anonemouse

Anyone else here? I have a BMI of 37 and will be going to a seminar on Saturday. I am hoping to get insurance to cover surgery because of my other health conditions (prediabetes, high cholesterol, asthma, PCOS, etc.).

Has anyone taken Byetta? My mom was just put on it, and she thought I might be interested in asking my doctor to put me on it. I'm not diabetic, though, just insulin resistant.

Do you have a medic alert ID?

I just had my first PB ever. Holy f'in crap, that HURT! Thought I was having a heart attack for a little bit. Jesus, between the sliming and the excrucuating pain, by the time it actually came up, it was a relief! I guess I'm going on liquids for the next several days. Pizza's going on the "do not eat" list. NEVER AGAIN. And I only had a single bite, too!

Just wanted to recommend Dr. Virginia McGrath-Weaver to anyone who is considering having their surgery in Memphis. (Or even if you aren't, since I didn't consider it until finding out that my insurance would only pay for two surgeons in the entire state.) She is AWESOME. She's got a great bedside manner, and she's a really good surgeon. Very supportive, also. The nutritionist that works for her, Kat, is tops, too. Everyone that I've talked to at the center was really friendly and very accepting of lap-band patients. They don't seem critical of the band, like a lot of bariatric folks do.

I am sorta-technically approved, but denied officially until I can get my insurance company the results of my drug/alcohol screening and Upper GI test. I had the drug screening on 3/22 and the upper GI last Wednesday (3/28). So far, I haven't been able to get anyone to call me back from my doctor's office, so I haven't been able to get them to send my results to the surgeon's office. I am getting really worried now, because they are scheduling surgery dates for late summer already, because my surgeon is going on maternity leave. When I talked to the office manager a few weeks ago, she said the earliest date available would probably late July. They technically aren't supposed to give me a date until I get officially approved. This is a problem because I have to change insurance policies when I turn 24 on August 2nd. I'm starting to get really tense and worried that I'm going to have to go through all of this again because I can't get a date before I have to change insurance. :omg: I just emailed the office manager to see if we could go ahead and at least tentatively schedule my surgery, since all my insurance needs to approve me are the results of those tests. I am keeping my fingers crossed. I really don't want this to keep going and going and going....

My air conditioning is broken. Caput. GONE. It's 90-fucking-degrees in my apartment right now. And the bad thing? It's 75 degrees outside right now. COOLER than my apartment. I should go sleep on my balcony! :angry

Yep. And it's exactly why we've lost so many of our older, successful members. I'm starting to see it, too, and I don't even consider myself successful yet. I'm less than a year out and I haven't reached goal. I'm still a work in progress, not a success. But still, people that used to be great friends with you because you were on this journey together, thought just like them, seemed to be on the same page, etcetera, are suddenly hostile to you. And absolutely nothing's changed, other than you weigh less than you used to. You still talk like you used to and still have the same ideas. But now, apparently, you're just another thin person in a long line of thin people, telling an overweight person what to do to lose weight, instead of another overweight person giving good, helpful advice. After a certain point (Dare I say, after someone reaches what would be considered a "normal weight" by society?), people here don't see the success that other people have had, they see "thin person giving weight-loss advice," and there are many of them that don't like it and see it as being snotty and sneering. So people give up on giving it, and eventually they leave when they've gotten a snout-full of people attacking them and sneering at them and putting words in their mouths. And I can completely understand why, at this point. It gets old very, very quickly.

