anonemouse

I've looked into having the procedure done before (not to the extent of asking my doctor, but did online research), and a lot of the sites that I found had a statement somewhat to the effect of, "Young, childless women may have difficulty finding a willing surgeon." It sucks, because it basically means that we are royally screwed. Either we run the risk of possibly having to have an abortion or we never, ever have sex.

Yeah, Alexandra is right. That practice is not in any way illegal. The US government will take money from whomever is willing (or not, in many cases) to give it to them.

The website seems to be loading at a snail's pace, which is odd since I have cable internet. It's not constant, though, just occasional. But when it does slow down, it's SLOW.

Why? This one seems to work quite well. It is possible to have more than one conversation in a thread.

Because all surgeons have to start somewhere. To me, it is like a doctor learning a a teaching hospital. When they leave that hospital, they may be rudimentally qualified to perform any number of surgeries, but that doesn't mean that they are the surgeon you would want operating on you. Or you can think of it along the terms of a nurse. When a nurse passes her qualifying exam, she's a nurse. She's as much a nurse as someone who's been a nurse for 20 years. But there is a massive difference in the amount of experience. Would you really, truly want a brand new nurse treating you, one that hasn't necessarily learned all the little tricks, rather than a nurse that's been in the business for 20 years?

Barely qualified is, to me, anything less than 100 surgeries. Even Inamed doesn't consider surgeons that have performed under that number to be "experts." According to Inamed, surgeons only have to perform 3 band surgeries before they are certified.

But they are both surgeries. With ANY surgery, you have to balance several factors. Cost, surgeon's experience, convenience, etc. For many people, the experience of the surgeon wins out. Not everyone lives close to a world-class hospital. Many people probably figure that if they are having to travel to get to an experienced surgeon anyway, they might as well travel to Mexico and use the most experienced surgeons in North America. Yes, cost is a factor. The fact is, some people either can't get approved by their insurance company, or their insurance company will only partially cover the surgery (as in my case), or they have an exclusion. And, some people just don't want to take the time to fight for approval. Some people decide that they are willing to pay for the most experienced surgeon available. You'll find, though, that many people took out loans, borrowed money from relatives, or saved for years to go to Mexico. When someone is messing around with your internal organs, you don't want it to be someone that, based on the band manufacturer's policies, is barely qualified to do the surgery. Believe me, I am very laid back, but not when it comes to my health. I don't want to put my life in the hands of a surgeon that has a high complication rate and I don't want to put it in the hands of one that isn't that experienced. To me, it would be like asking an eye surgeon to perform a heart surgery on me.

Firefox rocks! Seriously, I love it. It seems to load a lot faster than IE, also.

The procedure may be becoming quite common, but that doesn't mean that all surgeons are equally experienced with it. Seriously, if you were having heart surgery, would you rather have a surgeon that's done 15 of the procedures, or one that's done 1500?

So, since there seems to be a consensus that the gathering will probably be held in Vegas, when will it be?

There are a lot of people on this site that have lost their weight very quickly. Check out Ousooner, for example. He lost a LOT of weight and reached his goal weight within 9 months. And the majority of people that I've seen that HAVE been able to do that did it without complications. Don't forget, the "average bandster weightloss" includes folks that don't lose diddly.

To be honest, if I could have had my absolute pick of doctors and still have insurance pay for it, I'd go to Mexico, too. Put quite simply, the most experienced band surgeons in North America are in Mexico. Right now, if I didn't know it would cause a fuss within my family, I'd be paying for a band that I'd get in Mexico. Hell, even though insurance is going to pay some of my costs, I'm still going to be paying thousands of dollars. To me, it makes a heck of a lot more sense for me to pay thousands of dollars and have surgery performed by a surgeon that's done several thousand bands than to pay thousands of dollars and have surgery performed by a surgeon that's done a couple of hundred bands at most. But, my family would freak, so the surgeon with a few hundred at most wins.

