PamRN

That is an awesome timeline, you gals look fabulous! Keep up the progress, and keep us posted, someone needs to side by side the first and last pics!

That's so cute! Last year I borrowed Penni's tree trimming idea for my grandson's 1st christmas/babyshower. All the guests brought an ornament for his new tree and everyone thought it was the cutest thing. My daughter was brought to tears by all the special ornaments, and how beautiful her previously bare tree looked. We sure enjoy looking at them again this season and remembering that special day. Thanks again Penni, you've warmed the hearts of people you don't even know. Merry Christmas!

GOOD GAWD!! That was the funniest clip I've seen in a long long time! I laughed so loud my kids came running in!

I have a shit zhu named shadow chacha carumba she's the cutest little fur baby and loves stuffed animals. My boy has to keep anything light enough for her to carry put up or she steals it. Notice I didn't say smaller than her, nothing is as hilarious as watching her trotting down the hall claiming another of Bradley's big stuffed toys. She growls at him and tries endlessly to steal back anything he takes away from her. I've never had a pet quite like her, she loves her stuffed babies. I tried to add her picture but for some reason my pics show up huge...

Ms DeLarla, you are the simply the best... hands down, no one starts better threads than you. I skip so many threads on here because they are the same questions I've answered, the same issues discussed to death, or something I can't answer. I do however, ALWAYS read your threads. Your's always make me think, and generally entertain the s#it out me. Thank you for being you, saying what you think, and sticking to your guns. Regardless of whether any, all or none of us agree with you, you inspire us all to consider what WE think and a good argument is not only entertaining, but incredibly educational. I especially love the replies that seem written intentionally to keep you or others going, I can visualize those evil little grins from here. (It's usually your's) Never quit... there are just those folks in life who've got it goin' on... and baby girl YOU are one of them.

You are so right about that. It has been my experience that a lot of the local WW counselors are merely people who were successful with the WW program, and thusly feel that they are experts in the weight-loss arena, with little or no dietary or psychological formal education. This is probably not true with all wwatchers motivators, but has been my experience in the past. Yet they and JC are the end all be all of diet plans... if they say it, it must be true... funny how they keep changing what they say... carb diet...no...phen-phen...no... high Protein... no...south beach...no... I am a Registered Nurse; I have a Baccalaureate Degree in the science of nursing. I am experienced, and formally educated in both physiological, and psychological sciences, but I am NOT a weight-loss expert. I am not a lapband expert. I have lost weight, and I am lapbanded, but I do not specialize in these fields, therefore, my education in these fields comes mostly from life experience. So like all those other non-experts who advise you, keep that in mind. There may be many weightloss chain counselors out there who are trained professionals, but we need to know which ones they are. Just please carefully consider your sources. Just cause something is said, posted on the net, or written, don't necessarily make it so... ya know?

LMAO! You both are so BAAAAHHHHDDD! Congratulations Jonathan, best wishes for a warm and wonderful forever!

It's HIPAA, and it should NOT be normal protocol to be copying ANYONE'S health information over to the employer. DO be sure to keep that email. You have in writing that it is her normal policy to violate the health information privacy act for EVERYONE who contacts her.

I called today and it's on it's way, thanks for the great info!

I'm a member of the junky pouch too! Only crappy junk food, shakes and creamy soups go down well until later evening... I tend to go most of the day barely eating unless it's... cream soup... by evening I'm starving and eat whatever I can get in quick My weight-loss has come to a screeching halt, and it's no wonder! Crunchy nacho chips go right down, but a bite of steak feels like a heart attack and chicken creates more slime than nickelodeon! WTF Mate?!

Mention the solicitation tactics to the boss...ask that they be stopped. Another thought; are we sure the preggers tart didn't send the request, perhaps from a coworkers computer? Better yet, send a return message to the solicitor... mention feeling fleeced by a rumor that someone got you and your close coworker to send cash for a shower that never happened, and you'd like to know where the money went. If I felt the way you do, I'd ask. If they say she got it, send a second email to the tart, assuring that she received your gifts of $100 cash, tell her you haven't heard from her, and were wondering if she got it, and was she able to buy anything nice for the baby? Tell her you're dying to see what she got, & ask if she could email pics for all to see the cute stuff?

Hysterical! LOL! However... I'm bowing out of ANY fund raiser for Bush... That SOB has enough of my money what with the inflated gas prices fattening the wallets of the oilmen... don't even get me started... I KNEW if an oilman got elected we'd go to war with an oil rich nation... #@$&!

I nominate Penni for best innards pic!

Kare that's an awesome idea, I love to read too, as do some of my dearest friends... I may have to steal your kare's book segments idea! I love the idea of the lighter weight, and thinking of the anticipation of getting to the next segment when I finish and pass on the current one is cool too.

for gawd's sake... We can't let you go ANYWHERE can we?? I love the clipboard shot, license and all LOL

LMAO!! YOU MADE ME SNORT MY COFFEE!!

You were a very pretty woman even heavier... but hot mama look at you now! You make one gorgeous couple!

