. Anyway, a festival at the Winter Solstice has been celebrated probably since before recorded history. The December 25th birthday of Christ, was slid right in to a waiting yule party about 200-300 years after his birth. AND, there are still some large religious groups which insist that, since there is norecord of a census having been taken ANYWHERE in the area in December, the actualy birth date was probably in or around March or April.

You may choose to believe that the earth is flat...only it ain't. Here is the text of Article 11 or the Treaty of Tripoli, unanimously approved by the Senate of the United States on June 17, 1797 and signed by John Adams. Art. 11. As the Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion; as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion, or tranquillity, of Mussulmen; and, as the said States never entered into any war, or act of hostility against any Mahometan nation, it is declared by the parties, that no pretext arising from religious opinions, shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries. Here is the treaty in its entirety: http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/treaty_tripoli.html Again, no one is picking on your RELIGIOUS beliefs. You are entitled to YOUR OPINIONS, you are NOT entitled to your own FACTS.

If you get a chance to check out the ersatz Statue of Liberty with the list in her hand, you might want to check out Commandment Number Nine.

Ten days early, I had my 12-month check-up. My weight is down a little over 90 pounds. It would be more if my diet in any way reflected that I'd like to lose weight. My labs are--two doctors have said so--great. So far, the DS ( Soup or the salad and nothing else and to tell them not to bring the bread. And then eat the soup or salad. And then, if I was still hungry, to order a shrimp cocktail or chicken wings or something else high in Protein, and wait for THAT to arrive. By the time it gets there--he says--I MAY notice that I'm not as hungry as I was when I ordered it and I'll probably eat less. And, while I should limit the candy, the gym is working off the candy I'm eating and if I want to do all that work and only lose the candy calories and a little bit more...it's my call. But, of the two (STUPID) behaviors, the portion sizes are more of an issue for long term success. So, that's where I am. Down about 110 pounds from my highest pre-op weight and down a little over 90 from my pre-revision weight. That leaves me about 50 pounds heavier (and 30+ years older) than I was when I finished basic training. Sooooo, I'm assuming that I get add on 15 pounds or so for being old and that I need to knock off another 35 pounds now. Who woulda thunk I'd EVER need to lose only 35 pounds? Amazing.

Oopsie you can rant and rave, but when you go here... ...demeaning, if you werent so damn smart-alecky ...you are speaking of me and not my beliefs and inviting me to express MY opinion of YOU. If I were to do that, I'd then have to endure a ditribe about modern-day persecution of the poor oppressed Christians in our country...and how those of us who HAPPENED to read the books in question are elitists, when all we are is possessors of curiosity.

I have a lot of VERY religious friends of VARIOUS religious persuasions. They are mostly Catholics, Mormons and Jews...although I know a Wiccan or two, as well. My daughter has a small group of close friends from her high school days. One is the daughter of Presbyterian minister one is the daughter of a Foursquare minister. Another is (was?) the daughter of a gay and now-dead-from-AIDS church activist. The guys in the group include a very Mormon Mormon, Evangelical Christian twins and a now-out-of-the-closet flaming hairdresser/make-up artist. I used to go to Homemaking Meetings (I forget the name) at my local LDS church to teach a craft or two and to learn a few. I just bought our daughter a cute little Channukah bear and dreidel at Helen Grace. We get along well, and occasionally discuss our differences. Usually, each of the ministers teases me about the fact that if my kid ever gets married it will be in their church...and that's a pretty extreme way to rope in "new customers," but they'll do what they have to do. But, I know that THEY have read the entire bible--a few times at that--and that they tend not to have a lot of patience for people who pick a random passage and go off on a tangent. And I know that they know that for every passage in the bible telling you not to kill, for example, there's another one giving the go-ahead...in the right circumstances. And, that in the bible, women are chattel...which doesn't fly in THEIR homes beause they have daughters who would not stand for that. There are, I believe, an awful lot of people who consider themselves to be devout Christians and who haven't read the owners' manual. Those people tend to quote the bits and pieces of what they've read, as though they had a clue. But they have neglected to read the next book, the next chapter, the next verse. If THEY can find it in the bible, they buy into the passage they have found without even considering that there may be other views in other places. Education doesn't have to be formal...but before people quote SOME lines from a text...they should educate themselves as to what the NEXT lines have to say...or they themselves are subjecting their own line of reasoning to ridicule.

