green

Oh, Ms Dad, that is such a bummer!!!:cry My heart goes out to you. Would the old office give you your records so that you can hand deliver these over to your current doc's office? Then his office could fax the records to WLC.... And it does sound that you and your doc must launch an appeal of this ruling ASAP emphasizing the severity of your co-morbidities. If all of this doesn't work and you find that you must pay, please do shop around before deciding on who will do your surgery. There is a huge difference in price right there in the USA from what I have read on this website - anywhere from $8,000 to $20,000! I have also read that the Mexican clinics do great work and are around $8,000. The downside is arranging for aftercare - the fills - in the U.S. Come to think of it, there are even threads on this site devoted to problems encountered with insurance companies and WLS. I think that it is time for you to start studying up. All my best hopes and wishes are for you.

That's odd. I look exactly like Julia Roberts in just the same way!

I am built much like you, Laurend, and those were the reasons why I had an abortion when I discovered that my birth control had failed. Though there are a few children which I really do like, I also quickly begin to find them rather boring and can't be around them for more than a few hours at a time. I lack the necessary patience. And frankly babies give me the creeps. Americans who like guns like to claim they need 'em in order to be able to kill home invaders; well, this division of cells was threatening to invade my body and my way of life, wasn't it? I believe that the difference between the anti Iraq war, gun-shy, pro-choice liberal and the pro-life, pro-gun, pro-war right-winger is that we feel awfully squeamish about killing people after they are born. Our oponents prefer to concern themselves solely with pre-birth existence. Once the creatures pop their little heads out of the maternal womb, well then, they are out of luck for health care, education, and more...it all becomes a crap shoot!

Because, even though I am not maternal and I didn't want to follow it through, I knew that this material was unique biological material. I would have been happier not to have been placed in this position. Please understand where I am coming from. I am expressing this point of view as an atheist. I do not believe in a God, and certainly not in the Christian version.

Yah, we are all missing you, grrl!!!!!!

Ooh, whenever I think of batteries I think of Samantha in Sex and the City. She was quite the fan of bunnies.:rolleyes

I know that you know that. I have a lot of respect for you. I was elaborating on my thoughts for others who might be reading this thread. And I might have been working out my ideas for my ownself, too. You know,...thinking out loud.

I was unhappy about the failure of my birth control and unhappy about having an abortion as a result of this. I did not want to have an abortion but I had even less desire to carry a pregnancy to term. I have never had a maternal drive and I saw no reason to commit my physical, emotional and financial energies for a nine-month period to what was still merely a division of cells at the point when I had my abortion. Though my reasoning may sound cold-blooded I can also tell you that the day of my abortion was not one of the high-lights of my life. Nobody except a fool wants an abortion.

We had that storm yesterday afternoon. The damn thing suddenly blew up, lotsa rain and wind, and then it went away again leaving downed electrical poles, upended trees, and other damage in its wake. Fortunately here in the big city we were left with power but some of the suburbs were hit pretty hard. (Green loves her electricity, oh yes, she does.:heh: Electricity means toys, oh yes, it does.:heh: )

I recently read that one child's food intake over one year more than equals the lifetime footprint of a SUV but I do believe that this issue is complicated by a number of other factors. One of these is that of the rights of woman over her uterus, that is to say a woman's right to choose. We cannot have it both ways; we cannot claim the right to opt out of having children and then demand that other women be denied the right to have children. Another one of these factors is this: once the educational and economic status of societies is raised couples tend to opt out of having lots of children. The population replacement birthrate - we are not talking a growth birthrate - is now of grave concern in all western European countries as well as in Canada. The United States happens to be the only affluent industrialized country which is still maintaining a replacement birthrate. That is to say, you understand, that your birth rate equals your death rate. In Canada we deal with our declining population by actively recruiting new Canadians from other parts of the world. We have gone multinational and we are very immigrant friendly. This is easy for us for we are a very, very young country and our roots and traditions are shallow and few. Europe is in the way of anticipating a crisis, however. The countries which make up Europe are old countries with deep roots and a profound sense of what makes up countrymen. A declining population cannot easily be supplemented by importing a bunch of foreigners. And yet for a country to remain economically and culturally vibrant there must be more than a collection of senior citizens living within its borders. All of the above is a longish way of saying that if some women want to mother a gang of kids and they have the emotional and financial resources, well, what's the big deal? There is room here for them. The concern that I have with the official Quiverful policy on families is that it seems to be embedded in narrow racist and political values, not just in a simple desire to have an old-fashioned big family.

Very good and appropriate in 1785! BUT WE ARE LIVING IN 2007! Times do change.:phanvan

Yep, I think it was written by Desowitz. He is very accessible to the blondies.

Woohoo for you! I just went through a bunch of my clothes. I am giving away many, many bags full. Congratulations, Paulax!

