Wheetsin

Recovery time - depends on how you define "recovered." Qualify that a bit and I will better know what timeframe to put. Weight at surgery - 382 lbs. Non-smoker.

Insurance providers are businesses and businesses aren't around long if they don't make money. Most people stay with a provider fewer than 4 years. 4 years isn't enough longevity to see significant ROI for insurance companies. I used to work for an insurance company and my husband's work is affiliated with a separate one, and both see the same thing -- in any procedure where it requires some time to make up the cost (e.g. decline in medications or office visits), insurance companies just aren't seeing the "loyalty" of people sticking around long enough for them to see the savings. That's why more and more are exclusing procedures such as WLS. It's not really about making money so much as not losing money. Insurance companies make their money on investments, not premiums. Quoting myself from a previous post: Total charge = $29,076.25 Network discount = $27,402.25 Allowed amount = $1674.00 Paid by plan = 100%/$1674.00 Patient copay = $0.00 Patient responsibility = $0.00

It doesn't have to be a matter of abuse. For me, personally, it's still a matter of - what are you really teaching your kids? Hitting them, regardless of where or with what device, is physical punishment. Physical punishment doesn't teach someone why something is wrong, or what they might have done differently. It teaches them to fear the person giving the punishment. I would much rather my kids learn what is right and what is wrong, than learn to be afraid of me. My father spanked me, and it never really did much to keep me from doing it again unless he was there. And even then, I didn't refrain because I had some kind of cognitive acknowledgement that it was wrong, I refrained because I was afraid of him hitting me. For example, one time at a grocery store my father smacked me because he said I had rolled my eyes at him. I didn't even understand what "roll your eyes" meant. And I certainly hadn't done it intentionally. Going forward, I didn't have an understanding of what rolling my eyes meant, or why it was a bad thing, I pretty much was just afraid to look at him. On the flip side, I was once curious about how fire extinguishers work (after age 12, I was home alone for an hour or two before my parents got home from work) so I got the one from our kitchen and sprayed it in the living room, thinking it might just blow out air. Nope, I got a shitload of white powder all over everything. When my dad got home I told him what had happened, and he explained that I shouldn't have done what I did, and reinforced that if I was curious about something to ask, and then went on to explain how extinguishers work. No smacking. So I learned that I could ask him questions, and do "bad" things without necessarily having to automatically be afraid of getting hit -- that maybe I could do "bad" things, and something other than a hit might happen. I hope to raise my kids without having to punish them via physical force. I don't have kids yet so I can't say "I don't," just that "I don't plan to." But I can say that parents across the board could probably do well to think about what exactly it is that their actions are teaching their kids.

I can't sleep on my stomach, never has been comfortable, but I am a side sleeper and I think it was 4 or 5 days post-op until I could lay on my side. It helps to use a pillow under my stomach. Was probably 1.5 - 2 weeks before I could lay on my side with no discomfort or tweaking at all. My port is pretty much centered, about 2 - 3" below my bra.

"People of color" is stupid. We're all people of color, unless you happen to know someone with transparent skin. And... umm... if you do, eww. "Nigger" is a derrogitory word. If it weren't, people wouldn't use it in hateful ways. I mean, hearing people from the ME called "Sand African Americans" just doesn't have that ice cold puncture that the person making the statement is looking for, does it? But I understand its use among groups. I understand that black people can use it in a way that's totally different from how someone else might use it. I personally don't think it has anything to do with earning it, but I think it's a great sign of resiliency to take a once posion name and use it as your own term of endearment. I mean, how better to remove its power? And I don't think the logic of, "Well you say it, so why can't I?" works here. There's too much social weight on the word. Sure, use it if you want, as long as you're willing to accept the consequences (which will be different geographically). I personally hate racial slurs because - wow, talk about something that someone REALLY can't change. I've never understood the idea of hating someone because of how they're born, but if that's all the better someone is, then just know to keep your expectations low. And I hate "I don't see color." Bullshit. Everyone sees color. You cannot have me (pasty white) stand next to a black or hispanic person, and tell me in all seriousness that you do not see a difference in our skin color. Of course you do, or you're blind. What you let that difference mean to you, that's what matters. By the way, I hate "African American" too. Most of the black people I know have never even been to Africa, let alone are they from there. They're no more "African Americans" than I'm a "Greek American." The only people I've ever met who had a problem with calling someone "black" were white.

