bitteroldhag

I just started reading your thread tonight but I relate to a lot of it. However, you shouldn't think you are unloved. There are a whole lot of people who seem to love you quite a bit because they respond to your posts with much love. I care about you and I'll probably never meet you. You've had a really, really tough life so I hope you get better soon and realize that a whole lot of people do care about you. You are honest and kind and are starting to toughen up and tell people where to go. I like that. I took me until my 30s to do that but now I tell the doctors where to go. I lay down the law to them and there is nothing they can do about it. I think we just have to stand up for ourselves on occasion and tell unhelpful people to go to hell and take their buddies with them.

Gastric pain can be confused with a heart attack, but as a person who has had a bypass, I recommend you check this out. The key thing with this sort of pain is sweating. If you broke out in a sweat, definitely have your heart checked. I had my gallbladder out in 1991 due to pain which didn't go away. In 1993, I had a double bypass (I was 45 years old). Actually I still have the pain but it is irritable bowel syndrome which the docs were too stupid to figure out in 1991. But don't take chances with your heart. They can fix many problems now without a bypass. If you had pain radiating down your arm and in your jaw, that sounds like angina at the least. Check it out.

I'm just wondering what you all think the Democrats will do when they become the Congressional majority in January? Do you think they'll act as badly as the Republicans did about Bill Clinton? Personally, I can't equate getting a little nooky with starting a losing war. Do you think they'll impeach Bush? Do you think they'll just sit on their hands? Or will they just go on with business as usual? How moderate are all those Democrats?

Carlene -- Thanks for the info about human drano. I got some pizza stuck tonight and tried pineapple juice. It worked like a charm. I think I may lose a little more weight now. Currently, my body is eating itself since I can't eat much. The human drano should fix that. Thanks so much.

I cooked a big turkey dinner and ate about two bites and had a PB. It was sort of disgusting for the guests, but after that I could eat a little. It took me most of an hour, but I ate about 3 oz of turkey, dressing, some 5 cup salad and a French artichoke bottom stuffed with mushrooms. I even ate a thin slice of pumpkin pie. I was proud of myself since I PB a lot. I'm thinking of having an unfill because of all the PBing. But I love to cook and I made a very good Thanksgiving dinner. Tomorrow I'm making prime rib. I made that a couple of weeks ago and ate quite a lot of protein. So I'm going to try it again. It would be nice if the cook could eat a big more, but what the hell, I like the cooking, not the eating.

Considering this is a lapband website and this is the first Thanksgiving I've been banded, I was wondering what you all eat for Thanksgiving. We have a traditional dinner which included turkey, cornbread dressing (I'm really good at make dressing but we never stuff it in the turkey), 5 cup salad, cranberry jelly, peas, fresh vegetables (very expensive), gravy and a couple of pies. We always have pecan pie, but this year I'm going to add Sweet Potato Pie. I've never had it but people say it is good. I love, love, love Thanksgiving. I love to cook all that stuff. This year I'm introducing artichoke bottoms with mushroom stuffing that is laced with real Gruyere from Switzerland. The recipe is in my French cookbook and it's good. The Gruyere costs about $10 a slice, but it's worth it. It is really good cheese and I'm a cheese lover. I asked my students and a lot of them have pizza. I guess Mom or Dad doesn't like to cook. But I'm really stoked and can hardly wait to start cooking. The only problem is that I won't be able to eat much of my own cooking. I emailed my doc in Mexico and told him I was thinking of have an unfill to 4cc and he said to have an unfill to 3.5 cc for the holidays. I really like that man. What has your experience been with big holiday dinners? One thing I know for sure is that I will not have champagne for New Year's Eve. I just can't take the carbonation. Maybe a nice still wine this year. Let me know.:kiss2:

