Wheetsin

Nothing. That's the beauty of this forum. It's our OFF TOPIC area. It doesn't have to have anything to o with the lap-band! Woo hoo!!!! :cursing:

I was so screwed when we moved here. We have a street called "Chouteau". Now, having studied French through highschool and college, I pronounced it "shew-toe", right? Nope. Here they pronouce it "show-tow". Milan, MO they pronounce "My-lynn" not "me-lawn". Versailles, MO they pronounce "Ver-sales" not "Ver-sigh". Etc.

My pre-op diet was only for 2 days, I lost about 6 lbs.

Oh the biscuits, those are good too. I have a copycat recipe I can post that's fairly close. Not spot-on, but close enough to keep hubby happy (he gets their shrimp alfredo which is more "pasta in butter" than alfredo, and will eata bout 8 biscuits).

I'd estimate at least half of the stories I read require some display of weightloss pre-op. As for the pre-op testing, I didn't have to do a sleep study (I had no signs of a sleep problem) or an echocardiogram, and no doctor approval required because I have a PPO, but psych evaluation and dietician approval are based for insurance-approved procedures, and EKG, chest x-ray, and bloodwork are basics for the hospital admitting process.

Find your summary plan description (SPD). You will have (received, up to you if you have) one for your initial coverage. You will receive one for new coverage when you receive your membership packet. It will itemize exclusions.

IMO Red Lobster sucks ass. Calling Red Lobster "seafood" is like going to McDonald's and calling it "fillet." BUT I will go there for the "fondue," which isn't really fondue, and hubby will get their pasta because it has 8 gazillion calories. I think the fondue-like thing is called "ultimate fondue". It's a bunch of thick melty cheese sauce with lobster, shrimp, etc. mixed in, served in a sourdough bread bowl.

Try Dress Barn. Seriously. I've bought for 2 weddings and a cruise there, and at almost any time of the year they have dresses just in or on clearance. And a lot of their larger stuff (unlike Catherine's) is in really cute/young styles. Catherine's is OK if you like violet sequins. (Hmm, just checked the Dress Barn website trying to see if I could get some samples of their merchandise but they don't have their dresses up. Might be worth checking tho. They normally have lots of green). Maybe also try Avenue online, their stores don't really the same selection IME. I don't care for most of their stuff, but I found the CUTEST tea dress there last spring. BTW, the dress above would be perfect for a daytime spring wedding. Nothing saying you have to wear a solid color, right? I know that one doesn't have the sleeves you want, etc. but any kind of tea or garden party dress would be smashing for a daytime spring wedding. Here's what we'll do. Go here: Avenue - Women's Plus Size Clothing Jeans Dresses Lingerie Swimwear in sizes 14-32 What about (you can zoom in and see details): "Jenna Floral Dress w/ Shrug" "Katherine Flutter Sleeve Dress" (white and ivory aren't "out" for weddings, they're actually quite "in" unless the bride is 80/old-fashioned) and it also comes in a berry color - looks like a muted violet - not what I personall consider lavender (which I think has more blue in it).

You mean like trying to read some of the posts here? I didn't say that...

In undergraduate I took a Shakespeare class. About 3 of my good friends took it with me. Our final exam (how pointless is this) was to be able to re-write, verbatim and with accurate punctuation, several sonnets, soliloquies, etc. Naturally I sat by one of my friends during the test. When we got our finals back, both my friend and I had flunked it. Our actual grades were A (me) and B (him), but there were post-its attached saying, "Since you took the liberty of trying to cheat, I'm taking the liberty to fail you." However, the things I had missed he had gotten right. The things he had missed were things I had gotten right. And he had missed almost twice as many things as I had. We just happened to be sitting together, and the prof apparently assumed we had cheated. I contested it and in the end the professor was over-ruled and we got to keep our good grades. Nothing to do with Laurend's story, it is indeed very transparent when people cheat (when I taught college English, they must have thought I was dumb. If someone wrote something "better" than I thought they could, I'd Google the phrase, and 100% of the time there it was -- copied by the student verbatim into their paper). But it reminded me of this and I felt like sharing. BTW, this professor looked JUST like Colonel Sanders, down to the glasses. During class we would watch plays or movies and he would eat during them. He had some kind of breathing disorder or something, and would constantly make "slurp" "mmmph" "ergghh" etc. noises when he did anything, so him eating in class was one of the most disturbing things that could have happened.