Ooh, can I bitch about my bad customer service experiences? Actually I don't have that many complaints. I do not tolerate bad service. If I'm receiving bad service, I will no longer deal with the person, I will escalate until I get the resolution I'm after. Problem solved. My husband dreads confrontation and will not do this at all, hence it all becomes my job. CHEM-LAWN. We used to contract them for our lawn treatments. The first two or three treatments were fine. The fourth, we came home and found the chemicals sprayed all over our house. Not just a little overspray, but 80% of our foundation/house up as far as 3 - 4 feet from the ground covered. Our house was newly painted and we had asked them to postpone the service for 2 weeks to ensure the paint had dried. So yeah, our new paint is stained. They had also sprayed a no-grass planting area I had ("island" in the back yard filled with river rock, holds some decorative trees, bordbath, etc.) - figured no harm done, but two days later everything in it was dead including two $$$$ ornamental trees. When I called them the only offer I could get was a free treatment. The total opposite of what I wanted. So I cancelled my service, and had to deal with no fewer than 50 (I'm serious) follow-up/solicitation calls, and then every time management changed over, they would start up again. I STILL get calls/mails from them, and this happened probably 7 years ago. AOL. Holy moley, ever try to cancel service with them? I attend classes online and our cable was out, so we had no internet but I needed to post an assignment. So I ran out and got one of their free 30 day trial disks, used exactly 4 minuntes of the free trial. The call to cancel the service took at least 45 minutes, and I did lose my cool... I ended up telling the person they really needed to stop talking and just cancel the $^#&% subscription. "I want to cancel my service." "Can I ask why?" "No, just cancel it please." "I cannot cancel without a reason." "I don't want the service." "That's not a valid reason." .... "Look, can you cancel it or do I need to talk to someone else?" "I can cancel it, but first let me tell you about a new promotion..." I had rude service at Hobby Lobby once. When the icicle lights first came out I bought some there. $20 per box. Then at Sears I found them for $8 a box, each box having twice as many lights. So I took the first ones back. When the lady asked me the reason for bringing them back, I told her I found a more competitive price. She scoffed at me, rolled her eyes, and said "You seriously expect me to accept that reason? You're cheap isn't a reason for us to take back your merchandise, so I don't understand what you're saying." So I just kind of looked at her and said "How about : More lights. Less money. Can you understand that?" When I was walking away (after getting my refund) she called over a coworker. I heard her saying something and thought she might be talked to me, so I turned around, and she was talking quietly to the other lady, pointing at me. I confronted her about it and it wasn't pretty. That was one of only about 3 times I have actually called somewhere after my experience to make a complaint. Very, very few things will trigger my temper instantly. With most things it's a long process that gets a giant snowball rolling - as in, it takes a lot more me to lose my temper, but once I do, you better watch out because my tongue will slash you like you wouldn't think possible. Oh, a little out of nowhere Sears story, since they've come up a few times. When we buikt our house we bought our garage door openers there. They were advertised... I don't know, let's say $300 each. In the store they were marked $380 each. So I grabbed one of the ads, showed them the price, and they said it was a misprint BUT that their policy was to sell things for the advertised price. About a year later we were looking at Water softeners and I saw they had one on and end cap marked for something insanely cheap, like $140 for a top-of-the-line model that probably should have been $600 or $700. I figured it was an end of year model sale. So I took one over and it rang up at the $700 price. I told the guy no, I was only paying $140 for it. Long story short, something else had been there, and they forgot to change the price when they put the softeners there. It was a bit of a struggle, and ended up with a manager telling her people "if that sign isn't changed in the next 5 seconds someone is fired" but they did give it to me for the advertised price.

