WASaBubbleButt

Mashed Potatoes, a greasy burger w/cheese, mustard, and onions on a toasted bun, and lemon cucumbers dipped in Italian dressing.

I am! I swear, I'm drinking as I type. :notagree :notagree :notagree

If there is such a guy as a real medium (vs. psychic) it is George Anderson. www.Georgeanderson.com

We can fix that. I'll cook for you. When I cook, who needs a band? BTW, that bag of crap in a turkey? In my world that's called "cat food". Your kitchen or mine?

I just sceeeeer'ed myself! Got out of the shower and caught a view of myself in the mirror. I'm a little beyond 50% to goal and my stomach looks like that of a 300 y/o smoking lady, wrinkles and all. Man, that's just wrong. I have worked sooo hard and my stomach is just gross. Personally, I consider this a Lap Band Complication! I will NEVER take my clothes off AGAIN!

Yes, if there has been a huge error the patient does have recourse. But we tend to be very sue happy in this country and it is expensive for everyone else. I'm just always amazed at how when one side of a story is told the first comment out of the mouths of some (or typing fingers) has something to do with a lawsuit.

Why is that such a knee jerk reaction in the US?

She is nice. One time I needed an emergency unfill due to a medical issue and I hadn't even been to her before. I called and she said to come right over. It was a 2.5 hour drive and well worth it. It wasn't until I got there that I realized she wasn't even open that day. She just understood how bad it is when you need an unfill. And, since she's a midwife if you need a pap, she can do that too! LOL~~~

Yeah, we have something like that. When they are flying near you, you really can't tell if it is a bug or a bird. Gross.

And a big ditto!

SEWER ROACH! Gahhhhhh!! It's the American variety. YUCK!!!!!!! German are the kind in the midwest kitchen cupboards, American are in AZ. Blech!

Very true, TOM. There are some threads that I want to beat you over the head with a shovel and the very next post I totally agree with you! LOL

Question... During surgery isn't the stomach sewn up and around the band, kinda sorta? If someone has a slip aren't the sutures torn and any scar tissue ripped? Isn't it the scar tissue that holds the band in place? If the above is true, when any patient has a slip and they are told to go on liquids and many times the band will go back into place, what holds it there at that point?

A lot of times they do, repeatedly and for whatever reason it doesn't sink in. Each time I go to Mexico for whatever reason I get a list of room numbers of all the patients getting bands. They usually like talking to someone a few months out. They believe me about the level of pain over the doc because I'm one of "them" and I'll tell them the truth. And I do. They also ask lots of questions, why this, why that, how does this work. I answer everything. When my friend was banded she was annoying me and I was annoying her one morning. I decided it was a great time to go visit other patients. I was talking to one gal and she asked the reasoning behind the liquid/soft food phase. After explaining the doc came in and he essentially repeated everything I did. He told her the same info the previous day as well. So, three times it was explained to her. Not just the instructions but why they are necessary. Day #4 after surgery she called me (we exchanged contact info) and announced she really had a great deal of stomach pain. Come to find out she just PBed on chewy candies and chicken. I asked why she was eating that, she said she was hungry. I reminded her that we discussed the diet in detail. She had no clue. I was there for two out of three of the conversations, she was talking and asking appropriate questions showing she was understanding. Yet four days later she has no clue. Finally she admitted she knew she was supposed to be on liquids but didn't know why. She did know why. People tend to hear what they want to hear and that has been my experience in medicine as well. My own father was diagnosed with terminal cancer and chemo MIGHT be an option but it would never be a cure, just prolong things a bit. Yet what he heard was he has cancer and with chemo has a 90% chance of recovery. He died a few weeks later. Of course the evil step skank never corrected him and encouraged him to believe that so that didn't help matters. Sometimes people don't like what they hear, sometimes they justify what they want to do instead, sometimes the emotional trauma is too much and the brain just switches off. But I'd venture a guess that sometime before or after surgery these things are explained to people and for a variety of reasons, they don't hear. Personally, I did so much research before being banded that I was very comfortable that I knew what to do, what to expect, and the challenges I would be faced with. I didn't have many questions.

