green

That is terrible!!!! You poor kid!! I woulda done the same!

I smoke, too. I use the patch whenever I have to fly. I take Zyban/Wellbutrin for depression and I did hope that it would help me quit but it didn't. It seems that few people smoke now except for the working class and people under 25. I've heard that the only people in California who smoke are Hollywood stars. I don't understand the smoking Nazis. Cars do much more environmental damage....

"People don't need to be filled above 2cc in a 10cc band." That's nutz!! I have 6cc in mine and the other women I know who have been banded in the same centre have 7 or 7.5cc in theirs. Not all of us have yet hit our sweet spots. I will probably have to have another fill in a couple of weeks. My suggestion to you, Gummie, is to see if you can find someone who does a cheaper fill. Maybe you could also try to talk to the doctor about his nurse and her underfill. Perhaps he will give you a fill on the house.

Cool!:clap2: :clap2: :clap2:

I did join a gym last February which was long before I got banded and I found that I actually enjoyed going there. Then two things happened: our very hot humid summer happened and I wasn't going to leave my air-conditioned house except to go to the cottage, and I wrecked my rotator cuff. I got banded in early September and figured that as I wanted to go back to the gym it was time to get my shoulder fixed. Well, I am still going to physiotherapy and am still in pain! I do a lot of walking. I walk home from all my physio appointments. I am losing weight but much, much slower than I would like. Since my operation I have lost 16 lbs, most of it in the early weeks. Part of my problem is that I don't have much restriction yet even though I have had a few fills.:cry

:clap2: :clap2: :clap2: :clap2:

I was reading through this thread and I, too, was going to mention acupuncture, then I came to BJean's post. She had beaten me to it. I knew a woman who was going through the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Toronto. Toronto is my home city and the University of Toronto is one of Canada's largest and oldest universities. As it happens we now have a large minority of Chinese students. This friend of mine who was lucky enough to be able to be studying medicine had many Chinese colleagues. She said that although they were studying western medicine they still respected oriental medical techniques, enough so that when they got sick they resorted to the medicine of their roots. Acupuncture is part of oriental medicine. Some western (white) doctors have taken the trouble to learn acupuncture. You might want to investigate acupuncture. It could help you and it would be a drug and surgery free solution.

I think that I am going to make another appointment for a fill. The fill tech gave me her card. I don't think that I am in the sweet spot zone. *sob* Today I had my morning meds and a small tin of tuna with no problems. I hope the damn thing isn't leaking.... I am about to make myself a small dinner snack: an avocado with salsa and extra tomato. Later on I will have my second small dinner snack. I don't know what this will be. Maybe tzatziki or maybe poached eggs with salsa and cheddar cheese? The poached egg thingy I do in the microwave.

Aunty Green, pharmaceutical queen, may have advice for you, Argon. You should be aware that Zyban is a stimulant and should be taken in the morning. You should also be aware that over the counter sleeping pills tend to raise the blood pressure. If you have elevated blood pressure you should talk to your doc and have him/her prescribe something instead. (I take imovane/zopiclone when I can't sleep. My doc prescribes this for me.) I only run into problems with sleeping when my depression gets out of control but some people have problem with sleeping due to stress issues. This is why it is not a bad idea to talk about your sleep problems with your doc. You might also try reading a boring book before going to sleep! Sometimes this works for me. lol

I don't know what to think about this particular surgery. From looking at the pre-surgery photos of the child I would say that the poor kid was obese and was suffering from the social nightmare that follows from this condition. Moreover, I would venture that the kid had gone through an early puberty and had likely reached her full height. Add to all of this the fact that her father was slated to die.... This child had a lot on her plate, psychologically speaking, and the kid was likely fairly mature, developmentally speaking. It has been reported that her surgeon has excellent "street cred" and that he did not enter into this project carelessly. It has also been reported that this child had voluntarily submitted herself to a lot of really stressful lipo surgery. It seems it took a year to sculpt this girl into her present state. (Lipo work is not as patient friendly as lapband surgery. It is much more painful and the patient's recovery time is much longer. I also suspect that the overall mortality rate is higher though I have no statistics to back this up.) I have also seen the post-op photo and read the article covering the girl's new life. The kid looks great and it seems that she is happy! Because she is in normoland she now feels sufficiently optimistic that she is prepared to take care of herself. She is working out and she is laying off those foods which are bad for her. Certainly this child's journey has been exceedingly unconventional because the kid has undertaken it at an unusually early age. This is controversial. And the raft of "beautifying" surgeries that this kid went through are only available to those who can afford them. But so far this story seems to be a success story. I am happy for this girl and I would like to be updated on her life from time to time for she has undergone a complex transformation on many, many levels. Shas gone from being the ugly duckling to being the swan and she has done this after a period of much pain.

Congratulations from Green who is green with envy!!!! :eek:

I would never go back there. All that sweat doesn't sound sanitary. And if the dude had punctured your band.........

This morning I went in to the TLBC for my third fill. I have been feeling no restriction at all, as you all know, and one night I even ate a banquet burger that my husband brought home. I had totally forgotten about this stunt until today. And I have never, ever PB-ed although I had a weird experience with water after my first fill which resulted in me asking to have a cc taken out. Since then I have been lagging behind the other women in my graduating class with respect to the amount of fill. They are all up to 7 to 7.5 cc and I am only now at 6 cc. Nevertheless, the fill tech won't give me more than 1 cc at a shot. At my weigh-in today I learned that I had not lost a single pound since my last fill and that was 3 weeks ago. The good thing is that I haven't gained. So, I am in onederland and my hair isn't falling out, and that is good. I would have liked to have lost a couple of lousy lbs, however.... One of the members of my graduating class is not doing so well. She has lost no weight at all since being banded although she has had incidents of PB-ing and she is now losing her hair. It is because I heard her story that I am able to deal with my own lack of weight loss over the past 3 weeks.