I got through the whole thing. We only have 3 people and I made a 16 pound turkey so my friend Mary took most of it home with her. I used to eat a whole lot of turkey, but I started eating, got something stuck and had to throw up some water I had drunk to try to get it down. That was disgusting, but they said they couldn't hear me throwing up. After that it was all smooth sailing. I ate turkey, cranberry jelly, some dressing and an artichoke bottom with mushroom filling. The artichoke bottom was a little stringy so I mostly ate the filling. Also I ate a small slice of pumpkin pie with whipped cream. I didn't make the sweet potato pie because Mother wanted pumpkin. I'll make one some other time though we'll have to give away half of it. I'm a little hungry now (aout 8 hours after dinner) so I think I'll nuke some dressing or something. My friend said it was the best dressing I've made yet. She says that every year. Mother said it was the best dinner I've made yet, but she says that every year too. Still it stirs this old cook's heart when people compliment the dinner. I worked like a stevadore. The dogs did very well with the drumsticks, wings and the leftover carcass. They are happy. So everyone is happy including me. I'll be less happy tomorrow when I have to have the MRI about my previous stroke which I didn't even know I had. I hope they can work something out to keep me from stroking out so I can make Thanksgiving dinner next year. I highly recommend Assam tea. It makes superior iced tea. I got some in England two years ago and guard it with my life, but I ordered some on the internet so I can make more tea this year. We can't buy it here. It is the best tea I've ever had. Expensive, but good. It beats Earl Grey hands down. Hope you all had a happy Thanksgiving and don't work yourself to death for Christmas. I'll have prime rib and turkey again for Christmas. I just love this time of year because I get to cook really good stuff. Now I get to decorate the house for Christmas which is my second favorite thing to do. Happy days!

I don't think oatmeal cookies come with added laxative, but I have to say they work. Plus they taste a lot better than Metamucil or laxatives.

I have had IBS since I was in my 20s, lo, these many years ago. I was having constipation with the band because I can't eat a lot of salad with my IBS. I have found the solution though it's not necessarily low cal. I eat an oatmeal raisin cookie everyday and my bowel has straightened out beautifully. I hate oatmeal in a bowl and douse it with sugar and butter to make it palatable. The oatmeal cookie has calories, but fewer than I slather on a bowl of oatmeal and it works. Just thought I might mention this for other who have IBS. It is literally a pain in the a** as well as the stomach and the intestines. I simply cannot eat a regular salad, so I stick with cooked veggies, but even those weren't helping the constipation. The oatmeal cookie did the trick.

I have 4.5 cc in my 10 cc band and I have a lot of trouble with esophageal spasms. But I'm also not losing any weight. Of course, I don't exercise and eat just about what I want, but my intake of food has been radically reduced. I have lost 36 pounds so far, but need to lose about 25 more. I will start exercising due to the problem of a mini-stroke, but I have a lot of trouble getting protein down until the evening when I can eat a whole lot. I don't quite know what to do about having a fill. I was thinking of having an unfill to 4 cc, but I don't think that would help. Should I try for a 5 cc fill? I just don't know what to do. Thanks.

I'll give you the recipe from my French cookbook. These are really pretty easy to make: Fronds d'Artichauts aux Duxelles 8 ounces button mushrooms (regular store mushrooms) 1 TBS butter 2 shallots, finely chopped (you can probably use about half a big onion though I really like shallots though they are expensive) 2 ounces cream cheese 2 TBS chopped walnuts ( I chop these in my food processor) 3 TBS grated Swiss cheese (I use Gruyere if I can afford it; otherwise regular swiss cheese. I have a litle grater for parmesan that you turn a crank and it grates it. I love this grater.) Canned artichoke bottoms (you can get these at the store near the artichoke hearts. You have to look really closely though and they're expensive. But the first time I did these, I just used artichoke hearts and it worked.) Salt and pepper Wipe or rinse mushrooms and pat dry. Put in food processor with metal blade until finely chopped. Melt butter in non-stick pan and cook shallots over medium heat for 2-3 minutes until just softened. Add the mushrooms; raise the heat slightly and cook for 5-7 minutes until they have rendered and reabsorbed their liquid and are almost dry. (They turn really dark). Season with salt and pepper and preheat oven to 400 degrees. Lightly grease a shallow baking pan. In a small bowl combine the soft cheese and mushrooms. Add the walnuts and half the grated cheese. Divide the mushroom mixture among the artichoke bottoms and arrange them in the baking pan. sprinkle over the remaining cheese and bake for 12-15 minutes or untill bubbly and browned. Serve hot. This recipe is from Clements, Carole and Elizabeth Wolf-Cohen, French: Delicious Classic Cuisine Made Easy, London: Hermes House, 2004. This is a great French cookbook though you have to buy it from remainder bookstores. However, you can find it on the web. If you get it, I highly recommend French scalloped potatoes. They are the best ever. I wouldn't sell this book for a whole lot of money.:clap2:

I have been having a whole lot of trouble with PBs lately. I drink with meals to get the food to leave my esophagus and go into the pouch. It doesn't work a lot of times, but sometimes it does. I don't drink unless the food is stuck. I have very little to no esophageal motility due to medications and have had esophageal ulcers in the past. I would probably lose weight more quickly if I didn't have to drink during meals, but one has to work with what one has. I can't go off my heart drugs so I'm stuck with drinking. Oh, the joy of being a young person who hasn't had a heart bypass. Still I've lost 35 pounds and I'm glad of that.

