Wheetsin

Pre-op I used to crave McDonald's (plain doube cheeseburger or a McChicken), and Reese's, bacon... the stuffed & fried jalapeno peppers...and a few other things that aren't coming to mind. Now my main craving is for chocolate chip Cookies, which I don't care much for chocolate and I was never a cookie eater before surgery. But now it's all about the warm & melty chocolate chippers. I also crave fruits, just because I don't eat them very often. And oddly enough, most of my "cravings" are still there, but I now crave foods that are part of my typical diet. Oh I also crave (and eat on occasion) the wheat honey pretzel braids. I love the combination of sweet honey with the salt. Kind of the way I love the salty pretzels and sweet ice cream combination of Chubby Hubby, but we won't go there.

On a good day before I gained weight I was a C, and on a good day once the weight was gained I was a C, and I'm still a C. My boobs have to be the only place I never did gain weight, they just sort of disappeared as my stomach began to take them over. Let me clarify. My actual boobs haven't changed cup size, although I've had to get smaller bras. My "side boobs" or "boobs 3 & 4" as I sometimes call them have all but disappeared. They were pretty close to a C too. :faint:

Anything that doesn't hurt you is an OK position. From behind, on top, legs on the wall, etc. were all fine. Anything related to missionary position hurt me, especially with my legs up over his shoulders. MAJOR no-no, even to date. Hurts my port way too much.

Sorry Ron, but I left my crystal ball at home -- and can't "just know" that you're talking tongue in cheek. Maybe at some point people will be able to move beyond whether or not they personally agree with a life that isn't even theirs, and just "be". But no, I'm not a dreamer.

Maybe not, because I never said people should change their views. I said that we have laws being created based on christian principles.

I think I was between week 1 and 2. Too sore before then. But we had to use positions that kept him from contacting my abdomen (woof!). To date there are some positions that are just too sore because it puts uncomfortable pressure on the port or makes be bend in a way that just fells "band bad"... can't really describe it. But that's ok. For every "fat" position I had to give up, I've gained 6 or 7 "still fat but not as much" ones to replace it. :confused:

That's the rub. Christian principles are driving the development and implementation of laws that non-christians have to abide by. Seems like it would be a much nicer place if - say - gays could marry just as heteros could, and enjoy equal rights, and the people who are against it... well, they're probably not going to be marrying anyone who's gay, so no skin off their back.

DH and I are talking about starting to try and get pregnant in a few months (surgeon's guidelines stated 12 months). I'm not where I want to be physically, but feel that I have to balance that against my age. My biggest fear - and I'm sure this is quote normal, is that I will be a bad parent. My second biggest fear is that I will regret it. Maybe this makes me sound like I will be a horrible parent, and if that's the case so be it, but part of why I'd only want one is that I wouldn't want to be in the position of having two and favoring or preferring one over the other. I'll open up a little chapter of my life, so if truly personal stories bother you, don't read on. 5 years ago, between urging DH to get snipped, I too was looking for a surgeon willing to tie my tubes. DH really has that whole "manly" connection to his ejaculate, so I figured the burden was going to rest on me. I couldn't find a surgeon to do it. I'm forgetting the exact criteria set forth by the surgeons I spoke with, but it was something like: Over the age of 30 with no children and husband's consent (yeah, seriously) Over the age of 28 with at least one child Over the age of 24 with 2+ children. What it boiled down to was that the surgeon's were scared of future consequences, e.g. they tie my tubes, 8 years later I want children and this leads to a lawsuit or complications. And I couldn't find anyone to do me. And DH wasn't jumping at the gun to get snipped. Anyway, so you can see that I was serious about not wanting children. Not a lick of maternal instinct in me. I'm annoyed by others' kids, I bailed on every family event I could to avoid being around my young cousins. On the rare occasion that someone coerced me into holding their baby it would start to cry the minute I took it. I say that and it may sound facetious, but I'm being completely honest. I just absolutely lack tolerance when it comes to children. As some of you have probably read before, I lost my grandfather about 4 years ago. Maybe it was 3. I'm not great at remembering things like that. My grandfather was an awesome man. Absolutely awesome. I was in the room when he died, I watched him take his last breath, and I closed his eyes after he was pronounced dead. I'm not an emotional person, and absolutely not an outwardly emotional person. I stayed strong for my parents, and had my moment later that night after I got home. The next morning I got up, got in the shower, was in the middle of washing my hair and *bam* it hit me. I wanted to have a baby. Not right then, but in my life. It hit me so strongly that, again, I broke down bawling in the shower. What did it? I had a picture pop into my head, of my husband sitting down holding a baby - up over the shoulder like when you're trying to comfort it - and this reality struck of... I'm not going to word this correctly... but no child I could have would ever be able to meet my grandafther and know what an incredible man he was, and how sad for them to have been robbed from their ability to know someone who would make their lives better. And I was absolutely flooded with emotion, and realized that a lot of my not wanting children was stemming from my own fears of failure, and did I really want to miss all of the good moments and learning and dimension because of my own fears? Hadn't they already stopped me enough? And all I could do was stand there in the shower, sobbing, because something I had known so concretely for my entire life had just changed in the blink of an eye, and what the hell do you do with that? So we were scheduled to drive back to my parents that day so that I could help making the funeral arrangements and stuff, and on the drive there I told DH about this "moment" I had, and how unlike me it was, and how powerful it was. I wasn't sure how he would respond because he had never wanted children either. I wasn't sure what this would mean for our relationship, and it was a little scary. But he really surprised me. He said he did want children, thought not right then (which I didn't either), but that he always went along with me when I said I didn't because he never wanted me to feel pressured to have children for his sake. I cried the entire drive/conversation. Sobbed. And when we go out and there's a bratty kid, it's still annoying. And I still feel akward holding babies and make them cry. And I still dread family functions because I know there will be kids running around. I expect that will never change. But it doesn't matter.

