Carlene

I'm going back to the large penis thread. Socially irresponsible of me, I know....but a girl's entitled to a little fun once in a while - especially when all she can eat is MUSH!

It is my belief, and everyone is entitled to his/her own, that we are called to give of our time, our talent, and our treasure. Not one or the other....not two out of three, but ALL of them. The fact is, if all "charity" was from private sources (no government assistance of any kind), there would be little earmarked for treatment of alcoholism and drug addiction, single and/or unwed mothers, high school dropouts, etc. Animals would get more money than victims of STDs. Uninsured children would have little access to eyeglasses, dental care, or medical treatment. Because people are way too quick to judge. They don't want "their" money spent on cigarette-smoking, unemployed, do-nothing, hangin'-out-on-the-corner, lazy, good-for-nothing, trailer trash. So the government, in its infinite wisdom, takes a bit from everyone and puts it in a big pot called "welfare". And they dole it out. Very reluctantly. After the people it's supposed to help jump through lots of hoops. And show a proper degree of humility....and appreciation. What a sad, sad bunch we are.

I don't want to argue abortion. I have said everything I have to say on the subject in previous threads. I will, however, argue with any statement that doubts my (Liberal) voluntary contribution to society. Maybe if Conservatives were more generous, the government could cut back on taxes and still provide for our poor, homeless, hungry, helpless, disenfranchised brothers and sisters. I can only speak for my Liberal self, but I have volunteered plenty of times in soup kitchens and homeless shelters. And I've sat down with the clients and eaten with them and listened to them. I've been in their homes (the ones who had homes) and I've held their dirty, snot-nosed babies with cradle cap and cooed over them like they were the sweetest smelling, most beautiful children on God's green earth. My birthday is Christmas Eve, and I cannot count the number of birthdays I've spent delivering food baskets and Christmas gifts to needy families. My best birthdays, in fact, have been spent that way. I shop every single week for items that are in short supply at my local food pantry. Every single week. And I never don't buy an item because it's "too expensive". If they need baby formula, I fork over the ten or twelve bucks and count myself lucky that I never had to go begging in order to feed my kids. So, as much as I respect you, Green, please don't insult me by saying that I don't want to get my hands dirty in the name of charity. My hands have been dirtied way more than most. Now let's hear from the big-hearted Conservatives who pat themselves on the back because they write a check to the Red Cross once a year. Talk about not dirtying your hands!!!!!!!!

I have been almost totally unfilled for one week now, due to a large esophageal dilation. I am allowed only liquids and mushies. I have not cheated, but out of self-pity I have eaten some things I should not have. In the last week, I have had: 3 kinds of beans 2 kinds of potatoes 4 varieties of soup many flavors of LF yogurt SF Popsicles SF fudgesicles applesauce ice cream (the real thing, but only the little Dixie cups and only one per day) SF Jello (with FF topping) lots of hot tea, SF peach tea, and bottled water Starbucks non-fat latte SF pudding left-over chocolate from Easter (almost all gone now, thank goodness) If in doubt, I put it in the blender to make sure it's "legal". Sometimes it turns out yummy....sometimes not. I could have eaten blended "chili soup" but anything spicy right now burns my throat - it's that irritated.

You do indeed have acid reflux, AKA "heartburn". Your band is likely too tight. You need a barium swallow test under fluoro. Check with your doctor ASAP. Inflammation of the esophagus can be serious, long-term. It can lead to Barrett's Esophagus, which is a precursor of esophageal cancer.

Your dad is well intentioned but misinformed. You can't choke to death from the band.

My doctor performs both the Lap Band and the bypass procedures, but he chose the band for himself.