Well, that is one woman's abortion story. Here is mine. I was 32 years old and living in France when I found out that I was in the early stage of pregnancy. Though this was back in the early 1980s abortion on demand was available in France. This procedure required that I make an initial appointment with the medical staff at the local hospital in order to ascertain that I was pregnant, that I arrange for several tests to be completed as even early stage procedures were done under anaesthetic, and that I book an appointment for the procedure itself. Now, France is a socialist country and it - because it is concerned about its dropping birthrate - is also is child friendly; this is to say that there are many government programmes in place in order to assist all women who wish to keep their babies. Pre and post natal care is free as is all health care in this socialist state. Paid maternal leaves are generous and jobs can be guaranteed for up to three years. There is a national system of pre-schools which any child can attend for free once he or she is toilet trained and there are also government run nurseries for the very young. One has to pay for the use of these but the cost is not large and they do allow a new mother to drop off her baby for a few hours whenever she needs a break. Of particular interest to the foreigner is that all infants born on French soil have to right to be deemed French citizens. Now, all of this information was laid out in a booklet which was given to me at the time of my initial meeting in order to arrange for my abortion. Government law required that I be given this information before going through with the abortion and that there be a ten-day reflection period from the day of the initiating appointment to the day of the abortion itself. Of course there is nothing as sensible or as humane as this inside of North America. Here we have a bunch of right to lifers who are usually also right wing in their political beliefs; these folks are saying to pregnant women that they should have their infants but they are not providing a clear-cut social framework in which child raising becomes an attractive option for the middle class. We are, afterall, aware that the poor are the least likely to opt for abortions. They've got nothing to lose by having a bunch of kids. It is the middle class who finds themselves compromised; there are careers, medical bills, etc..... Right wing Christians don't bring anything to this debate other than to say that they consider that this act is heinous. As for FunnyD's experience, well, this was definitely a very weird and a very bad sad experience. I am reminded, though, that there are lots of pseudo-choice clinics operating where pregnant women go expecting that they will receive the abortions upon which they have decided only to find that they have been trapped in a series of delays until it is too damn late.

My bathroom came with sufficient space beside the toilet that we were able to place a piece of furniture there. This is a small, rather tall, three-tiered table, I guess one would call it an occasional table, which was made in China out of yew wood probably during the 1940s. It is very simple, quite attractive, and oddly out of proportion to western norms. It was also quite cheap. Anyhow, the top surface is devoted to toilet lit, an ashtray, a lighter, and a clock which faces the bathtub. Toilet lit describes any reading material which can be read in sound bites: my Big Book on the domestic arts is there along with a book containing a series of essays on modern Jewish life, a history of the bathroom, a book covering plastic surgery techniques, a medical guide to home remedies, and a layman's guide to understanding music. These are all books that I do periodically read or at least plan to read. Magazines and newspapers show up from time to time. I save real lit for bed. Fortunately the bathroom lighting is excellent for reading. This works out well because I occasionally like to read while in the tub. Tub reading only occurs when I have got the time and I am 40 pages away from finishing a book. I have a brightly coloured hand painted (I painted it) chair beside the tub. This is large enough to hold an ashtray and a lighter and my reading glasses, etc. I am pretty good at working the hot and cold water taps with my stubby yet muscular toes. Though I still smoke it has been decades since I drank while reading in the bathtub. When I was in my 30s I used to drink Armagnac or Cognac while loitering in the tub. This was excellent fun. As you may know, to properly enjoy brandy it should be warm and this is why it is traditionally served in those balloon glasses. The theory is that the drinker wraps his or her hands around the glass. Well, those glasses float real nice in a warm bath....:girl_hug: As fer folding laundry or wrapping presents, Green is dreadful at these activities. Her husband, a man who was raised by a German mother, is brilliant at folding. Green just rolls stuff up into little bundles and then shoves those little bundles into drawers. And her wrapped presents look like nasty squashy toadlike bundles.:omg:

(Well, I know I shouldn't say this but if you want to see texts in need of editing take a gander at the Christian site..... )

Haha! Green missed out on all of that when she was young; she was too busy rebelling! :heh: That's why she had to buy the Book. This is a big book and forms part of her collection of toilet lit - you know, the books you read in the bathroom.:girl_hug:

Pima fibres are the longest and therefore the strongest. Pima cotton is very durable and least likely to wrinkle. Egyptian cotton is next best. This is what my learning how to be a real woman and homemaker book sez. There doesn't seem to be any policies on what to do with my uterus, though. Har har.:faint:

My sheets are between a 400 and a 500 thread count. I have one pair which are a cotton-silk blend. I like a sateen finish and what I have heard called a 'crisp hand.' You don't get that with a silk-cotton blend; the sheets tend to feel a little mushy, especially if the room is hot. And, speaking of that, I am with laurend: I like to slide into a cool, clean bed. This always reminds me of diving into sweet lake Water on a hot summer day. There ain't nuthin like it! Um,...bliss.... And I am one of those who has to read in bed.