You're right...our daughter uses it now. It could be spoken by future generations if she ever "gifts" me with grandkids, like she SHOULD....oh...wait...that's her choice, huh? It's times like this that I really disagree with myself. I think I should be able to ORDER her to have grandbabies for me!!

SEE? We CAN agree on some things. (I'm not even sure what YOUR panties are in a bunch about. But if lashing out at yourself helps...)

First, family size, no matter how I may disagree with the choice being made, is just something that has to be left to the family. In fact, I want ALL reproductive issues to be left to the family. Then, while it may have been the Happiest Place on Earth in your youth, you just can't generalize what happened in that one home to large families in general. My dad was one of ten kids born to his parents and there was almost nothing that resembled love going on in that home. It wasn't about what God wanted, it was about what my grandfather wanted...and he wanted sex. My grandmother (theirs was an "arranged marriage") had no choices, ergo, there were kids. Eight of them survived childhood. Three of the eight had NO children. One had four children, and the other four had two kids each. In other words, nobody in THAT famliy thought it was such a good idea they wanted to recreate the scene as adults. There are five still living (ages 73-87) and they can barely tolerate each other. My mom had one aunt who had six kids, was widowed, remarried and had three more. Husband #2 found a way to not only molest, but actually impregnate one of the kids from the first marriage...even in that house full of people. (And, BTW, everyone blamed the daughter because "he was a good man." You had to say stuff like that about the breadwinner back then. So she and her baby were sent off to find their way in the world. She was, of course, a psychological basket case and NOTHING there turned out okay.) There are good and bad small families and large ones. But while the part about the older ones serving as surrogate parents can be true in small families it is far more common in mega-famiies. We just had a laugh over this issue at a family gathering. I am--55 years after the fact--still catching hell because I wouldn't stop playing something (hey...I'd waited a long time for it to be my turn) and help my sister (my only sibling) cross the street. So she stood there crying until our Mom heard her. Unfortunately, while doing so, she wet her pants. She was upset and was saying, "Susie wouldn't cross me." (Of course, I got busted for not being a good big sister.) But I finally mentioned--last Sunday--that she was "probably four years old and I was probably five and who the hell leaves a five-year-old in charge of ANYTHING?" And, now that my little sister is the grandmother of a six year old, she looked at our mother and said, "Yeah! Why was Sue in charge?" But wherever it fits in, my sister STILL says, "Susie wouldn't cross me." LOL

This is ridiculous. It's a little quiz for the people with room temperature IQ's? If you don't mention names, you can attack others? So, how many atheists have disagreed with something you've written here? Big mystery, eh? You wouldn't like how that nameless attacking works in reverse, so maybe it's not a good idea to go there. Personal religious (and political) beliefs--once posted in this forum--are not exempt from being examined and challenged. If you cannot tell the difference between your being ridiculed and your beliefs being challenged, perhaps posting about them in a somewhat public place isn't a great idea. "Feeling the love?" On the Rants and Raves Board? Well, it's possible, but less likely than anywhere else here. Sincerely, (One of the Potential) Self-Proclaimed Educated Person(s)

Well, Wheetsin, you'd might as well ask for an IQ test. Wait...that might not be such a bad...NO!!! No! What am I thinking?!? Tempting as it is I don't want my government to be involved in ANYONE's reproductives issues WITH THE EXCEPTION of the reproductive activities of those who are unable to care for themselves and, probably, in the case of incarcerated folks with conjugal visit (if those things still happen) rights...I'm thinkin' no babies there, either. I have a couple of relatives with Down Syndrome. Tear-jerker movies on the topic to the contrary, neither of them should ever become parents because neither of them will ever be capable of caring for or protecting a child. Laws about reproductive rights and those relatives would not, IMHO, be out of line.