I would gladly pay more for something if it meant I was supporting a small business, shopping at a place I enjoyed, etc. "Cheap" isn't all that I look for in deciding who gets my money, and the 27 cents or buck or whatever it may be (I don't know, I don't do much price comparing, if it's more than I want to pay in the store I will go online) that I would save buying it at Wal-Mart over somewhere isn't worth it, IMO. I've certainly shopped at Wal-Mart -- there are only so many places you can get stuff at 2 in the morning, only so many places I can buy something "every day" for someone when Wal-Mart is the only megaplex in their town, etc. -- and there are some things that I've not yet been able to find anywhere else (including rapid blast, I've looked everywhere local and they're the only ones who carry it). During the holidays we adopt a family and their gift card will be to Wal-Mart because for them, stretching each buck is probably more important than anything else. It just isn't to me personally. I don't know what it is about Wal-Mart cashiers, but it's like they're trained to be slow. I <heart> self checkout! And umm... wow, how do you say this without being mean. At least at our Wal-Mart, probably 80% of the employees are unsavory. And I don't mean "poor" or "low life" - I mean -- not helpful, ill-mannered, filthy (I'm sorry, but you should see the hands of some of the people working with the food - ugh!). I truly don't see that at other stores, large or small. You'd have to drug my husband and drag him into Wal-Mart to get him through the doors. Or put xbox 360s on sale for $50. He abhors it.

Doing our part to be green, DH and I often ride to/fro work together. I'm about 2 mins off his route, but sometimes I will drop him off if I know I have an errand to run or smtg. There's a particular intersection near his work that sees a LOT of accidents, and most of them are bad. In fact, my husband was in one about 18 months ago, driving my car, and it was totalled. Near this intersection there's a "scenic route" type loop, and tow trucks line up in that loop waiting for an accident. I refer to them as "the vultures." When my husband had his accident I was working from home. We live about 20 mins away. I left imemdiately when he called, and when I got there (no more than 30 mins after the accident) there were already 4 tow trucks there competiting for business. One of them was actually being hostile with my husband and his two passengers, telling them they needed to "get your heads out of your fucking asses and sign the consent to have me tow your car before those other jokers get to you first." (Between my husband and his passengers this accident resulted in 2nd degree burns, about 20 stitches, three fused vertebrae, a broken rib, and a totalled car, so these aren't "healthy" guys who are being berated, they're hurt.) I told the guy to buggar off, that we had roadside, and that I could guarantee his company would NOT be getting our business, even if it's who our roadside wanted to call. He got irate. This morning I was getting my husband a coffee - one of the gas mega plexes - and there was a tow truck driver behind me in line. He got a call to go to the scene of an accident, and actually said to no one in particular, "I hope it's a bad one, my kids need something in their stocking." I must have given him a weird look because he then said, "Hey, I know it's the most cheery way to look at things, but when people get hurt, I make money." Last winter my husband and I slid on ice and down the bank into the triangle-shaped spot of land that divides the interstate from the exit ramp (can't think of what it's called). Our car was fine, we just couldn't get back up n the road. Called toadside again, and they send someone out. As he's wenching our car back to the road, we're chit-chatting and I mentioned that I hate winter. He says, "Oh not me, I love it. Lots of wrecks = lots of money." I understand that this is a legitimate business, and I understand that people in a business need to make money, but it seems so distorted to have them profit off someone's tragedy (also brings to mind people who run funeral homes) - rejoicing that someone might be seriously hurt because it means they get a larger paycheck. And not only that, but instead of helping someone who's sitting there bleeding and broken, they're arguing amongst each other over who gets the fare - but only after they've stalked an area and waiting for something bad to happen.

There have been cases where the husbands were tried for rape of their 13, 14, 15 year old wives. There have also been cases where they were arrested for abuse, because they beat their daughters that did not want to be their brother's wives. (I believe these cases were cited on the ilnk I posted above).

