SpecialK

Hello to the Dayton Area Bandsters from the Columbus group. Wanted to extend an invite to come up to Columbus at Tuttle Mall for a shopping trip and see the bariatric style show being put on by Mt. Carmel Hospital's Bariatric Center and to meet the group of fun loving, hard working (diet and exercise-wise) bandsters in Columbus. The meeting is posted on a separate thread in the Ohio forum thread and we'll have a BIG BUTTERFLY BALLOON marking where we are sitting and we'll put some nametags on so you can translate from our screen names to real names. If you need an excuse to get away for shopping what better excuse that the support of friends! Take care. Kathy

Heather and Tyanna -- I now understand your excitement at being able to put away older bigger size things in a donate box. My first few things in 4X and 30/32s are going in now and if I don't hear any takers, I'll donate them to charity and the good expensive dresses maybe take them to the Chrissy's consignment store out off E. Main St. near Brice Rd. and see how that goes and maybe see if I can find some smaller sizes for me at a bargain too.

:sad_smile::rolleyes2::scared2: Yes, isn't it wonderful to have other lapband friends who understand what you are going through! Hope to see you Saturday. Look for the Butterfly Helium balloon and you'll find the group. Ha Ha...not expecting too many others to have a balloon like that!!

If you go to the top of the thread starting discussion and its about 2 blue bars down, far left a button before the various posts begin that says NEW REPLY - click it and you're off and running.

Well you've definitely gotten over the highest hurdle if your doctor has your Insurance approval!!! You should be doing a dance of celebration. Your surgeon's office should be calling you to schedule you a surgery date and then pre-admission testing about a week before that, and BOOM -- you're in bandster land!

There is an Insurance questions forum thread and I'd say post a question there too. Also this website has a Search capability and its a little hard to find. Look on the far top right of the screen just under the tool bar area for your browser and you should see Bookmark Us! then Site Map, then Advanced Search! the screen is pretty easy to use if you put in the keywords you want to get matches on like Medicaid. Best of luck!

Welcome to our lap band talk forum. You're gonna love the support her. I'd say since you are so newly banded I would call and ask to get in to see my doctor just to have the peace of mind.

Good to have you check in KTBugg -- love that user name as I have a niece and we call her Katie bug! That pretty little girl I diapered as a baby is now at Northern Arizona University finishing up as a freshman and wants to be a doctor - actually she's had her mind made up for maybe 7 years or more that is what she wanted to do with her life and she's never given up her dream. I told her that her Aunt will cover the cost of her textbooks if she gets at least B's and then reviews her grade card with me after a quarter/semester then I reimburse her for her book cost so she can put it toward the next set of books.

Its good to know we're all hitting the same plateau period about the same time as it reinforces we just need to keep working our plan and it will go down soon. I think I'm noticing more in clothes this week than the scale so that's a victory. I've been pretty good about staying off the scale on a daily basis but I have a dr. appt tomorrow a.m. so I should see if that shows progress. I have to tell you, I have connected to a Central Ohio group of other bandsters I met on this web site and we meet once a month in person now at a local mall and they've become such great pals! We have a bariatric style show at the mall this Saturday where I think about 10 patients who've been successful with both RNY and Lapband will be all dressed up in new duds by the mall stores, hair and things all done, and they are going to share their motivational stories of how they got from their Before to After. I hope all of you get connected In Person with another bandster buddy in your area because its great support! P.S. We decided to meet the first time at a mall food Court where we could get coffee and I marked our meeting location by having a Helium Balloon hooked to the chair and we just found each other! We thought meeting in a public place would be less threatening to those who were meeting someone based on the internet introductions but it was wonderful to meet the 'real' people behind their screen names and see they are just wonderful people who have struggled with their weight like me. The second meeting at the mall we even did clothing swaps among some of the people!

Niki - Hang in there-- April 29th is a coming! I was reading elsewhere on the site about what people eat for a normal day and boy, it just sound like so little food. I feel almost normal now with eating 1000 calories a day but with eating mushies I'm finding it hard to stay closer to 800 like many of them said they can do consistently, like 1 egg or 2 turkey bacon slices for Breakfast or 1/2 the packet of Weight Control oatmeal - I can eat the whole packet for now. Its still a mental adjustment to control eating when the band restriction isn't there. I'm doing so much better than how I've lived my life for many years but just not at the level those with restriction seems to have. Can't wait now for my 1st fill too to see how much difference I feel.

Courtenay - check out Synchrony Health web site as they have both Columbus and Cincy locations where their doctors will do fills for patients who were banded elsewhere and now need a fill doctor in Ohio. I believe there is a one time fee (maybe $500) for the first appointment probably because they do a history & physical plus the fill and then I think they quoted about $100 per fill after. That would have to be cheaper and more convenient than flying somewhere for a fill.

The message about where the Fashion Show is said the MACY's Hayden Run Rd. entrance area. I'm pretty sure that is the original Macy's store (that's considered the back side of the mall which is NOT facing I-270).

I went to the website tonight to vote for Mark to continue on into the final 3 and found out that if you try to vote they want full name, phone #, zip code, and email address or you can't vote. Obviously collecting info for mailing lists to sell...the ultimate ugh! for me after being irritated with the product placement commercials stuff they kept putting in. I think I'm losing my taste for this show..LOL but I do hope one of the two girls wins!