Excuse me? Please stop putting words in my mouth, BJean. I know you're upset, but can the passive-aggressive shit, okay? I am quite willing to have a civil conversation or debate on the issue, but I don't like people putting words in my mouth or accusing me of saying things or thinking things that I haven't/don't. You know that, and I know you hate it when people do it to you in the other debates in this forum (the abortion debate, for one), so stop doing it to other people. It'll make things a hell of a lot smoother. I remember saying quite clearly that I wasn't trying to say, "don't let the door hit your ass on the way out." My point is that I don't see why we should continuously beg someone to stay here when they either don't want to be here or aren't getting anything out of being here. There is only so much we can do to help someone. If they aren't willing to take the help, they aren't willing, and there isn't anything we can do until they are. We can beg and plead for them to stay, because we KNOW they could learn things here and get the help they need here, but until THEY come to that realization, we can't help them and they aren't getting anything out of being here. So if they aren't happy here and aren't getting what they need here, maybe they should be looking for a place that DOES meet their needs and not trying to force themselves to fit here or forcing the board to change for them. And maybe we should be happy with that, and not freaking out because someone's threatening to leave or because they aren't happy with the board. I think you know and everyone else knows that Jachut is extremely supportive. If you've EVER read her posts in the past (I have and I CLEARLY remember this in just about every post I've ever read of hers on the topic of exercise and food), she always says that being banded is NOT about killing yourself with exercise or starving yourself. She does, however, say that you have to be using more calories than you're taking in, whether you use them through light exercise or heavy exercise, through water aerobics, chair exercises, running, walking, whatever. You do what you CAN, but you have to do SOMETHING. She also is a huge proponent of eating a balanced, realistic diet, not starving yourself or continuously dieting or eating micro-portions. That's something that's always been perfectly clear in her posts. Always.

But Jachut didn't either. The inspiration for this thread was a thread located right here in RnR, not one that started in another forum and got moved here. It was one that started in this forum. And I'd be willing to argue that the vast majority of the time, she wouldn't go and tell someone to get off their asses and exercise, in so many words, if they were making a post in one of the support forums. When someone posts in Rants and Raves, they are asking for people to be brutally honest in their responses, and they generally get what they ask for.

We do, on the support boards. But this is Rants and Raves, not the support section.

I'm down a half size, to an 8. I still have rather wide feet, but I can generally fit into a regular-width shoe, depending on the style. I love wedge-heeled sandals now, lol. Before, I used to stick with flip-flops in the summers.

And then you've also got the people that have been given the full picture, but just haven't listened, or the folks that utterly fail to do their research, etc. The ones that later cry, "But my surgeon didn't tell meeee!" I honestly just want to tell them, "Well, that's what the internet is for!" Or, to the first group I mentioned, "Really? Are you sure? Or did you just have 'I'm gonna lose weight!' blinders on?"

Bear with me, guys, as I'm thinking as I type and trying to word things in the least-offensive manner possible. Here goes: Is it really our responsibility to try and keep someone here if they aren't getting something out of being here? If someone doesn't seem to be getting the type of help they are wanting here, why do we seem to want to do everything in our power to keep them from leaving? To put it simply, this isn't the only band board out there and it can't fulfill every single person's needs. Yes, it would mean losing a member, but if they are obviously not receiving what they need from the board or its members (whatever that need is), would that person leaving really be a loss to either them or us? For example, there have been a lot of threads here in RnR lately, talking about the people that are constantly complaining about their bands, cheating on their diets, etc. Would the loss of those members (the members that seem to be bragging about screwing up or the ones that seem to be constantly focused on their own failure, not the ones that made the posts complaining about them) really harm the board so much? Or would it, in reality, help the board in the long run? If they aren't getting what they need from the board, why try to keep them here, alienating other members in the process? I guess what I'm trying to say is that we can't help everyone, especially if they aren't ready to take help when it's offered. And eventually, it gets to a point where it drags everyone else down to try. So if they feel like they need to leave, why should we over-extend ourselves to try and keep them here? I'm not trying to say that we should just tell them, "don't let the door hit your ass on the way out," but hopefully you guys get what I am trying to say. I would personally rather that they find a board that CAN help them, rather than them staying somewhere that obviously isn't giving them what they need to succeed.

Yeah, the mango peach salsa smells good in the jar, but I personally don't like it when it's burning. It's one of the few candles I've thrown out before it totally burned down (I got a votive to try it).