Yep - I'm losing from the waist up quicker than hips down. Previous diets gave an all around even and proportionate weightloss, but I'm now about 2 sizes smaller on top than bottom.

My advice - a bit different from what you've heard so far - is that if you have any doubts, real and lasting doubts, you'd do well to postpone and spend some more time thinking about whether this is right for you. If you do anything impetuously, you're more likely to have regrets, and having regrets is going to be conducive to a healthy mental "banded state". I second guessed myself for 5 years. And only when I got to the point of being able to firmly and 100% counteract my second guessing with affirmation did I consider myself ready for the band. So yeah - that doesn't really address the reasons you gave, but the overall state of doubt. Take your time and really think this through. It needs to be seen as a completely change in lifestyle. It's not something you can ever turn off, it becomes part of who you are and the changes it will force you to make may not be easy ones. Now as for: I never had a single gas pain. I've PBed more than my fair share, but it's part of what you accept to endure by having the surgery. A PB, all in all, isn't that bad, but I'll be honest with you - it hurts. Not the actual purging, but the time leading up to it. I didn't realize that before I had my first one, I thought you just kind of burped and there it was, but that isn't the case for most people, and definitely not for me. I'm not trying to scare you away from the band, but I will tell it like it is, and this whole it hurts premise is something I always share at support group. Not to scare people, but because they need to go in understanding what to expect. I get calls and messages from people absolutely freaking out because they're in such pain and don't understand what's happening... they don't know that there's generally a period of pain preceding the PB. But on the brighter side, as soon as what's stuck comes up, it's pretty much instant relief. :confused: Ports flipping, erosions, etc. are all very unlikely complications. The best way to ease this apprehension would be to spend time studying the medical literature with complication rates, and not just a "support board" (where people with problems tend to go). As for not eating certain normal foods EVER - don't tell my band that! I can eat everything on your list. I've CHOSEN to not eat red meat, but I can. I eat salads all the time. There are some foods that hurt me to eat (bananas and applesauce, mainly) but I CAN eat them if I want to.

Makes me want to move. :confused: Hey Green - sthis is OT and I can't provide much info because I just heard it from someone else, but a co-worker asked me if I'd heard about, "the big deal with Canada and its Asian population, something about the number of kids they're wanting to kick them out of the healthcare system, or not let them stay there if they have more than a certain number of kids." Yeah - obscure, huh? But that's really all I know. I've looked for articles but haven't found a thing. Does that even sound remotely familiar, or is this another Normal Rockwell "he said, she said" situation?

Depends 99% on how busy your surgeon is. When I had mine, he was booked out about a month. From what I hear, now it's about 3 months.

Some psychologists relate it back to breastfeeding/mother, and an evountionary maternal and sexual connection (e.g. men are drawn to breasts because of their experiences with their mothers and because of the representation they have of women). Kind of like - guys want to take the dirty girls home for the night, but it's the ones like "mom" they want to take to meet the parents.

Oh oh oh! Just thought of two more that I can't stand. Ok, one -- when you ask something about some quantity, and the reply is "more or less". Well - DUH! "more or less" pretty much includes every possible number, so if I ask if there are 5, and you answer "more or less" you really aren't telling me a single thing. And two, "incent" (as in the verb of incentive) is NOT a word. I hear people really far up the corporate totem pole use that ALL the time -- "How can we incent people to do this?" and I always want to say, "I don't know, that's not a word." The verb is INCITE, not INCENT.