On a happy note, because I really am a person who tries to see the glass half full, I had a Wendy's chili tonight put into the blender just a little and that tasted SOOO Good! Here's the nutrition info for the Large chili followed by the Nutrition info for the small chili. 25g of Protein in the Large and 17g Protein in the small. Nutrition Facts for Chili ~ Large Serving Size: 1 serving Amount per serving Calories 330 Total Fat9g Saturated Fat3.5g Trans Fat0.5g Cholesterol55mg Sodium1170mg Carbohydrate35g Dietary Fiber8g Sugars9g Protein25g Vitamin A 6%Vitamin C 6% Calcium 10% Iron 20% Nutrition Facts for Chili ~ Small Serving Size: 1 serving Amount Per Serving Calories 220 Total Fat6g Saturated Fat2.5g Trans Fat0g Cholesterol35mg Sodium780mg Carbohydrate23g Dietary Fiber5g Sugars6g Protein17g Vitamin A 4% Vitamin C 4% Calcium 8% Iron 15%

I'm all fixed back up now, just wanted to let others know to be careful and specify where your doctors' office can leave messages for you on phone #s.

I have a BIG BUTTERFLY helium balloon for Saturday. You shouldn't miss finding us!! Looking forward to it.

Here's a new one and I'm definitely going to share this with Dr. Price when I see him in person. His office supervisor Debbie called my WORK phone # and left a detailed message about "my lapband fill appt with Dr. Price is being cancelled for this Friday as he doesn't do the fills only Dr. Miller or Dr. Choban can do one so she was just going to cancel my appt that looks like it was scheduled in error (I have been waiting 3+ weeks for my first post op surgeon check up). Not good that they put the description of what the appt was for down incorrectly and I'm afraid they've given my appt now to someone else. She said "call the office to get a fill appt when you get a chance". OMG! I have called them back and got voicemail for this Debbie who left the first message and marked it urgent and explained she cancelled my appt in error and to please reinstate the appt ASAP. Debbie did call back about 2 hrs later and reinstated my appt with Dr. Price so all is back to where I was yesterday. I also told them not to leave private messages about health related matters on a work phone #. Duh! She said well any phone # we have for you is fair game to leave a message on unless you tell us specifically not to. I had her remove all phone #s except my cell # as ones they can contact me on. Like I said, Dr. Price will be told about this by me for sure. Actually I was given an option to now have Dr. Miller be my Fill Dr. and I took that offer. Will let you know more once I see Dr. Price and get my first fill appt. I'm going to try to do this by May 1 as I'm starting to feel more hungry as others have mentioned but I'm still keeping to about 800-1000 calories but its getting tougher.

I have a confession.... I've had a blast updating this thread with all the bandster dates on it since someone asked Gee, I wonder how many Shrinking Shamrocks there are?? The list is over 228 now! I'm only adding as I spy one I haven't seen before so if you're posting on the Master thread I'll pick up on it from here. Yes...I do have a life! LOL.... just started it for fun and now it keeps growing. http://www.lapbandtalk.com/f114/march-2008-bandster-dates-57036/

Renee - they have ring guards that you can have put on a ring to temporarily change the size of it and it can be adjusted to keep making your ring work size-wise for you until you get to your goal and can have it sized and the permanent size settled. Good luck. I also have a couple loose rings and it feels great.

Greg - I missed hearing from you too. I have a ladies Bible study group I lead on Wednesdays and I will definitely raise your daughter and grandchild to these fabulous prayer warriors! We have one of our own members whose daughter was told that her pregnancy 2 years ago was at risk for Downs and she prayed daily and so did everyone who knew her and she had a wonderfully health little girl and now she is pregnant with her second baby and we're praying for her again. Add Tiffany & Jason to your prayers for the same as your daughter. I'm so proud of myself - went to the gym 3 times last week and took a 45-60 minute walk on my lunch hour for the last 2 days to burn some calories up. Hoping I'll have a good weigh in when I see Dr. Price for my first post op appt. I'm going to ask for the same Fill Date as you're getting GREG!! Your secret's safe with me! Take care.

Yea Sue! Cheering for you getting to go back to work!!

Susan - you are dead on center! I hate to throw food away..old mindset learned in growing up when family times were tough and we were told to sit there and eat what was on our plate and be grateful... and to boot they'd add that there are starving children in China who would be so thankful for half of what you had!" Guilt trip deluxe. So you are right, eat what I want and enjoy the nourishment and taste and then throw it away. Thanks

For the March bandsters, I tried ordering an omelette at Bob Evans' for dinner out last night and was able to eat about half of it without a problem with lots of chewing. It was a veggie type omellette with spinach and onions and some cheese no meat yet. I think that what I ate was about 2 eggs worth out of what was probably a 4 egg omelette if I have to estimate. It came with hash brown potatoes and I had the waitress change it to mashed potatoes - she looked at me a little funny but said, sure! So I ate maybe 1/4-1/2c mashed potatoes and took the leftovers home. Now I realize that wasn't the best thing because the other half of an omellette isn't going to be good heated up and I probably should have just ordered 2 eggs scrambled so I'm not throwing away food or wasting money. Anyway, it felt good to go to a restaurant and not just order soup! P.S. Mini non-scale victory -- the dinner came with delicious biscuits and I didn't touch them even though in the past I would have eaten both of those smothered with honey! I sent them home with my friend.

Okay, I'm upping the reservation to at least 10 chairs! Woo Hoo!!

I'll Bring a Baloon along to mark where we are sitting at Tuttle Mall for the fashion show and save 5-6 seats. I'll try to get there by 1:45 to stake a spot out for us.