I was working my part time job today and had my very first experience with customers blatantly attempting to steal. I mean, I've found the empty containers that they've left behind after pocketing stuff (Henkel knives and even air freshener, for Pete's sake), but I've never seen someone just out-right LIE to the staff and try to steal. This lady came in with her two daughters about half an hour or so before we closed. Didn't think much of it, just thought it was a little odd that they were just sitting in our little furniture section and not browsing or anything, but I was busy and didn't have time to pay closer attention. The most significant thing about them was that the kids were some of the most destructive brats we've had in. Well, about 5 minutes before we closed, I noticed that she had one of my coworkers running ragged, trying to get stuff for her. A dining table from the back room, stools, felt pads, etc. They get up to the register, and my manager comes up to me. Apparently, the lady was trying to return a $300 Calphalon knife block set and get credit for it to buy the stuff she'd picked out, and he wanted to make sure that she hadn't just picked them up (usually, people try to return something as soon as they come in, or at least tell us that they will be returning something). I honestly hadn't noticed, I was too busy doing other stuff and hadn't paid much attention to her. So, we go look at the knives. What do we see? A nice hole in the knife block display. The chick hadn't even bothered to move the boxes around to make it look like the shelf was full. To make matters worse, once she was found out, the lady then tried to pay with an expired credit card, then tried to get a store card (declined, not surprising). Then, of course, she said she didn't have her checkbook on her and left, leaving the dining table, stools, knife set, etc. at the register for me to put back for her. I'm pretty sure she got away with at least one Yankee candle, though. Before I knew what she was doing, I'd filled several holes in our candle display, one of which was a candle that she'd failed to buy (and I don't think the ladies right behind her in line had candles).

Get thee to a Linens N Things, then! The Mango Peach Salsa is one of the scents on sale this month. 25% off!

I definitely agree with this. But I also think people need to realize that the "help" may not come in the form that they would prefer or that they want to hear, but that it doesn't mean that it's any less accurate. (Not speaking of professional help, of course, but rather the "help" they are seeking from their fellow members on this board.) Even though I'm an Atheist, I really like the story of the guy stuck on his roof in a flood. I'm not sure I'll get this all correct, since it's been a while since I've heard it, so bear with me. I'm sure most of you have heard it, anyway. He prays for help, and a helicopter comes. He turns it down, saying, "God will help me." He prays some more. A boat comes, and he turns it down again. Etcetera, etcetera, so on and so forth. When he eventually drowns and gets to the Pearly Gates, he asks God why he didn't help him when he prayed for help. God says, "I did send help, you just didn't take it." When someone wants help and wonders what they're doing wrong, etc., and then shoots down every attempt to help or bit of advice given, people get frustrated. And eventually, they run out of help to give. When people aren't going to listen, there's no point in even reading their posts anymore, because all it is is more of the same. And it burns to hear people say that we aren't trying to help. We ARE, we just aren't saying what they want to hear.

Ditto what MacMadame said! And your avatar is precious, too!

Had another couple of ladies today that shoplifted. Or at least, I'm 99% sure they did. I saw them put some large Yankee candles in their shopping cart (they were acting a little skeevy, once I thought about it - shielding the cart, etc.), and then they left the store a few minutes later without buying anything. I know they didn't put the candles back on the shelf, and I'm reasonably sure that they didn't just drop them off in another section of the store (they didn't leave the housewares section and I was all over that part of the store afterwards). So, yeah. We're going to start putting sensors on the candles now. These two were a little better at it than the other lady was. They actually moved the candles on the shelf to make it look like nothing had been taken off of it.