This is a wonderful piece by Michael Gartner, editor of newspapers large and small and president of NBC News. In 1997, he won the Pulitzer Prize for editorial writing. Well worth reading. And a few good laughs are guaranteed. My father never drove a car. Well, that's not quite right. I should say I never saw him drive a car. He quit driving in 1927, when he was 25 years old, and the last car he drove was a 1926 Whippet. "In those days," he told me when he was in his 90s, "to drive a car you had to do things with your hands, and do things with your feet, and look every which way, and I decided you could walk through life and enjoy it or drive through life and miss it." At which point my mother, a sometimes salty Irishwoman, chimed in: "Oh, Baloney!" she said. "He hit a horse." "Well," my father said, "there was that, too." So my brother and I grew up in a household without a car. The neighbors all had cars -- the Kollingses next door had a green 1941 Dodge, the VanLaninghams across the street a gray 1936 Plymouth, the Hopsons two doors down a black 1941 Ford -- but we had none. My father, a newspaperman in Des Moines, would take the streetcar to work and, often as not, walk the 3 miles home. If he took the streetcar home, my mother and brother and I would walk the three blocks to the streetcar stop, meet him and walk home together. My brother, David, was born in 1935, and I was born in 1938, and sometimes, at dinner, we'd ask how come all the neighbors had cars but we had none. "No one in the family drives," my mother would explain, and that was that. But, sometimes, my father would say, "But as soon as one of you boys turns 16, we'll get one." It was as if he wasn't sure which one of us would turn 16 first. But, sure enough, my brother turned 16 before I did, so in 1951 my parents bought a used 1950 Chevrolet from a friend who ran the parts department at a Chevy dealership downtown. It was a four-door, white model, stick shift, fender skirts, loaded with everything, and, since my parents didn't drive, it more or less became my brother's car. Having a car but not being able to drive didn't bother my father, but it didn't make sense to my mother. So in 1952, when she was 43 years old, she asked a friend to teach her to drive. She learned in a nearby cemetery, the place where I learned to drive the following year and where, and a generation later, I took my two sons to practice driving. The cemetery probably was my father's idea. "Who can your mother hurt in the cemetery?" I remember him saying once. For the next 45 years or so, until she was 90, my mother was the driver in the family. Neither she nor my father had any sense of direction, but he loaded up on maps -- though they seldom left the city limits -- and appointed himself navigator. It seemed to work. Still, they both continued to walk a lot. My mother was a devout Catholic, and my father an equally devout agnostic, an arrangement that didn't seem to bother either of them through their 75 years of marriage. (Yes, 75 years, and they were deeply in love the entire time.) He retired when he was 70, and nearly every morning for the next 20 years or so, he would walk with her the mile to St. Augustin's Church. She would walk down and sit in the front pew, and he would wait in the back until he saw which of the parish's two priests was on duty that morning. If it was the pastor, my father then would go out and take a 2-mile walk, meeting my mother at the end of the service and walking her home. If it was the assistant pastor, he'd take just a 1-mile walk and then head back to the church. He called the priests "Father Fast" and "Father Slow." After he retired, my father almost always accompanied my mother whenever she drove anywhere, even if he had no reason to go along. If she were go ing to the beauty parlor, he'd sit in the car and read, or go take a stroll or, if it was summer, have her keep the engine running so he could listen to the Cubs game on the radio. In the evening, then, when I'd stop by, he'd explain: "The Cubs lost again. The millionaire on second base made a bad throw to the millionaire on first base, so the multimillionaire on third base scored." If she were going to the grocery store, he would go along to carry the bags out -- and to make sure she loaded up on ice cream. As I said, he was always the navigator, and once, when he was 95 and she was 88 and still driving, he said to me, "Do you want to know the secret of a long life?" "I guess so," I said, knowing it probably would be something bizarre. "No left turns," he said. "What?" I asked. "No left turns," he repeated. "Several years ago, your mother and I read an article that said most accidents that old people are in happen when they turn left in front of oncoming traffic. As you get older, your eyesight worsens, and you can lose your depth perception, it said. So your mother and I decided never again to make a left turn." "What?" I said again. "No left turns," he said. "Think about it. Three rights are the same as a left, and that's a lot safer. So we always make three rights." "You're kidding!" I said, and I turned to my mother for support. "No," she said, "your father is right. We make three rights. It works." But then she added: "Except when your father loses count." I was driving at the time, and I almost drove off the road as I started laughing. "Loses count?" I asked. "Yes," my father admitted, "that sometimes happens. But it's not a problem. You just make seven rights, and you're okay again." I couldn't resist. "Do you ever go for 11?" I asked. "No," he said. "If we miss it at seven, we just come home and call it a bad day. Besides, nothing in life is so important it can't be put off another day or another week." My mother was never in an accident, but one evening she handed me her car keys and said she had decided to quit driving. That was in 1999, when she was 90. She lived four more years, until 2003. My father died the next year, at 102. They both died in the bungalow they had moved into in 1937 and bought a few years later for $3,000. (Sixty years later, my brother and I paid $8,000 to have a shower put in the tiny bathroom -- the house had never had one. My father would have died then and there if he knew the shower cost nearly three times what he paid for the house.) He continued to walk daily -- he had me get him a treadmill when he was 101 because he was afraid he'd fall on the icy sidewalks but wanted to keep exercising -- and he was of sound mind and sound body until the moment he died. One September afternoon in 2004, he and my son went with me when I had to give a talk in a neighboring town, and it was cle ar to all three of us that he was wearing out, though we had the usual wide-ranging conversation about politics and newspapers and things in the news. A few weeks earlier, he had told my son, "You know, Mike, the first hundred years are a lot easier than the second hundred." At one point in our drive that Saturday, he said, "You know, I'm probably not going to live much longer." "You're probably right," I said. "Why would you say that?" He countered, somewhat irritated. "Because you're 102 years old," I said. "Yes," he said, "you're right." He stayed in bed all the next day. That night, I suggested to my son and daughter that we sit up with him through the night. He appreciated it, he said, though at one point, apparently seeing us look gloomy, he said: "I would like to make an announcement. No one in this room is dead yet." An hour or so later, he spoke his last words: "I want you to know," he said, clearly and lucidly, "that I am in no pain. I am very comfortable. And I have had as happy a life as anyone on this earth could ever have." A short time later, he died. I miss him a lot, and I think about him a lot. I've wondered now and then how it was that my family and I were so lucky that he lived so long. I can't figure out if it was because he walked through life or because he quit taking left turns.