Just finished Baldacci's The Camel Club. (More intrigue, crime, war, spies and politics...light stuff for a lazy afternoon! LOL)

We CAN quit smoking at any time. (This is coming from a woman who--quite intelligently--smoked for about 40 years...duh.) If you were stranded on a desert island after a plane crash or landed in the hospital for some other reason or were snowed in for a week or so (like my late MIL was), you would have no cigarettes and you wouldn't have much choice and it would be a done deal. Of course, there's the whole starting over issue. I tried several times to stop and "could not." Even after having life-threatening mycoplasma pneumonia and an oxygen tank in the house for a few weeks. (I went outside to smoke.) Then my 47-year-old husband had a heart attack. I had three days to think about it. I smoked all the way to the hospital to pick him up, and left the rest of the pack on a bench outside the hospital. I knew he wouldn't be able to stop smoking if I was smoking and that we'd just both have to do it together. We haven't smoked since and it's been six and half years. My father had a similar experience when his girfriend became a grandma. The baby had respiratory problems and the doctor didn't want him in homes where smoking happened or around people who had recently smoked. Girlfriend said, 'It sounds like I have to choose between having my grandson or you in my house." He stopped. Just so you know...I don't know how much weight you need to lose, but if it's a lot and you do well, you're probably going to encounter a bit of a problem down the road. More and more, the most reputable plastic surgeons are refusing to perform plastic surgery on smokers...especially tummy tucks. Good oxygen flow to the surgical area is crucial to recovery and smoking prevents that and tummy tucks have the highest complication rate of any plastic surgery. So, good luck dealing with this. Having been inpatient for several visits and hooked up to oxygen and walking away with a COPD diagnosis, I know that sooner or later almost all of us stop, even if it's just for that final admission to the hospital...it's just a matter of what it takes to make it happen.

I'm having link problems this morning. You MAY be having Dumping syndrome, but it has NOTHING to do with gastric banding...unless some damage was caused during surgery. Dumping IS a predictable side effect of the RnY and, in fact, many patients rely on that to dissuade them from eating sweets or fats. (Some of MY goofy RnY friends just take their donut to bed with them and have a planned dumping episode..go figure. So far, I have heard of one DS patient who thinks she has dumping syndrom, but when she describes it, it doesn't match with the literature.) From NIH: Rapid Gastric Emptying (Dumping Syndrome) Rapid gastric emptying, or dumping syndrome, happens when the lower end of the small intestine (jejunum) fills too quickly with undigested food from the stomach. "Early" dumping begins during or right after a meal. Symptoms of early dumping include nausea, vomiting, bloating, diarrhea, and shortness of breath. "Late" dumping happens 1 to 3 hours after eating. Symptoms of late dumping include weakness, sweating, and dizziness. Many people have both types. Stomach surgery is the main cause of dumping syndrome because surgery may damage the system that controls digestion. Patients with Zollinger-Ellison syndrome may also have dumping syndrome. (Zollinger-Ellison syndrome is a rare disorder involving extreme peptic ulcer disease and gastrin-secreting tumors in the pancreas.) Doctors diagnose dumping syndrome through blood tests. Treatment includes changes in eating habits and medication. People who have dumping syndrome need to eat several small meals a day that are low in carbohydrates and should drink liquids between meals, not with them. People with severe cases take medicine to slow their digestion. Information provided by the National Institutes of Health Here is info on dumping syndrome from an RnY patient: Dumping syndrome is an effective result of the gastric bypass system which alerts the body of inappropriate eating. Dumping syndrome is described as a shock-like state when small, easily absorbed food particles rapidly dump into the digestive system. This results in a very unpleasant feeling with symptoms such as a cold clammy sweat, pallor, butterflies in the stomach and a pounding pulse. These symptoms may be followed by cramps and diarrhea. This state can last for 30-60 minutes and is quite uncomfortable. That was the clinical description of dumping. This is what I experience when I dump: shortly after eating a food I don’t tolerate (sugar, milk, sugary milk products or starchy carbs) I begin to feel a bit disoriented, maybe dizzy and then an overall sense of confusion or panic takes over my mind and body. This is a mild state of delirium. Then I begin sweating. Profuse sweating that can completely soak my hair, my clothes; it drips and glistens on my skin. During this state of sweaty panic I feel like I’m out of my mind! A few times during extremely dramatic dumping episodes I literally thought I was dying, the state of distress was that severe. At this point during a dumping episode I have learned it is best to lie down on my side and let it nature take its course. The body is efficiently, albeit painfully, correcting a chemical imbalance in the cell system. It takes great presence of mind to calm myself and lay down, but even in a state of near-delirium I now know this is the only action to be taken. I know the event is passing when the sense of panic is replaced by exhaustion and cold chills instead of sweating. Occasionally I have suffered diarrhea at this point. If I have the luxury I’ll try to take a nap or go to bed after dumping. If it is in the evening I’ll sleep through the night, and wake feeling like I’ve been run over by a truck. The mild delirium associated with dumping is the result of an interruption of nerve impulses affecting cerebral metabolism. The interruptions are caused by metabolic disturbances such as Fluid or electrolyte imbalance. When the incorrect foods are consumed and dumped into the digestive system the electrolytes get out of balance. Dehydration will also cause an electrolyte imbalance. This mild delirium is characterized by a reduced ability to maintain attention to surroundings or disorganized thinking. The daily routine can become confusing. In extreme cases a person who is dumping may experience rambling, irrelevant or incoherent speech. If your surgeon doesn't know that the band does not cause Dumping Syndrome, he is really NOT informed about the surgery he is doing. Because of that, in your situation, I'd locate an experienced "back-up" doctor--even if that involves travel or more money--in the event you have a concern or complication that requires some experieince to deal with.