My fried thing is cheese-stuffed jalapeno peppers. "Poppers" or whatever they're called. I really don't care for too many fried foods, especially fried potatoes - chips, fries, etc. Never really did much for me. I'd just get an extra burger instead. Oh and I do like the little fried eggroll type appetizers, like "Firecracker Chicken Wraps" at LongHorn....Mmm. That's my meal when we go.

There are about 3 restaurants here with fried pickles. People here seem to love them or hate them. More common are fried chunks of cheese (hell, this is the midwest... if you fry dirt people will eat it, especially if it comes with gravy). I like fried green beans. And I don't like green beans. That's the only way I will eat them.

No worries Apples2, it really wasn't directed at anyone. Just a general thing I"ve noticed since like 2005. :cursing:

No worries Jack. I'm not saying it didn't happen, in fact I said it did, but under different premises than we colloquially accept. If we ask your average guy on the street what the progression of slavery looked like, they probably couldn't even tell you, or it might be more about families selling their unwated babies for milk money, children selling their elderly parents, people being randomly stolen in the night. Etc. Sure, there may have been some of that going on eventually, once it became such a booming international market, but I don't think it's common understanding that most of this was the result of tribal wars (PoWs, etc.), punishment, etc. And a LOT of people think like 100% of slavery was Africa selling its own people, which I've never seen ANYTHING to validate, even though I've seen a lot to invalidate it. My original point is -- it's not something "this country" can be blamed for. Even the black people here will have roots between Africa and America. Let me know when that happens, I will have DH get us hooked up!

I had Q-Bert on my Atari. I sucked at it. I loved Simon. And we had another one called "Qwiz" or something like that. Some kind of trivia game. Ok, this is a little more modern than Q-Bert, but still a childhood thing. When I have "remember when" conversations with friends no one ever remembers these, but I had tons of them, I *think* they were popular, and you could get some pretty popular names so it couldn't have been that rare of a thing... ok so what is it? Here's my best description: Oversized books that were held together with plastic bindings. The books were illutrated normally, but had no words. Instead, each page had a "record" attached to it, and you had this little handheld record player you would put on the record, push the button, and it would read the page to you. Only the "records" were small - like the size of a coaster at the most, and usually brightly colored to match whatever colors were in the book. And the record player was small too, maybe the size of a large computer mouse but a much more boxey shape... but something you could easily handle as a kid. I remember I had a few Dr. Seuss books like this, some Barbie stories, but I don't remember what all else. I had about 20 or 30 of them, so they must have been around a while. Does ANYONE else remember these, or more specifically what they were called?

Why do so few people say "thank you" when you put a lot of time an effort into helping them, even if the outcome is virtual? Do you think it's just people taking things for granted because they "expect" people to give them information on messageboards, and since you're doing what's expected of you, there's no reason for a basic courtesy "thank you"? Do you think these people are really just like that, and would've done the same thing IRL? (Whatever you guys are posting about, this isn't related, so don't worry about trying to make connections... I'm just wantonly inserting my own gripes)

All we can do is make suggestions, you can take them or not. We can't tell if you were lied to, especially when you have a serious language barrier with the surgeon. Maybe call him, tell him what was found, offer to send him the test results, etc. and see how he responds.

Yeah I had to have the "quit being such a manipulative whanker" talk with my mom a few years ago. I used to get it bad over something as trivial as not wanting to go to a cousin's birthday party. It used to work when I was like 11, but now it's total BS. I hate manipulators, and I hate the parenting approach that making us feel bad about it is a valid way to get what you want. How juvenile is that? (Heh, sorry, kinda went off on a tangent. You can tell I deal with the same thing, including over my own upcoming graduation). I wouldn't go through the extra hassle. What do you get out of it? Tell them you're not changing the date, so they can choose to partiicpate in it as planned, or <insert your own maipulation here> they can choose to disregard the work and effort you put into this degree because of a technicality around the completion of a thesis, which for their info does not effect your graduate candidacy, just your graduate status.