I take a time release NSAID (Arthrotec) regularly. My band surgeon said it was fine to take it and it has not caused me any problems, and I am over 2 years post-op. If I take regular aspirin it bothers me a lot. I burp the aspirin taste back up for hours. Pre-band this was not an issue. I think whatever meds you take, wash them down very thoroughly so they don't sit in your pouch. Buy a pill splitter and cut the large ones into smaller pieces.

Sorry....couldn't resist.

Depends on how restricted you are. I like mine covered with chocolate. YUM!

Reflux that starts or becomes worse after LB surgery, or following a fill, is a sign of swelling or a too-tight band. Bear in mind that "too tight" in this instance has nothing to do with what you can eat, but simply means it is too tight for your GI health. Nighttime reflux often leads to aspiration - not fun and potentially dangerous. Also various esophageal problems, ranging from esophagitis to Barrett's Esophagus (a precursor of esophageal cancer). Please see your band doctor ASAP.

I understand completely, Alexandra. I feel like I could eat just about anything - and I'm not completely unfilled. It's scary. I had forgotten what real, intense hunger felt like. It's really hard to fill myself up when all I can have is liquid/mushy stuff. Today I ate soupy, mashed pinto Beans, mashed sweet potatoes, SF Jello with FF topping, Starbucks FF latte, Slim Fast, and a Dixie cup thing of vanilla ice cream. What I'd really like is a nice steak, cooked on my nice outdoor grill. Only 15 more days.

I live in North Richland Hills (between Dallas and Ft Worth), but once lived in Mineola, so I know where all those "foreign" places are: Quinlan, Forney, Tyler, etc. And I used to have a camper on Lake Tawakoni. My doctor was Adam Smith in Ft Worth. I am half of a banded couple, as my DH went under the knife two weeks after I did. I've recently had some issues with a dilated esophagus, so I'm almost completely unfilled right now and limited to liquids/mushies until May 7th. It's been over 2 years since I felt real, intense hunger and now I'm eating everything in sight!

Most of us, I think, are familiar with Jessie.....as well as Sandy.

I love you guys, too.....Liberals, Atheists, Republicans, gays, Lesbians, fundamentalists, and Yankees. :biggrin1: (I didn't leave anyone out, did I?)

For what it's worth, I sincerely apologize for my curtness, my lack of tolerance.....whatever you want to call it. As a (former) Rodeo Mom myself, a band sister, and a fellow Texan, I want you to know that it is not my intention to imply that I am in any way "smarter" than you. I respect your political beliefs and more importantly, I respect your right to voice them. I just feel it is way too easy in this world of instant communication, search engines, and Photoshopped "evidence" to do a lot of damage to actual events and real people. I think we owe it to ourselves, as well as the people we communicate with, to at least Google some of the more blatant propaganda before we hit the "post" button and send it all over the world. If someone posted info about you, I'm sure you would want it to at least be accurate. The opposing Party, whatever our position might be, is still made up of Americans and they deserve that small consideration. Hillary deserves it.....George Bush deserves it....they ALL deserve it. I bash GWB shamlessly, but I do not post lies about him.