With all due respect, BJean, I think you were transferring a bit of yourself on to the person in question, and that made you not see what just about everyone else saw in her posts. The fact is, from what she herself posted, there aren't a lot of similarities between her situation and yours. Just about the only similarity that I can think of off the top of my head is that you are both apparently having trouble losing weight. But that's where it ends, according to what you and she have posted. You do the work and are still having trouble. She doesn't do the work, doesn't want to do the work (which, honestly, no one does, and that part's just fine), and then blames the band (that's the part that gets people upset). And "popular and nice"? I'd rather not be "popular and nice" if it means that I have to lie to someone to get that way. It's not honest or at all supportive to sit and tell someone, "Go ahead and blame the band for what you are failing to do. That's perfectly acceptable." And it should piss you and the other people that are in similar situations as you (that are having trouble losing weight, but are still putting in the effort) off more than anyone else. Support doesn't mean constant agreement with people. It means showing people where they're going wrong and trying to help them change it. They can take it or leave it, that's up to them. And that's especially true on a message board. I, for one, am not going to apologize, because I know I did nothing wrong and nothing to apologize FOR. I am sick and tired of people not taking responsibility for their own actions and reactions. If she leaves, WE didn't make her leave, she made the decision to leave on her own. We didn't make her post what she did, we didn't make her keep reading it, we didn't make her return to the thread again and again, we didn't make her keep the thread open, we didn't.... On and on and on. People make the choice of what power to give other people's words. She has to own her own reactions because no one else can do it for her. And yes, she's a perfectly nice person, one that I honestly like. But no matter how nice the person, I'm not going to stop pointing out where I see someone deluding his/herself and actually CAUSING more problems. In fact, I'm MORE likely to do it with people that I DO like, because it hurts me to see them hurting themselves. Are we supposed to only be honest with people we don't like? If you read back through that thread, you'd see that the vast majority was actually rather polite and constructive, and only changed a bit when suggestions and advice were met with outright excuses. But your reaction is like, "How dare you actually suggest diet and exercise to someone who isn't dieting and exercising! My god, that's brutal!"

I know I'll probably get slapped for this, but here goes nothing, lol! You know how we fat people are always complaining that skinny people think that all fat people are lazy, gluttonous slobs? I've honestly started to think that maybe they have a point, to a certain extent. Maybe part of the reason why it's so offensive to many fat people is that it hits a nerve, that deep down inside, the fat people think it's true, too. I mean, back when I was morbidly obese, I was super offended every time I heard a thin person talk about how fat people sit on their asses every day and stuff their faces with McD's, that the reason they can't lose weight is that they're lazy, full of excuses, etc. But now I realize that while that may not have been true of ALL fat folks, it was true of me, and I honestly think that's the reason I was so angry whenever I heard it. Deep down, I knew I matched that description, but I was too deep in denial to realize it.

I dunno. I personally feel that the people that particular post is lampooning aren't the folks that are posting for help. They're the ones that are posting to brag that they can eat so much so soon, the ones that are looking for affirmation that what they are doing isn't bad for them. You can tell the difference between the tone of the posts made by the people that are truly scared that they're continuing bad habits or are honestly worried and the posts by the folks that don't seem to give a damn that they're endangering their bands and really seem to almost take pride in what they're doing. You know, the ones that ignore the 99.9% of replies that tell them that what they're doing or planning on doing isn't a good idea, for the one or two posts that say, "Go ahead, I did it, too. You'll be fine!" Those people aren't crying out for help in any way whatsoever.

I hate to get on the "jump on BJean" wagon, because you know I love you, BJean. You're one of my best friends here, and we normally agree on just about everything. But in this case, the other folks have a point. There's a difference between people saying, "Knock off the self pity and the excuses" and someone basically saying, "Are you SURE you were a happy person pre-band? You know, 'cause fat people are all emotional wrecks."

One of them tore all the legs off of a stuffed mouse (real mouse) that we were using as an example in one of our labs. I don't know which one did it, so I'm thinking of giving them all a nice lecture tomorrow in class. There are several reasons that I'm pissed right now. One, that was a formerly-living organism that deserves a lot more respect than that. Hopefully, when whomever tore the legs off of it kicks the bucket themselves, someone will respect them enough not to rip their arms and legs off. Second, they destroyed university property. Someone either had to pay for that mouse or had to put in the effort, time, and expense of trapping it and having it stuffed. Third, it was extremely childish, on the same level (to me, anyway) of a 10 year old tearing the wings off of flies just because he can. These are college students, you'd think they would act with a bit more maturity.