Tired_Old_Man

Close. The answer board changes every round. That's why you can get a different symbol each time. So each time you play, when you pick a number xy for example and then subtract x+y from xy you get a number; lets call it z. If you picked a number higher x(y+1), you would subtract x+(y+1) and still get z. all z's have the same symbol each round.

I was an airline mechanic for 35 years. I was tested randomly. Less than 1/10 of one percent of the tested mechanics came back positive. The vast majority of that was for marijuana which like most people is prejudiced against overweight people. The more fat in your body, the longer it will be that the test will give a positive reading. Someone like me could test positive 2 months after smoking once. Theatrically, I could go to a country where smoking pot is legal for a vacation, smoke only on the first day of the two week vacation and then 6 six later be fired for pot turning up in a random drug test. A guy who worked with me drank every night and reeked of it every day at shift start time (2pm). He was not drunk, but he was so hung over, that he was lazy and lackadaisical. I doubled checked his work quite often. He would pass the random tests. Fact: No commercial US airliner has ever crashed because of a mistake caused by a mechanic 's drug use. Many employers use a $6 pre-employment screening test to weed out drug users. The airlines use a test that costs over $400. It can not be beaten and has no false positives except for poppy seeds testing positive for heroine. But that is not really a false positive, because heroine is made from poppies. The airlines have spent billions doing worthless testing, while all it would take would be supervisors keeping an eye on the demeanor of the workers. How about drug testing for cab drivers and bus drivers and train engineers, school crossing guards, policeman, fireman, pharmacists, surgeons, teachers, lawyers, judges, baby-sitters, nannies, etc? A case can be made for almost any profession. Yet besides airline workers, we only test professional athletes, who can not harm the public. Are our priorities screwed up or what?

I will ask my wife to ask her friend if she took any other medication besides the antibiotic. I was taken two Nexiums a day and having the terrible reflux problems.

Maybe his weakness is that he is not flawless, but has to wear that shell of invincibility. Just think of how much love, friendship and emotional contact he excludes from his life. When I was a kid (1950's) there was a full page advertisement on the back of many comic books for a Charles Atlas body building program. It showed a thin man on the beach with his girl-friend. A muscular bully would come by, throw sand in the thin man's face and steal the girl. The thin man would next be seen sending in for the Charles Atlas body building program, working out and finally going back to the beach to take back his girl from the bully by throwing sand in the bully's face. Question: Why would he want her back? Well, many years later, I was talking to a woman who was like your boss, so I told her a story, that I had made up, based on that Charles Atlas add. It starts the same, except instead of sending for the Charles Atlas body building program, the thin man enrolls in a Karate class. He is taught to thrust his hand into a pail of small pebbles. At first, his hand stops at contact, then after a few days he gets in about an inch. Every day for months he continues. Eventually he is reaching the bottom of the pail and for many more months, he continues until he feels no pain and his hands are weapons. He goes back to the beach and with one blow, takes back his girl. She is so enamored at his fighting prowess, that she takes him back to his apartment to make love. After undressing her he touches her breasts and feels nothing. His hands are too calloused to feel. Your boss and my female friend may have soft hands, but I wonder how much they feel. That may be your bosses weakness. You may never get to exploit it, but you may not have to. He is doing it for you. My female friend, laughed at my story, but gradually changed. Many months later she confessed to me, that she had taken my story to heart, had gotten back with her boy-friend and were engaged to be married. She realized it was her shell, her lack of feeling that had ruined their relationship and with the help of her understanding of the moral of my story, she had corrected the situation.

I had no problems and that was almost 4 years ago. They are making amazing gains in anesthesiology, so it should be even easier for you.

You will not be able to over-eat with the band. Hopefully soon, there will be a drug to reduce hunger. There is a lot of research into to it. I am hungry sometimes, but I have to learn what makes me hungry and to avoid doing those things. Watching TV is like putting on the "hunger switch". If your son is a diabetic #1. why would you want carbs around? #2. Why would you go to a fast food (also know as a poison dispenser) restaurant? It will not hurt you, your son or your whole family to eat healthy foods. What "healthy foods are" is a question totally distorted by people who have agendas. But one thing is for sure, you will not get much healthy food in a Micky D's or BurgerKing. Moderation is the key to healthy eating. People will argue about which foods to eat, but if you have something from each food group every meal, you will do a lot better. When I go out to eat with my wife, we split one meal. She is a type ll diabetic, so she does not eat potatoes. I eat a 1/4 to 1/5 of her meat portion, a table spoon of her green veggie, some mashed potatoes and less than 1/5 of an extra tossed salad (not a salad for two or a chef's salad). We tell the waitress "do not bring bread". And weighing 230# at 5'3" is healthy or normal. As I hinted at in an earlier post, you have to decide what is more important to you, the pleasure of feeling food in your mouth, sliding down your throat and feeling your belly get full as you have been doing or the chance to see your children graduate school and dance at their weddings.

I would do away with the "Pledge of Allegiance to the Flag" and replace it with a "Pledge of Allegiance to the US Constitution". Why pledge allegiance to a piece of cloth? I pledge allegiance to the Constitution of the United States of America, and to the Republic which it guides, one Nation, indivisable, seeking liberty and justice for all.

Make sure we execute them before we find out that they were innocent. 80% of all violent criminals are illiterate. Educating them protects the community. During a pilot program in the 1980's only one of 200 maximum security convicts who received a college education and then were released after serving their full sentence was re-arrested, but 78% of those who did not get schooling were re-arrested. Think of all the extra victims and all the extra money it took to prosecute and re-incarcerate those people.