Indeed. I think it's George Carlin (could easily be wrong) who has a skit about this. These probably aren't his examples, but you'll get the idea:Tomb = "toom" Bomb = "boom"? No, "bawmb" Comb = "cawmb"? No, "cohmb" Tough = "tuff" Cough = "cuff"? No, "cawf" Rough = "rawf"? No, "ruff"

Up until just a few years ago, I did not want kids. I adamantly did not want them. To the point that once, when I was 7 weeks late for my period (while on birth control, and also using spermicide, and also avoiding sex during ovulation as much as possible) my thoughts drifted to abortion. And up until a few years ago, I tried my best to convince DH to get snipped. And I had known my whole life, up until then, that I did not want kids. When I was a child and we would play house, I never wanted to be the mom, I wanted to be the dad because that meant I could have a job and run the household, and I never wanted to have "babies" because - well, even back then at the ripe old age of what, 5? 6? I didn't want to be a mother. What I always hated was when people would ask how long DH and I had been married (10 years in November), then ask how many kids we had, and when we said none they would assume one of us was infertileand APOLOGIZE to us for our misfortune. Or I'd hear, "But don't you want to give your husband children?" Or, "You'll change your mind once you grow up a litle more." And this probably sounds weird, maybe it makes me sound like a bad potential parent, but even though we now want A CHILD (not children), I would be OK with it if something happened and I wasn't able to have them. I wouldn't be devastated or bummed. 4 years ago I was pleading with DH to get snipped, and had he done it I would still have no regrets.

Yeah, it is inside of you. You're basically being pistoned (think of what a piston does in a cylinder). As his "part" goes in, it's pushing air inside of you. What you're hearing is that air coming back out. It's under a little pressure, so it will come out whenever it can - either when he withdraws partially, or completely, or even if you change positions to something that opens you up a bit more. Really it's no big deal, it can be a source of a good laugh.

I don't feel it internally. I sometimes feel something like the band from the outside, but logic tells me that it's much more likely to be scar tissue that has built up between my skin and the band. I can feel my port. It feels like a button. But it isn't visible.

Oh and as for the embarassment, don't worry about it. They try to make it happen in porn. And that's not because it turns on the ladies. The other ladies are right. My husband laughs at it. I think he sees it as a manly doing. Like, "Yeah, I made you do that!" Just tell him, "When you almost rip me in half like that, lots of air can get in. Oh, baby, plunge faster!" No embarassment for you, and you've definitely made his "tickle my ego please" day.

Ok, are you talking about "pooty farts"? And yeah, BTW this does have an official name - queef. Nice, huh? ...where he's acting like a plunger and stuffing you with air, then when he pulls back the air is coming out. If so, that's really normal - actually. Different positions will do it more. Positions where you're more "exposed" - like doggy, or if he's pushing your legs back over your head, or positions where he comes out farth - than positions where this doesn't happen, like you on top or in a chair or something.

Ok, BTW, while we're talking about emails - just so y'all know, anything you get that says you have to send the message t oX number of people or X will/won't happen - rubbish. I get SOO many emails because "Forward this to 15 people and you'll get a free dinner!" or "Forward this to your best friends or you will have bad luck for 7 years!"... I mean - come on, we're all adults, aren't you a little old to believe in the power of chain letters? Anything like that is spam. Don't ever fall for it.

No person of sound mind likes to think about their death, and by some regards a concept of the universe that does not include the "I" is impossible to have, since we are the proverbial centers of our own universes. But there's nothing to fear. You can worry about what will happen to your kids, or how you will die, or what will become of your body, or countless other things, but what it really boils down to is "it doesn't matter", because you'll be gone and all of your regard for everything will cease to exist. My mother and I were talking about my living will, and I indicated I either wanted t be cremated or - if I die of some unusual medical condition or something - to have my body donated for study. She asked me, "Doesn't the thought of your body burning bother you?" And I answered, "What - like I'm going to care? I'm dead."

Weighed tonight and I've gained 7 lbs since Tuesday. So welcome to the club! I'm sure they'll be gone in a few days, but that doesn't mean my scale doesn't deserve its curses.

Never give someone else that much power over you.

You're killing me. We're about 10 lbs from eachother and you're like 3 or 4 sizes smaller than me. Sorry, can't talk to you anymore. :heh: I'm with you on the clothes. I have 2 pairs of jeans (thankfully we have casual Monday AND Friday). I have 3 pair of dress slacks that fit, and about 4 dress tops. So needless to say, my co-workers are seeing a lot of the same outfits these days. But - they also know why - so it doesn't bother me. At $80 for a pair of pants and $40 at least for a top, I just can't justify buying a lot more. And I guess I'm just not good at finding sales. Can you get away with khakis on the job? Or colored denim? I can't... well.. maybe, but don't want to try it. But lots of places will let you wear capris, khakis, etc. on the job that could also be worn casually. I survived the summer by buying some cute skirts and then wearing them with layered tops at work or knit tops at home... slip ons at work, and flip flops away from work. I try to shop for versatility as much as possible. My weightloss has really sucked lately. I still haven't pinpointed why. I may go 2 months with nothing, then lose oh - a whopping 3 or 4 lbs overnight. I'm going to try adding an add'l 30 mins per session of cardio and see if that makes any difference.