The antibiotics before dental work is a new one for me. I'd never heard that one before. I've had dental work done a couple of times since banding without any pretreatment or problems. I'm wondering what in the world that is about? I'm definitely against over use of antibiotics anyway, considering the ever increasing resistance of bacteria, so I'd love to hear more about the rationale behind that. Anyone know more? Penni is right about the port. We have lots of patient's with medi-ports. Many with chronic diseases and frequent hospitalizations other than cancer, where they've had so many needle/iv sites that a medi-port is the only veinous access we can get now. Sickle Cell disease, patients who need dialysis, etc...

I think my greatest gift is something I talked about on here before, so I apologise to those of you who've read this long story before. It still makes me tear up to think about. I do think a gift of caring to anyone is the greatest gift of all. We had a very elderly male patient who had been in and out of the hospital with heart failure. His fragile little wife was brought to the hospital every morning, and picked up every evening he was there, by their grown children. They'd been married 64 years. On friday the Drs. told her he was at the endstage of his illness and wouldn't be going home this time. The family was devastated of course. They hated to leave him, but his children wanted his wife to rest, and she promised him she'd be back saturday. After they'd gone, we placed him in the last private room on the floor, so when he passed away they would have some privacy. It was that close to the end. When I came on shift Saturday evening we had no empty beds and we were short a nurse, which meant every nurse had extra patients added to their load. We were very busy. Then I got a call from bed placement asking us if we could possibly take one more patient. I initially said no, then she told me it was a transfer down to us from the imcu. It was our patient's wife. She'd kept her word, she was back on saturday, but by ambulance. On saturday morning when the children arrived to pick up our patient's wife for her daily visit, they found her comatose in bed. She'd had a massive stroke in the night. The ambulance rushed her to us, and she was admitted to the imcu. They'd avoided telling their father as long as they could, fearing what it would do to him. Now they had to let him know. He was devastated, feeling sad, and somewhat at fault for her stress. His heart was going crazy on the monitors. It scared us a lot. There wasn't anything we could do for her, she was dying. Machines could temporarily save her body, but she would never wake up. With the father's agreement. The family decided not to do that to her. They decided when it was time, they wanted her to go peacefully without painful shocking, or tubes and lines tying her down. Without those interventions, she was no longer in need of a crucial imcu bed, so they called us on the medical telemetry unit. The family wanted to have them on the same floor, so it would be easier to see both of them. Of course then I said yes, I'll absolutely take her. When she got to our unit, I decided to put her in the same room, not just on the same floor. I pushed the husband's bed over. Then we squeezed her bed up against his, so they had a bed together. He weakly scooted over as close to her as he could get and took her hand. While I was assessing her with my stethoscope, I glanced up and saw him gazing at her with such sorrow and love that my eyes teared up and I had to leave the room. There wasn't a staff member on the floor who wasn't touched to tears by them. A little after midnight, we noticed several of the family members step out in the hall, some quietly crying, a niece came over and said at midnight, it became the couple's 65th anniversary. We all cried with them. One of our house nurse managers found a bouquet of flowers and took in for the husband to give her, but when she laid them between them, he asked that she move them to the other side of her, he didn't want anything between them in their last hours. That made everyone cry again. She passed away in the early hours of the morning, still hand in hand with her husband. He accepted her passing much better than we expected. He let her go calmly. Like he knew it was ok. Maybe she'd somehow let him know that since he wasn't coming to the physical home they already had, she'd go first and prepare a new home for them. She must have been busy, because he peacefully passed away 2 days later. Putting any man and woman together in the same room is against hospital policy/morals/ethics etc... Two beds together in a private room is against hospital policy/fire code, etc... had I been fired over it, I would STILL have known it was the right thing to do, and will never regret having done it.

I'm not in Maryland, but I do like both lost and medium.I missed lots of both shows (gotta convince my dh that HE needs Tivo!). I'll have to watch it later on a dvd rental. We really love Rescue Me, Over There, & nip/tuck started out good, but it's losing my interest (on FX). I've watched Real World since the first one... and some of the vh1 reality shows. The Bounty Hunter on A&E cracks me up, they cuss, insult, and spit at the fugitives then cry for them... gotta love'em for the goofy insight and 80's hair and wardrobe. I love to cook, so I watch lots of the food channel shows, and hgtv.

I chose the band because I wanted to lose weight not my life. I know sooo many gb folks personally, several in my own family with serious to life threatening problems related to having the gb. I'd rather be a fat mom than a dead one.

We had temps that dipped to -13 in the windchill and we got 6 inches of snow plus drifting yesterday! It's unusual for us, here in central Illinois, to get a snow day like this, this early into winter. We have cold and snow like this in January or February some years, but we haven't had our snowmobiles out in years, we were considering selling them... before yesterday. It's CCCCCOLD here! (but the snow is beautiful to look at)

Tylenol makes a non-drowsy day formula, and a 'knock you out' night formula liquid cold medicine that works very well. My non-banded husband even used it a couple of weeks ago and liked the results. It has 'cool burst' icy cold/minty like flavoring, Good Luck!

I'm SO hoping everything went ok, I'm as fretting and worried as an old hen about you!

I'm thinking about you today Penni, and hoping you're doing ok.