Nope, I still have a phobia about the weigh in. In fact the only times I do get a weigh in is when I go to TLBC for a fill and that is because I am fascinated by their hi-tech scale. The thing gives you a full read-out including BMI and your ideal weight given your height, age, sex, yadda, yadda.... I've been functioning pretty much entirely on NSVs: compliments, how my clothes are fitting and what sizes I can now buy. I prefer to work this way because pounds don't have any visual reality for me and yet knowing that I am carrying a lot of them is going to upset me. This is why I gave up on weighing myself when I was 25. If I weighed 200 lbs, but could fit into a size 8 and have the blood pressure of a baby, I wouldn't care. It is the NSVs which count for me. And, by the way, here is one change which will really lift your spirits while you are suffering through your tedious pre-op diet, now that I am banded I find that I do eat much, much less than I did before I was banded and I find that I don't miss the nosh. The appetite is no longer there. This has really freed me up and it is this which has helped me lose weight. Of course you must work on reassessing your eating patterns during your recovery period and this can be quite interesting. I have never been fond of soft drinks and I do like water so I kinda lucked out there. I've also never been too fond of using prepared foods but since being banded I have become fussy about looking at those Nutrition Facts labels with which our Canadian prepared foodstuffs come supplied. I learned that those great tasting Gardenay soups, the ones I lived on during the full liquid phase of my recovery, are fairly empty of the vita Cs. Eggs are loaded with the Bs. I've learned to avoid the frozen lo-cal dinners, a staple when I first graduated out of the mushie stage; they are low on calories and they are low on nutrients, too. Of course this new found hobby of mine has often put me between a rock and a hard place. This is because I really don't enjoy cooking - just eating. In the pre-band days I ate a lot of roughage-rich carbs, cholesterol rich protein (i.e. cheese), and fresh vegetables. Healthy but very fattening, especially when eaten in big quantities! Now I eat a lot of those little tins of tuna that Cloverleaf produces, the seasoned ones with the pop tops, yogurt, tzatziki, baked flatbreads, poached eggs with old cheese and salsa, avocados with fresh vegetables and a home made vinaigette, and stir-fries. I also occasionally make pasta with fresh vegetable but now this meal will last me two to three meals instead of just one. It is also easier for me than for most lap banders to tinker with my eating habits. My husband works second shift, I am retired, and we have become comfortable with fending for ourselves. This has turned out to be a long post, hasn't it?

I just saw episode 2. It was ace!:clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2:

Don't get ticker obsessed, grrl. This business of losing weight is a combination of a whole lot of things or so it seems to me. For sure there is the poundage loss thing but there is also the sudden drop down into smaller sizes, the realisation that you simply are not eating as much as you were before, and there will be an array of other NSV signs. You will notice a difference in your stamina, flexibility.... Your doctor may comment on your BP or say something in the way of 'oh, wow, you've lost quite a bit of weight lately.' This is what my doc said the last time I saw her. I had to remind her that it was because I had the lap band surgery last September and not because I have cancer or whatever! LOL All of this is to say that you will get plenty of feedback from other sources than your scale during your weight loss journey. I should tell you that I don't own a scale and until the morning of my operation had refused to step on a scale and look at my weight since I was 25 years old. Yep, I had gone for over 36 years without knowing how much I weighed! :heh: Anyhow, when I walked into the operation I wore a size 18W pant and yesterday I bought a size 12P pant. I was totally flabberghasted and so I have been wearing 'em today just to make sure that I wasn't in a cheap dream over the first nice weekend of 2007. And yah, they still fit! (woot)

Cool, very cool.

I read an interesting book, one that was friendly to Greenish-blonde readers, eh! about a year ago on tropical parasites. I read about Chagas - ugh! - among other things and I also read about all the many unpleasant diseases which are spread to us via mosquitoes. The author contends one of the problems that global warming will bring us northerners will be an extended mosquito season. I also read many interesting things about intestinal worms. According to the author it was malaria, recurring bouts of yellow fever which served to quarintine the port cities, and the fact that all the poor folk, be they white or black, in the American south had intestinal worms which crippled the southern economy until the second half of the 20th century. It seemed that those poor folks who lived in the American south were just too chronically depleted due to parasites and bouts of malaria to be able to reliably work the land. Northerners chose not to invest in the south as a result. And by the way, there was a type of primitive butterfly which I ran across when I was in the little Alps (les Alpilles de Provence) of Provence. They were white with a coloured patch on each wing. My boyfriend told me that they were primitive insects and these patches were their solar panels. To demonstrate he stood in front of one and when it no longer had access to the sun's rays it stopped moving. Have you heard of such creature? I found it kinda extraordinary....!

Thanx, Wheetsin, for reminding us that the Quiverful movement was essentially racist. You may be interested to hear that Hitler instituted a like policy with the same racist intent. All healthy blonde attractive Aryan women of breedable age were expected to do their patriotic duty to their country by producing as many babies as possible.