Likie many southerners, I was a Dr. Pepper junkie. So I decided to finish up the Dr. Pepper we had in the house about two weeks after I was banded. It was in June, the first week of school. I drank a glass of Dr. Pepper and had no problem. So I drank several more glasses over a couple of days. That resulted in the worst attack of gas I have ever experienced. It was hell trying to teach a 1 hour and fifteen minute class everyday while trying not to fart. It was like the 2nd or 3rd day after banding when I grossed out a whole airplane. Luckily there was another banding patient on the plane so I blamed her. After the Dr. Pepper, gas pains were also a big part of my day. After that, I haven't touched a carbonated drink. I don't intend to touch one. I never want to have gas like that again. I drink ice Water with a little fruit juice in it. Sometimes I just have apple juice at school since it's easier to carry around. But apple juice actually has more carbohydrate than Dr. Pepper. So I have compromised and drink water flavored with strawberry/banana Juicy Juice. It seems to work pretty well and I like it. Alas, I used to like beer. No more. It has gas in it. I check the labels for gas in drinks. I never, never want to have gas like that again though my former students tell me they didn't notice the fact that I was doubled over with gas pains during the first week of summer school. They think the whole thing is hilarious, but I didn't think so at the time. It gets funnier the more distant it gets, but I still avoid any gassy drinks like the plague.:eek:

Carlene - I didn't know about human Drano. I will try that the next time something gets stuck. Hang in there. I had some sort of awful sinus type infection for three weeks this fall. I was off work for a whole week which plays havoc with one's syllabus. But I recovered and you will too. All my sympathies.

You poor thing. Kidney stones are apparently one of the most painful things a person can have. My mother was an OR nurse and she said she always loved doing kidney stone operations because, even thought the person was under anesthesia, she said you could see them relax when the stone was removed. I hope you can get all those stones removed and remember to drink, drink, drink. Apparently lots of water keeps them from forming. I had gallstones and that nearly killed me. I sat in the emergency room for 4 hours waiting for them to give me a painkiller. After that, I had my gallbladder out. I hope you feel better soon.

Carlene--That is hilarious. I am hoping that the Dems exhibit some reason in their dealings with GWB. He and his cronies haven't shown much reason. I do hope the Dems don't go overboard with grinding old axes, but I do hope they hold hearings about Iraq so the public can get the idea that they were taken for a ride by the Republicans. The main thing I hope is that the Dems will get rid of the fearmongering the Repubs have been getting fat on for years. I think the American public has had it up to here with constant threats. By the way, isn't it amazing that gas is going up after the election. I head some guy say that GWB couldn't control the cost of gas. I thought that his friends can and do. I hope they don't make all Americans pay for the Democrats taking Congress. That might be a good thing for the Democrats to investigate. I think I'm going to have to change my moniker from bitteroldhag to cynicaloldhag. What do you think?