The me here is the me IRL - as some of the bandsters who have met me IRL would attest to (remembering a discuss at Chili's about religion) Oh - and superior oldies? Hah! I'm superior, period. Doesn't matter if I'm old or new. :heh:

(http://www.absalom.com/mormon/polygamy/faq.htm) Why is polygamy banned by the Utah constitution? The short answer is because the people of Utah were coerced by the Federal government. The longer answer is that, in the United States, we have two separate Jurisdictions. One is the Federal Jurisdiction that applies to the Territories, to government workers, and to Federal Property. The other jurisdiction is the jurisdiction of the sovereign states. With that said, most federal laws only apply to those people who request to become subject to the federal government. For example, by becoming a government employee, or by living in a territory that is controlled by the Federal government instead of the states, or by entering federally owned property within the states, such as a military base or post office. The other common way that the Federal government brings people under it's jurisdiction is by offering them money to become part of it's jurisdiction, for example: The Feds give local school districts money for school lunches, the price being that the Feds then regulate how and what foods are prepared. The food regulations don't apply to those schools that don't accept the money. The reason Utah could not attain statehood without the provision forever banning polygamy being in it's constitution is because once statehood was granted, the Edmunds-Tucker act would become null and void in the State of Utah. What is the Edmunds-Tucker act? The Edmunds-Tucker act was designed to destroy the LDS church if it continued the practice of polygamy. Specific provisions included: Disincorperated the LDS church and stold it's assets Stold the money from the Perpetual Immigration Fund Required civil marriage licenses Prohibited women from voting Required voters, jurors, and public officials to deny polygamy Replaced local judges with federally appointed judges Took away local control in school textbook choice What other anti-polygamy laws were passed? Polygamy was illegal in the territory of Utah by the following acts of congress: 1862 the Anti-Bigamy Act 1874 Poland Act 1882 Edmunds Act 1887 Edmunds-Tucker Act Is Polygamy illegal? Federal law prohibits polygamy in the territories. Federal law also does not provide legal recognition of polygamy. It defines marriage as one man, and one woman. The laws vary from state to state, but in general, if you do not ask for a marriage license from the state for your first (marriage), then you can cohabit with as many people as you like and it is not illegal. Bigamy and Adultery are only crimes for a married person, not for people who are living together. Some jurisdictions have laws against having unmarried sex, but they are never enforced. It also helps if you avoid labeling your relationship as a marriage. For example, living together is generally not illegal, but representing yourselves as husband and wife may be. The government is prevented by the constitution from regulating contracts or saying who you may associate with. So you make a contract with another person, the particulars of which contain the usual things that a marriage would be composed of, but you avoid the legal hot words in the body of the contract. But in general if you avoid a marriage license, and don't represent yourselves on official documents as being married, and don't let them declare that you have a common law marriage, then you can do what you want without worrying about it being illegal. From the same site, Utah laws about polygamy. Take it for what it's worth. I don't know near enough about Utah or Federal law to try and back this up, give examples, etc.

Did you get your laser treatment done Monday? How did it go?

Laurend, you know what really sucks? Once you've lost sleep, it's gone. There's no such thing as making up for it... (biological extra credit?)

It does make for an interesting read, but holy cow -- now I'm curious to see the movie. Any movie that provokes that much controversy has to be a little good. (Except the Mel Gibson Jesus movie, which I can't comment on b/c I"ve not seen it).

Yah I disagree with first advisor. Talk to INSURANCE first. You don't want to get your hopes up (if self pay isn't an option), nor do you want to run the risk of getting billed for anything from the surgeon.