So,...no head jokes, eh?:heh: Aww.... You do look great. Congratulations!:clap2:

Bullwinkle has given you good advice, girl. Your husband does sound controlling and volatile. I also suspect that you feel that you would be happier without him. You mentioned in your second last post that you feel "pressure" or "sometimes even trapped" when you are with him. This is not healthy. You should remove yourself from the situation ASAP and get some rest.

I would like to say that when children are dealing with their parents the desires of the old person do come into play. While my father was alive my parents led a more "expansive" life financially speaking, even though my father was one of those macho type controlling men. After he died, and this was 8 years before my Mum did, I had hopes that she would become a little more adventurous and a little more social. It was my father who was a homebody and while he was alive he did call the shots. As it happened my mother hurt her knee not long after my father died. This ultimately ended up in a knee replacement - oddly enough the operation was on on 9/11. We kids wanted her to spend money on herself but she became obsessed with the notion of passing the family money down to the next generation. This was a real problem for us. For some years she lived alone in her condo. She was in good health. My younger brother finally convinced her to sell the condo and to move to a luxurious retirement home. She tried it out for a week and decided that she liked it. We convinced her that she could afford it and so she sold her condo. In the meantime my kid brother was quickly diagnosed and died from bowel cancer. During this dreadful time my other brother, who was up from the States, and I were involved in watching my brother die and in the business of moving our mum from her condo to her new home. A week after she moved into her retirement home she developed mysterious problems and severe pains. She went to the ER a couple of times, was given medications, and then returned in very bad shape. Two weeks later she was dead. We did have medical personnel on our side. My brother is a doctor and my cousin's wife is a senior nurse at this hospital. And certainly her retirement home was a splendid place. The original point of this post was that my mum, a woman who had been left quite comfortably off, didn't want to waste the green money on her final years. Oh, the old folks! They can become quite passionate about saving their money for the next generation! To tell you the truth, I am quite baffled by my mother. She was, unlike my father, as tight as a tick while she was alive, and yet she was passionate that we inherit the whole nine yards after she was gone. I tell this story without meaning any disrespect to old folks. I am simply remembering my Mum and her attitude to what she regarded as the 'family money.' I find it interesting to remember that she didn't want to spend it on herself or anyone else. As for my Mum's terrible death, it was like my kid brother's death; neither of them were anticipated and the two of them died two months apart to the very day. I suspect that my Mum died of a broken heart.

Haha and thanx. I should tell you that just a couple of hours ago I bought a box of light ash brown hair dye. My skin is so pale and my hair is so pale that I thought that I would introduce a note of drama into the biz, eh. I can't go dark; with my colouring and my years the effect would be too, too weird! Of course, if ya want to be weird the big city is the right place. LOL I will turn myself into a pale brunette later this week. The hubby is cool with this latest stunt. If I look too ghostly I will try to earn extra loonies by telling people their futures....:heh:

Very interesting. I sure hope that nothing is seriously wrong with TOM.... I find myself now fretting and because we all exist in cyberspace, there is really nothing that we can do, is there?

Over the years I have done some funny things while naked. I got first into the habit while I was living in France. Lemme say that those Frenchies sure are relaxed about their bodies compared to us. And my mother-in-law is German and very relaxed about her body. She likes to get the gang going into the lake for a skinny dip. Of course this activity is mostly carried on after dark but I guess not always.... My husband and I recently learned that their cottage is known as the "naked cottage." :faint: As for white winters, I am kinda getting sentimental over these, too. The truth is that thanks to global warming Canadian winters are getting milder and shorter. And to top things off, my city - Toronto - is now so large that it has created its own mini-climate. American cities to the south of us, such as Buffalo for instance, and Canadian cities to the west of us may be suffering from a blizzard and we will be left high and dry. Nevertheless, I love the change of seasons. I really do. As for champagne and Chambord, I envy you! Oh, how I envy you!!

If it is not the sport of shopping then I find it boring.:faint: :notagree

My real hair colour was strawberry blonde. You know, that reddish blonde colour. And, like a redhead, I don't tan. This is why my skin looks really good for my age. I spent the summers indoors. I used to hate it!

It's a good thing that she is continuing to go to school. This means that you raised her right.

I miss TOM.

Green is going for her third fill tomorrow. I need it! :help: This past weekend we went to the in-laws' cottage and on the way up and on the way back we stopped off at restaurants and I ate real meals really easily. :hungry: That I didn't quite finish them off is only due to my new smaller appetite. The great outdoors was cold and gray and as a result I drank too much scotch.:faint: Normally I like to keep myself busy doing chores, especially yard work, but the leaves were wet and frozen to the ground. It was too cold to move stones and besides, my bad shoulder interferes with that. If I am inside and don't have my own toys around me I get bored and restless. I did go for a frosty walk and spent some time hanging out down at the lake. In fact I spent a lot of time staring at the lake and at the mickey of scotch.:heh: I have had healthier weekends at the cottage!

I fit jeans that have a 28" inseam and I am 5'6". I like to wear pants that end at the ankle, and some people might find them a tiny bit short.