I really enjoyed reading this thread. It's interesting what people consider "traditional" food. We have never had mashed potatoes for Thanksgiving. We have had sweet potato casserole, but that's not my favorite thing. My friend comes over here for Thanksgiving and she used to bring fruit salad that looked like it had been through a threshing machine. She'd put a whole bunch of whipped cream on it and chow down. My fruit salad has chunks of fruit mixed with pineapple juice. If I take it to a carry-in, it goes fast. Does anyone eat rice? Rice is on my list of no-nos, but I have a rice casserole that is a killer. I take it to carry-ins and it doesn't last 5 minutes. Cornbread dressing is not like regular white bread dressing though we mix some biscuits in with it. It's looser and easier to eat. I have to admit that I don't think I'm going to be losing any weight this week, especially if that sweet potato pie turns out to be good. We always have Leseur peas because my mother likes peas with dressing. I like cranberry jelly with dressing. I used to avoid cranberry jelly like the plague until I went to a Methodist Thanksgiving dinner and they put the cranberry jelly right on top of the dressing. It was delicious. I'm also having artichoke bottoms stuffed with mushrooms and gruyere cheese. This is from my French cookbook and the mushrooms are mixed with cream cheese, gruyere, and walnuts. Then you pile that on artichoke bottoms and bake it awhile. It's really good. I'm a sucker for French food except escargots. I had a snail once when I was fairly inebriated and it tasted like a rubber band soaked in garlic. So I haven't felt the call for escargots again. I plan to eat as much of the stuff I like as possible which won't be much, and I may throw it up but it tastes pretty good the second time. I will cut VERY small bites and mix the foods so that they will go down. Luckily, I can give away a whole bunch of food to my friends so we shouldn't be drowning in leftovers for too long. BTW, I had prime rib tonight since Mother came home from the nursing home. I ate a whole bunch of it which is amazing. I got a lot of Protein. We have a grocery store that has a "primal meat" sale twice a year and I buy a whole prime rib and have them cut it into smaller roasts. It cost me about $120 for the whole prime rib, but we'll have it for Christmas Eve dinner and throughout the winter so I think it's worth it. The primal meat sale is a big deal around here. Everyone goes to it for meat. Thank God for Reasors grocery stores.:clap2:

I love Baklava but can only eat a tiny portion because it's so rich. I'd like to have the recipes for all that Greek food. I love Greek food though I'm not big on lamb. My friend makes Greek bean Soup which is a major favorite around here. Yes, I agree. We should all attend your family dinner.

I doubt if I eat 5 cups of salad. Our 5 cup salad is made with sour cream, coconut, little marshmallows, mandarin oranges, pineapple and pecans. You're supposed to put in a cup of each, but I just mix a bunch of it together. It's my favorite sweet salad. The coconut and fruit sweeten it up and you don't need to add sugar.

From what I've read, there was a breakdown in ethics in the Challenger disaster. Engineers were telling them that the O rings were bad but they ignored them. NASA knew what the engineers were saying, but I guess they just wanted to get the shuttle into space bad enough that they decided to take a chance. This sort of corporate and governmental sloppiness has been endemic for decades and it's time it was stopped. We not only lost the crew but a couple of billion dollars of equipment. I don't appreciate paying big bucks for NASA to screw it up. By the way, when I had the equipment rental store some years ago, we got a computer program for rental stores designed by NASA. It was horrible. It was antiquated at that time, but no one had come up with a simple spreadsheet for rental stores then. They charged us a fortune, made us go to Dallas to learn how to use the program, and then charged us for tech support for a program that was incredibly crappy. I don't think I'd want to fly in one of their shuttles.

Thanks a bunch. I will get some of this stuff because the students are always coming up to me, sneezing, and telling me they are sick. I was sick for 3 whole weeks with some sort of crud this fall and I will get sick again in the spring. Actually I think mine is allergies that turn into the mother of all sinus and bronchial infections, but I was really sick, and missed a whole week of school. I always get this itching in my mouth and then, bam, I'm down for a week. I will try some of this stuff this spring to try to avoid the bi-annual sick week. I hope everyone improves soon.

I suspect the smoking Nazis are on this website. I smoke a couple of packs a day and don't intend to quit. I like smoking. I don't care if I annoy people. They annoy me. I may quit when I get some sort of horrible disease, but I will continue to smoke at the moment just to irritate the smoking Nazis. Isn't it grand to be superior to others?

I note that single people are not buying those big houses around here. It takes two wage earners to make that much money. I live in a former government house which I have fixed up some. It's fine for me, but we have really poor people here with 7 people living in an 1100 sf house. Being a pinko commie pig, I oppose a flat tax. I think them that's got should give to them that haven't got. Isn't that what Christ proposed? That's why I oppose the flat tax idea. Ten percent of $10,000 is $1,000 while 10% of $100,000 is $10,000. One family has $9,000 left while the other has $90,000 left. I think the folks making 10 grand are going to miss that $1,000 a lot more than the people making a hundred grand are going to miss ten grand. I was very poor as a graduate student and I remember it. My students are poor. I don't want to make their lives worse for a couple of thousand bucks that I can now afford though I don't make anywhere near $100,000. I think that people who profess to be Christians, yet want to keep every dime they make, should study what Christ had to say. My God, I forgot to wrap the prime rib in foil! I've got to do that now.

Sunshine -- I too live in Oklahoma and my mother makes about $2200 a month with her pension and social security funds. Does that make her uanble to get any state aid? That would be a disaster.