That's fine, and a reference would be great (as I posted, they did sell "each other" -- it was a form of punishment, penince, a way to get rid of PoW, etc.) But I'm still curious about your response to the first of the two posts.

It would be physically impossible for erosion to prevent Fluid from getting into the band. The two simply are connected. I'm not a doctor but I don't have to be to understand basic physics. Imagine that you take a hollow flexible tube, like surgical tubing, and tie it around a hotdog. Maybe the tubing is too tight or moves too much or whatever, and begins to cut into the hotdog. You'd still be able to blow through the tube. Same basic premise here. Your surgeon sounds like a twit. Rather than follow up with him/her, if I were you I would seek someone else - a second opinion at the least. I know that if my surgeon said that to me, I would no longer feel comfortable enough with their level of competence to trust their advice.

Laurend - we're both INTJ so take this with a grain of salt, but I'm not walking in mine. I should graduate summa cum laude and was asked if I would be interested in addressing my graduating class and -- extra no thanks there. I don't want to be up in front of everyone on a stage. My family wants me to walk, and the only reason I even considered it would have been for them. Kind of like my wedding. I'd have been happy with a quick courtroom visit, but they really wanted me to have more (which means THEY wanted more). We do that crap for other people, we don't get anything out of it. SO if other people are going to be turds about it, fudge 'em, you know? If I were in your shoes, I'd say f--- it, pretend like there wasn't even a ceremony, and if anything just send out FYIs when I graduated. If that.

I'm not even sure WHY I haven't told her...maybe because I'm worried that if I do it would almost be like telling her that I think SHE should as well ( we are the same size)? A "good" therapist, which it sounds like she is, would never take it this way. I wouldn't even worry about this. Or I'm worried that she'd try to "talk me out of it"? Has she ever tried to talk you out of anything before? That's not really what a therapist "should" do, so unless it's something she has a history of, again - don't worry about it.

It sounds like the MX surgeon was trying to describe an erosion, which I don't think can be confirmed with xrays or barium. I think it requires either an external viewing (which the MX doctor would have) or internal viewing (e.g. gastric endoscope) to confirm, but I can't say that for sure. If it's erosion, it's not a matter of the body rejecting the band -- this might be part of the language barrier you're having. It might be worth your while to find a nurse with the practice, or even someone private-pay, to function as a translator so you can get a better idea of what the surgeon is describing. I would start with the US doctor and seek validation on whether or not erosion can be concretely ruled out through the tests they ran, or if it requires actual viewing of the esophagus' interior/exterior.

Actually this is something that people tend to hear, and assume is true, but has virtually no literature, societal record, etc. data to back it up. I know in my own study, the very concept of slavery was not reflected in literature and societal records until after the impact of the slave trade began to be felt in African nations. If you aren't familiar with them, you might want to read some topical scholars, e.g. Chancellor Williams (in particular Destruction of Black Civilization: Great Issues of a Race from 4500BC to 2000AD), and even modern scholars such as Oscar Beard. Their research is very thorough. Again ETA - I was a bit vauge. Africa did "sell Africans" -- but not slavery as we know it. It was a form of criminal punishment and of handling prisoners of war. When it hit retail, it was seen almost 100% as collaboration with European slave drivers to avoid war (e.g. German invasion of Namibia, and the Belgian invasion of Congo where death estimates exceed five million).

No way around it, the insurance company will be looking for "for treatment of weightloss"-ish coding, your check-ins, etc. from your medical records. If it's a requirement, it's a requirement, not a preference. Trust me, you don't want to try fraud, the consequences just aren't worth it, plus you'd need someone medical "on your side" and that's not going to happen. If waiting is absolutely not an option for you, then you will need to look into financing or self-pay.