I hate to break a lot of bubbles, but mean & cruel people do not always get what's coming to them. And people that hope that they do many times only make their own lives more miserable by that hope, which in itself is just as bad a thought as the mean & cruel person had. Just concentrate on being the best person that you can be (but please don't join the army). My wife always tells me that I should not stand for some of the stuff that I have taken over the years, but the choice is to either take it or give it back and become just like the people that have bothered me. Neither Christ, Martin Luther King Jr. nor Gandhi would have tried to get even. I do not preach religion, but those three led more serene lives than I ever will. Try it. You may not like it at first, but it may grow on you.

I agree 100% which will probably make us the two most unpopular people at this forum.

You may have to decide one day, like I did, if your love of eating is more important than living (or at least living without a myriad of diseases with a quality of life that stinks). If you needed to put on weight to be eligible and you can not fathom giving up the food, maybe you should wait until it is required. Eating, like I did, is an addiction. I knew drug addicts who went into rehab voluntarily and are now clean for years. I also knew some that were forced into rehab by their job, their parents or the law and they failed. Some of them are now dead. If you have not hit rock-bottom and you are hesitant, then wait. Either you may lose weight with a less invasive method or you will get so bad, that you will hit rock-bottom and your love of life will over-ride your fear of giving up your love of food. As Yogi Berra used to say, "90% of this game is 50% mental". Sorry if I a do not exhibit as much tact as some others here. I speak what I feel is the truth on serious matters like this. This surgery is major surgery and should not be gone into lightly.

What part of Florida? I go to the Cleveland Clinic in Weston FL.

Suggestion (to all future responders to this thread): It might be a good idea to say something like, "I was back to work as a cashier who sits down at my register after 4 days" or "I was able to go back to work after a week because as a sales associate, I have to be on my feet all day" or even, "It was two weeks before I could go back to work, because as a sales associate, I am required to climb ladders to bring items weighing up to 20 pounds down from the upper shelves". Then, prospective Lap-Band recipients would have a better idea what they will face after their surgery. It has taken me almost 4 years (and counting) before returning to work (because I am retired).

And it might have taken longer if you were a construction worker, a mechanic, a sanation worker or furniture mover.:faint:

Don't worry about the poll choices. It is much too complicated a question for a simple poll. The replies in this thread will provide all the answers that you attempted to elicit with your poll. Thank you for your attempt.

I doubt if it is the lidociane, because the only time that I got dizzy and almost passed out, they did not use lidocaine. On the three onccasions that they have used lidocaine, I did not get dizzy. Granted not all people are created medically equal.

University Hospital in Staten Island and Maimonides Hospital in Brooklyn.

My first fill was 2cc into a 4cc band. There are too many factors to take into account to have an exact "norm", but it seems in the ballpark.

My first fill was done with no lidocaine. My second fill caused me to almost pass out. Actually, it was the attempt at a second fill, because they never were able to get the needle into the fill port after about 4 sticks. My fill port has turned and my body has attacked the fill-line and formed a coating over it. All my fills are now done with lidocaine and with a fluoroscope, because it is too difficult for the doctor to find (and to be sure he is going into) the fill-port. I have had three different doctors use the fluoroscope method of filling (or removing) Fluid from my band. It is then used for the "drink test".

I lost a lot of weight before my first fill, but I lost the weight because I was naive and afraid to test the limits that I was told not to exceed. After the second fill, I started having problems. Maybe the band was too tight, but they tightened it more as a cure for my problems. Now, years later, I have an empty band and it is almost like having no band at all.

Call your doctor. No one here can give you medical advice regarding all the possible consequences. It might be an infection, but I don't really know. I had no symtoms like yours. Call your doctor.

I think that depends on what kind of work that you do. I would say that except for heavy lifting, a week after your sugery, you will be able to do most of what you need to do. Good Luck and don't strain yourself.

Recently I walked up to a store that had two glass doors; side by side. The right door had a sign with an arrow pointing to the left door and the words "Use Other Door". I used the left door and then told the proprietor that the sign was incorrect. He asked "Why is it incorrect? It says to use the left door." I told him that the sign said to use the right door. If the sign points to a door and then says to use the other door, it is saying to use the "other" door (instead of) the door that it is pointing to. To prove it, I made the inquiry: "if the sign on the right door had said 'Use that door' and the arrow pointed to the left, which door would be the correct one to use?" The proprietor answered, "the left door". So I asked, "If the words 'Use other door' and 'Use that door' both mean 'use left door', then aren't you claiming that the word 'other' means the same thing as the word 'that'." If "Use other door" equals "Use that door", since "use" equals "use" and "door" equals "door", then "other" must equal "that". Think about it.

A few years before I had my Lap-Band installed, I followed a diet similar to the Atkins diet. I say similar because my endocrinologist gave me a list of foods ok to eat and foods not to eat. The list were basically the same as the Atkins goods and no-goods. The biggest difference was that he didn't want me to pig-out on fat. I was allowed to eat more fat than most diets recommend, but two large pork-chops, 3-4 chicken thighs or a 12 ounce boneless steak was considered ok. I have heard of some people eating 10 cheeseburgers, sans buns on the Atkins diet. Anyway, I lost 95 pounds in less that a year and my cholesterol dropped as did my sugar count and blood pressure, but as soon as I cheated once after my first anniversary by having some potatoes (French fries, baked, mashed, you name it) I was right back up the ladder. Only the Lap-Band has kept me solid for years.

I have had more problems than many with my Lap-Band, but would do it again. Until they come out with a pill or under-the-skin time-controlled release of a chemical that can cut or eliminate hunger, many people will need bariatric surgery. Whether it is biological or genetic, I am always hungry and without my Lap-Band, I would probably be pushing 400#'s by now and injecting insulin.