I dated a vegan, and had a vegetarian friend turned vegan, and all I can say is - that's some amazing willpower. I knew what a vegan was when I started dating that guy, but I had no clue how many foods contain some type of animal product - things you would never even think about until you have to. I could be one of those "vegetarians" who only eat white meat and fish. For that matter, let's leave the animals alone alltogether and just look toward our lactating women to provide the nation's milk supply. NOW where's the pukey smile... RIGHT HERE! :phone:

I've yet to find a food I can't eat as long as I take my time and listen to my body when I eat it. The only food that I have PBed on more than once was potato chips - I don't care for them too much so they're a few & far between thing, but the last two times I've tried to eat them I've had problems just 1 or 2 chips in. So they're on my "no" list (because it doesn't bother me to get rid of them), even though I've been able to eat them without problems. Other than that, I just have foods that I know will be uncomfortable, but don't really cause a problem. Slimy foods such as sliced strawberries, bananas hurt me. Eggs hurt me, regardless of how they're cooked (over-hard is my best bet). Applesauce hurts me. Etc.

My post about needing PS

You guys are into an area of feelings that are virtually impossible to describe. For one because they're so different for everyone, and for two because some things are just hard to describe. For me, I have two kinds of full. There's band full, and stomach full. They're usually one in the same, but not always. Stomach full, which happens on a bandster portion, feels just like pre-op full (not "pre-op overate like usual and feel sick full", but just normal full). Then there's band full, which I'm feeling right now after eating literally a half a spoon of yogurt. I'm *tight* in the early day, but trying to work on getting some food down. It will probably take 20 - 30 mins for this half bite to clear, and then I will have another half bite, etc. This is a VERY different feeling from when I've eaten too much or have something stuck. This feeling to me = "wait a while." This also feels kind of like having to burp, but not being able to. (But I say that about a few band feelings, and they're all very different situations). As Jack pointed out, the only way to know you're at your sweet spot is to look at what's happening. Can you eat without PBing? Do you feel restriction? Are you hungry between meals? Are you satisifed at the point that you feel restriction? I personally don't factor weightloss into whether or not someone is at a sweetspot. Someone can suck down egg nog at their sweet spot and not lose weight. Lastnight I had some yellowfin sashimi. I was tight, and about 2 oz of it took me a good hour to get down. I still felt hungry, so I took one piece of chicken (melon-ball sized) from DH's Chinese food. In turn I cut that into 4 bites. I ate one of the bites. Almost instantly I got the uncomfortable "gonna have to PB" pressure, and sure enough, about an hour later I was hunched over the sink. Why could I eat the sashimi, but one bite of chicken messed me up? I'm still working on that one. Perhaps my pouch was full, but it didn't register. Perhaps something about it caused it to get stuck. Who knows. Moral of the story being - sometimes we can't clearly define what's going on, we just have to trust what we're feeling, learn to speak our body's language, and pick up on its new patterns. Go with the guidelines above, and hope that you catch on quickly.

No doubt in my mind it sucks. And no doubt in my mind it sucks from the patient perspective, too. It sucks knowing that I'm not getting help because they're busy having to deal with people who don't need to be there (addicts or otherwise). Don't get me wrong, I'm not faulting the medical staff. It just sucks that that's the reality.

I think this is something we're just going to see more and more. I ran into something like this a little while ago. I needed to have my gallbladder out, and I elected to have my band surgeon do it. My band surgeon is about an hour from home. I had some issues post-op and they were afraid it was related to the surgery, so my local doc (10 mins from home) told me that if my fever got higher, I was to report to the ER stat. Well it did, so I did. We went to the local hospital's ER for one because I was in pain and they were close, and for two because it's the hospital my PCP is affiliated with, and I was their on her orders. As I explained what was wrong to the attending, he started to question my motives for being there. Why was I at their hospital if I had my surgery somewhere else... Had I been to their ER in the last 24 hours... Why hadn't I gone to my surgeon instead of my regular doctor... at first I didn't get why he was asking me the questions, but then it kind of dawned on me why he was being so suspicious. I felt bad once I realized the intent behind the questions, and I didn't want anyone thinking I was just there to get some drugs, so when my nurse was placing the IV I was very apologetic to her. I'm really not the type to go the ER lightly, I *know* they're there to treat trauma, and unless you're trauma, it can probably wait. (A good friend is finishing her ER residency, and I hear the stories constantly.) She didn't really say much. Then infection was found in my blood culture, and they started talking about having to admit me, had to schedule a CAT, and the entire tone changed. People who were really being pretty snobby were instantly nice and compassionate. The nurse came in to run an IV and I told her again I was sorry, and she said, "Oh hon don't worry about it, you need the help. It's the ones that don't need it, who are just looking for a fix, that we don't like to see." I asked her if it was really that big of a roblem and she just scoffed and rolled her eyes, and said "Every night." It kind of sucks. The next time I end up having a need to go to the ER, I don't know how I will feel about it, knowing fairly well that unless my eyeball is laying in my lap, their first thought might be drug addict looking for a fix.