For the record...I don't think people who want a bunch of kids are, on the basis of that decision alone, nuts. I think that people who make the decision to have or not have kids based on an apparently misunderstood piece of scripture from a line of reasoning that (we can hope...using your sons to smite the enemy at the city gates and all) is no longer valid...THOSE are the nuts.

They're nuts. And few people are born believing that using birth control is rejecting God's gifts...whereas many people are born red-headed. It would be ridiculous to criticize someone's genetics, whereas criticizing faulty logic is a whole different ballgame. People who believe that random bits and pieces of stuff, passed along many thousands of years ago by warrior tribes (not unlike the Taliban, BTW) and committed to writing a couple of thousand years ago should dictate what they do today...while simultaneously (and conveniently) omitting the other stuff...well, they are less than honest with themselves and others. FIRST, if you check that particular bible verse, you'll see that what is being discussed is the wisdom of HAVING SONS IN ONE'S YOUTH. That they'll be handy for smiting enemies and all...so I guess real believers would consider any daughters disposable because no respectable daughter would be hanging out at the town gates killing off the enemy. THEN, further along in Psalms (137:9), the text also says: Happy shall he be, who takes and dashes your little ones against the rock. Yeah...let's just pick random shit out and go live by it.

Hey, Carlene...I'm not moving my mom in here even though she may be on some kind of welfare I'm not even aware of!!! (LOL) I mean BEYOND the obvious Social Security and Medicare stuff. (But not because of too many flushes...because she's, you know, my role model for "cranky.") Her assisted living place was originally a joint venture between the company and the city and a community college (it was built on college land.) A certain number of the units in the buiding have sliding scale rent, based on income. Mom has been paying full freight becaue there were no low-income slots available when we felt she needed to move in, but someone is moving out so she is going to experience a rent reduction of between $500 and $1050 per month. Thing is, I don't know who is picking up the tab for the difference. So, I'm going easy on welfare people this week! ;-D

I don't know that we can "deprive" kids because they have irresponsible parents. Although, in the real world, many kids from larger families DO have fewer "THINGS" than kids from smaller families. And hand-me-downs used to be the norm. But you know, everything is welfare, in one way or another. Imagine two small companies with 50 employees each. Let's assume that everything at the two firms is identical and the employees are essentially identical, except that at one firm there are a lot of Quiverfull people with six or eight kids each and that another firm there are none, so they have an average of two kids each. Guess which firm was able to negotiate a better deal with for group insurance. Rates from year-to-year depend on previous years' coverage and claims. People with eight healthy kids STILL have four times as many office visits for camp physicals and immunizations as people with two healthy kids. And the potential liability for the insurance company increases with each additional family member. I'm just saying, even with working parents, we ALL pay in some way for families that are larger.