You know, it's considered irresponsible to post/forward so-called "information" like this without doing at least some research to determine its accuracy. 1. There was NEVER a provision is the SS Act of 1935 for the SS tax to be voluntary. 2. SS taxes were NEVER limited to the first $1400 of annual income. The original Act contained provisions to gradually increase the rate to 3% over 12 years and, of course, the rate has been adjusted many times since. 3. The SS Act of 1935 specifically stated that SS taxes were NOT allowed as income tax deductions, and at no time has that changed. 4. The SS Trust Fund was established in 1939. The monies from this fund are not, and never have been, put into the "general operating fund". There is a problem, in that the government has a long history of "investing" SS funds by lending them to itself. This practice, however, can by no means be blamed on one Party, or a single administration. 5. Neither Roosevelt nor the original SS Act promised that SS would not be taxed. Amendments to the SS Act passed by Congress in 1983 allowed for 50% of SS benefits to be considered taxable income, for higher income taxpayers only. The idea originated with a proposal issued by the Greenspan Commission, appointed by Ronald Reagan. 6. Legislation that increased the taxable portion of SS to 85% was part of the massive Omnibus Budget Reconciliation Act of 1993, which passed without a single Republican vote. Presumably because the increase effected only higher income retirees. 7. No one is eligible to collect SS benefits unless he/she has paid into the system. You are confusing SS with SSI, a welfare program designed to assist aged, blind, and disabled people who are very, very low income. The SSI legislation, however, was not enacted by Jimmy Carter, but by Richard Nixon.

Excellent advice, BOH. You are going to be way too busy worrying about the efficiency of your AC unit, and the size of your electric bill, to stress over the occasional tornado.

First it was pharmacists and the morning after pill. Now it's taxi drivers. MINNEAPOLIS - Taxi drivers who refuse service to travelers carrying alcohol at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport face tougher penalties despite protests from Muslim cabbies who sought a compromise for religious reasons, officials said Monday. The Metropolitan Airports Commission said new penalties were needed to ensure customers get safe and reliable taxi service, and voted to suspend a driver’s airport taxi license for 30 days for the first offense and revoke it for two years for a second offense. The new penalties take effect May 11. Airport officials say more than 70 percent of the cabbies at the airport are Muslim, and many of them say Islamic law forbids them from giving rides to people carrying alcohol. Under the old rules, a driver who refused to transport someone carrying alcohol would be told to go to the back of the taxicab line. Airport officials said that since January 2002, there have been more than 4,800 instances of drivers’ refusing to take alcohol-carrying travelers. Commissioners said the old rules didn’t prevent customers from being stranded at the curb or — as reported in a few cases — dropped off before their destination after drivers learned of their alcohol on board. Some Somalis who testified Monday urged commissioners to reject the new penalties and find some other solution. “We see this as a penalty against a group of Americans only for practicing their faith,” said Hassan Mohamud, an imam and an adjunct professor at William Mitchell College of Law. The airport had proposed one pilot program that had drivers who wouldn’t transport alcohol display a different top light on their cab, but the public’s reaction was overwhelmingly negative and taxi drivers feared it would make travelers avoid taxis altogether.

There are tons of ads around here that say you can get the LB if you are 60 pounds or more overweight. Of course, you will have to self-pay at that weight, but the docs are willing to do the procedure.

Laurend... Was your doctor German, with a little mustache? LOL....

I think it has a lot to do with how long you've been on the forum and how many times you've posted.

You don't think we are all beautiful. You are just hoping that at least a few of us are WILLING. Us girls know what's what, hon. We make the rules....and don't you guys dare forget it, either.

Laura... You have a great family! Just keep telling them that it's okay to eat in front of you. Otherwise, they will never be able to enjoy another family function. Until you achieve good restriction, you will be able to hold your own at the buffet table. You might want to make good choices, but you will be ABLE to eat pretty much anything, and in a decent quantity. So don't worry about Tunics. (And I'm jealous, by the way.) By the time you get a few fills under your belt (literally), they should be used to seeing you with your little salad plate and your half cup of food. Restriction is a gradual process.