LOL~ It depends on who wrote the dictionary. One an atheism forum I go to quite a bit we all started searching for every definition of atheism we could find. It was hysterical. They had a wide range of definitions and discriptions. The simple fact is: Theism - With a God Atheism - Without a God It's that simple. I started out Roman Catholic and was struggling with my faith. It just didn't add up and the more I read about the history of Christianity and how it came to be I realized it was quite impossible. Then I started to notice that all the things that used to be to the credit of God were suddenly easily explained by science. Everything we used to credit to a God changed to, "Well, God didn't do THAT but he did everything else." "Everything else" is dwindling down to few things in life. The more science explains things the less there is a need create a God to take the credit. Then I started reading the bible and that did it for me. I realized that a God that created the world must surely know the earth isn't flat with four corners that sits upon pillars. I have pages and pages of examples of things a God should have known better. I understand people of the time not knowing much about science but if a God is going to write just one book, shouldn't it contain at least a little of what the people of the time did not know? Shouldn't he have taught them just a little tiny bit about their world? I didn't want to leave religion completely because I bought into the whole thing that there just has to be something out there. I went to all kinds of churches and such and finally decided on the Jewish faith. Went to all the nifty classes and everything. That wasn't it either. Tried New Age, that wasn't it. Finally I realized that I was trying to trick myself into believing something I merely lacked any belief. I could either continue playing mind games with myself or just accept that I lack belief. BTW, I'll PM you a link that explains everything from soft agnosticism to hard atheism and everything inbetween. Not sure I buy into that line of thinking but many feel it is accurate.

Perhaps for similar reasons as to why some are very active and vocal about assisted suicide being an absolute horror and they work hard to prevent others from ending their suffering. Yet when they are at the end of their own life and the suffering is beyond imagination, they want the rules change to fit their individual needs.

Yes, it does. But what I was referring to was voting according to MY beliefs. If I did that I would have to vote anti-abortion. When you set aside personal horror at abortion and look at science, I see the point of those that don't see my personal horror. That's why I see both sides and I fully understand both sides. I don't agree with either extreme, but I still see both sides of the issue. It isn't right for me, so I won't have one. It is right for another so I won't prevent them from getting one. Being gay isn't right for me so I won't be gay. It is right for another so I won't prevent them from living their life as responsible adults.

After 20 years my husband finally agrees with me about cooking. It is a dangerous job and we should leave it to the professionals.

I have a link you will absolutely love: http://forums.studentdoctor.net/showthread.php?t=257985 The thread has been going on for years now. It continues to grow. It is hysterical. It is mostly emergency medicine folks talking about what they learn from their patients. I think you'll like it.

Ohhhhhhh Wheetsin, I have a book I'd bet you'd love to see. You know who Victor McKusic is, don't you? Geez, can't recall if I spelled that right or not. It doesn't look right. Father of medical genetics? I have THE very first textbook of genetics in medicine, autographed too! LOL You should talk to this man, he is amazing. Still working too.

I disagree. The backlog in courts due to stupid greedy lawsuits is ridiculous. The cost is skyrocketing. When I look at my hair dryer and it has a warning not to use the hair dryer in the shower it reduces our society down to protecting people from themselves. We promote a lack of personal responsibility.

I so totally agree with you. I keep yammering about it and a couple here keep missing the point completely. Personal responsibility, is it such a horror? Mexico knows how we are, that's why they have a law that says if you are not a Mexican citizen you can't sue for medical malpractice. They don't have the medical malpractice issues that we have here AT ALL and they don't want them. Their citizens have a little more common sense and a lot less greed when it comes to those things. I don't blame them. I used to run a care home. One night I fired someone and since it was 11PM I took the shift myself. There was a fire (fired person became a disgruntled employee), I was pulling a woman out of a burning building and she was fighting me. She was just scared. But if I didn't pull her out she'd die. I was behind her with my arms around her dragging her out of the building. Got out of the building, shut the door, that room exploded. The explosion blew open the door, the hot air hit me in the face and I dropped her. She broke her hip. We were sued not because of the disgruntled employee setting a fire, not because there was a fire, but because I was careless in the way I was dragging a woman out of the building. Per our lawyers if I would have let her die they wouldn't have had much of a case all things considered. But I was careless in the way I SAVED her life. I could have worried about my own life, I could have waited for the fire dept to get there. I didn't, I saved her life and the care home was sued. Her family was suing for $5,000,000. Our lawyers were ready to go. They kept wanting to settle out of court, our lawyers said no, we are fighting this because it's wrong. Our insurance was willing to pay all medical bills and not a penny more. The day of court the lawyers on both sides were bringing in all their paperwork and getting ready for court. Their side kept asking to settle. Our lawyer said no, we'll pay medical bills. Period. They settled for medical bills only. People will try if they can.

Not really, the alternative to what you say would be to close my eyes and throw a dart not really knowing if I voted or not, let alone what I voted for. I "believe" abortion is wrong so if I voted according to MY beliefs I would vote anti-abortion. Not everyone agrees with me about abortion and they have valid reasons for it so I vote for the greater good of the community vs. what is right for me personally.

Hey, I finally learned my lesson about turkeys and last year I got the smoked kind from the grocery store. Did you know smoked turkeys have a pinkish colors? I didn't. I thought it wasn't done yet so I cooked it until the pink went away. Of course, I served turkey Jerky on the bone last year but *I* didn't cook it! I merely finished it. I really hate to cook.

Yeah, and I'll bet you think you are the first person to say that to me! I'll have you know, I've been thrown out of really GREAT kitchens! Well, really great forums anyway.