I wouldn't OUTLAW any of it. I'm just challenging the "as long as they support their own" notion. This IS America, and we all share the burden, one way or another.

How many babies your neighbors are having CAN impact your finances and your children's education. We observed a new community that attracted young families with an average of four kids. Thing was, the tax structure was set up for families with two kids. If, in a development of 1000 new homes, you have 100 homes with two kids who are NOT factored into the property tax-school financing equation, you end up with 200 "extra" kids at your local school. That can mean crowded classrooms, or supplemental taxes to provide more desks more books more teachers and even construction to build more rooms. Of course, a good number of these folks are off the radar screen in terms of religious beliefs, so they'll be heavy into home schooling and maybe their kids won't ever set foot on a public school site. In another town where we used to live, there was a huge influx of immigrant families from Asia. They built bigger houses and had several generations in each home. The city began having sewer problems, that everybody paid to fix, because homes that previously had four people suddenly had seven...and they all flushed. (These were multi-generational flushes, not due to large numbers of kids...but the concept is the same.)

http://www.quackwatch.org/01QuackeryRelatedTopics/gastro.html

One of my grandmothers had a baby every two years for twenty years. Sue Mother of a childless heathen.

Cindy, Unfortunately, most of the studies done since the FDA study have been single-practice studies...which throws a monkey wrench into the equation...because you're comparing one group of surgeons vs. another group. Even IN the FDA studies, there was one center that had worse results than any other center...it HAD TO BE the difference in surgeons. Based on their results, they DID not start doing the band after the FDA trials. Maybe they have since then: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?itool=abstractplus&db=pubmed&cmd=Retrieve&dopt=abstractplus&list_uids=11371739 I know that those of us who were banded shortly after the publication of this study decided that it had to be a surgeon-related problem...either placement errors or that they were just clueless about follow-up protocol. But they had a 50% band removal and revision rate, so it's good they stopped doing it. I knew I didn't want the RnY...because I was tired of having things I couldn't eat...and my friends with RnY are always needing to taste MY stuff to see if it's sweet enough or fatty enough to send them into a dumping episode. But it is reassuring to know that not everyone is ready to give up if, for some reason, Plan A doesn't work. And all the scary talk about malabsoprtion? It's like saying "But with the band you have RESTRICTION!!" Malabsorption is what makes the DS work, restriction is what makes the band work. Of course we have malabsorption. But, like the band, the DS is not a perfect surgery and it isn't for everyone and if I were younger, I'd need to think about it longer and harder.

1--There was no Wikipedia info on the band in 2002. (Duh.) 2--Most of the major problems that have been discovered with the band are happening a couple of years out...and since the band had been legal here for only a year, there WAS NO DATA AVAILABLE. (I hate to see you struggling like this...why do you suppose this is so challenging for you?)

BJEAN...your post hit home and gave me goosebumps. My BIL, an excellent mechanic, was drafted and trained as a medic. He came home from Viet Nam and, as soon as my sister became preggers, it was OBVIOUS that he was a psych casualty. We found him on a roof with a gun in his mouth. He escaped from the VA Hospital and shoplifted a pack of razors and was slicing his arm up when they found him. There are more stories. He ended up with Electroshock Therapy to kill the memories. They divorced. He became a bit of a veggie for a while. FORTUNATELY for everyone concerned, he relinquished his parental rights and sister's second husband adopted the child. Those of us who lived through the mess are still suffering in one way or another. Last Sunday, we were looking at photo albums and answering all the "who's this?" questions. "Oh...she's your biological great grandmother." However, now that Bush has picked up on what the American people are trying to tell him...we can rest safely..because...effective immediately, we are no longer sending iPods or jet skis to North Korea. That's real progress. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/asia-pacific/6159011.stm