Milk's milk I guess :faint:

And you have to remember - there's a certain type of personality that's drawn to an area like RnR. Chances are that personality is the antithesis of your "typical" personality that's drawn toa support-based messageboard. Of course there is going to be some steam when the two collide. One is seeking virtual support and friendship, the other is seeking facts, experiences, information.

I've seen this a few times. I think the overall tone of the board always changes around this time of year. And for the next... 2 months or so. Why? No idea, but my guess - it's related to the coming of the new year and people trying to "get on track" for their Resolution. That or maybe just because it's open enrollment time.

We do see a lot of people looking for validation. And we see a lot of people asking questions they KNOW the answer to, but are hoping to find that one answer that makes it all better. As I've said on the subject before: For example (in reference to no one in particular): I cheated on my pre-op diet, is that bad? They KNOW it's bad, or they wouldn't be asking the question. The simple fact that they used the word "cheat" instead of something else gives it away. They aren't looking for a bunch of us to tell them "Yes it's bad," they're looking for that one person who will say, "I cheated on mine too and my surgery went just fine!" I think that even though we have a degree of anonymity here, people still don't like to be completely honest. I mean - if you can't be honest with yourself, how will you be honest with strangers? (It happens - just not most of them time). What people like that should post is, "I cheated and need to alleviate some of my guilt, please tell me I'm a good person" or "...please tell me you did too so that I can find comfort in numbers." And if someone wants to ask that, fine, ask it. Just ask it, and not some halfway disguised version of what you're really looking for. I will tell someone what a PB is until I'm blue in the face, or at least point them to the terminology thread. I will never mind doing that, even though the answer is out there. I understand that when ppl hit a messageboard, their first reaction is to post. Often they don't even think about whether or not the question has been asked before. I get that. But as the others have mentioned, one thing that really gets to me is when people ask advice and then argue the advice they're given. Or ask a question, and you answer it, and they respond something to the effect of, "Yeah I know that, I want to know about this..." Umm ok, but that's not what you asked... These aren't "lapbandtalk" issues, and they aren't "old vs. new" issues, they broad communication issues. It's not like it's ONLY annoying asked by someone registered for for less than a month within 6 weeks of their surgery with fewer than 50 posts ... asks the question. Cripes, my mother could do the same thing and it would annoy me to the same degree. I also don't understand - and I've said this before - how people could go into a position of lifelong change, major surgery, and potentially large expense (just to name a few factors) and have NO CLUE what is being done to them? I don't know anyone who has breast augmentation, and then wakes of surprised that their boobs are bigger, or is shocked to learn that there are silicone bags in their chest. No, they pretty much know what they're in for. So why is this procedure different? Why do we have people who get banded, and then are surprised to learn that there's a port? Or don't know that the band is on the outside of their organ? I can COMPLETELY understand someone thinking that "erosion" refers to the band itself eroding. Perfectly understandable, and would never mind answering a question about it. I CANNOT understand why someone post-op would ask how fills are done, since the band is on the inside... do they require another surgery? I don't want to call it "common sense" because hey - my common sense isn't yours and yours isn't mine. But there is definitely a "wtf" element when you see something like that. And it's not frustrating that it happens here, but just that it happens, period. I would hope, that in this day and age of readily available information, not to mention the required consultation, etc. that someone would take the time to learn about the implant they're undergoing surgery to receive.