To me, it's a little bit different taste than fresh fruit. But it isn't like raisins, either. You know, the kind of gritty texture that raisins get? None of the ones I tried had a texture like that. (Well, other than the pears, and that was just because pears are naturally gritty.) The apples have a really neat texture to me, sort of foamy, if that makes any sense. Anyway, I liked them. The Angelino plums and the peaches are REALLY good. The cantaloupe is pretty good, too, once you get past the initial texture (to me, it had the texture of gummy fruit slices, sort of crunchy at the beginning and then soft). Everything is much sweeter than when they are fresh, though. I am satisfied with just eating a piece or two of it at a time.

But, they can't "just drop it off like dry cleaning and not have to deal with it any longer." In those states, that's called abandonment and it's illegal. You may be able to legally give a child up in those states, but I'll bet it's not as easy as it sounds. Otherwise, those other states wouldn't have needed safe havens.

That's true, but ultimately has no bearing. We are not discussing the killing of the already born, we are discussing the killing of the unborn. Two totally different topics. And you can feel free to believe that. Other people have the right to believe otherwise. Yes, you do. And I have the right to band together with those that feel that the only people who should decide a woman's health care are herself and her doctor. Not necessarily. There is a vast ideological and scientific difference between an abortion that results in the death of a viable fetus and an abortion that results in the death of a non-viable fetus. One may be outlawed, but the other will never be, at least not while there is disagreement about when life begins. And no matter how hard you wish it were otherwise, abortion IS facing the responsibility of being pregnant. It may not be the decision that YOU wish people would make, but they ARE taking responsibility. Should people that don't want children just never experience the closeness of sex with someone they care about? I know that you'll say that those women should make sure that they're sterilized, but as I think Green would be happy to explain to you, it isn't that easy.

Not in all states. Women in Alaska, Hawaii, Massachusetts, and Nebraska are just shit out of luck.

Exactly. Adoption costs so much today that the vast majority of people just aren't willing to spend the money to adopt a severely deformed or mentally handicapped or ill child, which would eventually cost them an incredible amount of money in extra expenses. As sad as it is, people aren't that altruistic.

And if the child is horribly deformed or severely retarded or facing other massive problems, the probability that he or she will be adopted is extremely remote. People don't want the healthy kids that are currently available in foster care because they are the wrong race or are too old. Do you honestly think that the vast majority of kids facing massive deformation or defect would have a snowball's chance in hell of being adopted? Please. They'd live out their lives in foster care (if they were lucky), group homes (again, if they're lucky), or institutions.

I think it is taro. If it isn't , I have no idea. I think the yellowish chips are the squash.

I want to throw my telephone and answering machine in the toilet! I keep getting telemarketing calls from Bell South. I never answer them anymore, but when they go to my answering machine, they leave this really high-pitched beeping/buzzing sound that last for several minutes. It's driving me crazy! They call every single day! And I'm on a no-call list, but since I use Bell South for phone service, they can still call me. :youcandothis:

My brother needs to make up his damned mind. He asked his girlfriend of less than 5 months to marry him when they found out she was pregnant. She had a miscarriage last week. They had originally decided to get married in late June or early July. Even though there isn't any rush anymore, they decided to still get married around that time. After going back and forth several times, they decided to set a date for June 29th. I am hoping this is the final date. They aren't 100% sure of the location, though. They are probably going to be having a civil ceremony in Nashville, although my brother tried to talk my mom into everyone flying to Hawaii and doing it there. Yeah, right. Maybe he has a couple thousand dollars to spend for a few days, but the rest of us don't. I am just getting really irritated with the whole thing. If they were smart, they would put off getting married for a few months and plan the damned thing properly, instead of trying to rush it and stressing everyone else out.

Go to your control panel, click on edit options, then go to the email notification option.

Thanks, that's what I'll do!

I also agree that it should be cut and dry. If the fetus is not viable, it shouldn't be considered murder. Period. And until the technology is available to pass a fetus from one womb to another, I don't think one person's standards of morality should be used as a legal requirement of what other people should do.

Well, to be honest, it wouldn't be a huge loss. My brother and I have never been close, mostly because he was abusive to me when we were children. Our relationship is better than it used to be (actually, I can't think of any way it could be worse than what it used to be), but it still can't be called anywhere near "close." It's one of those situations where you love someone because they are family, but you don't remotely like them.