AshevilleEddie

Hi Bruno! Sounds like everything went great! Nausea and gas is completely normal so no worries there. I was in the hospital for 6 days, but I had an erratic heartbeat that was completely unrelated to the surgery (it happened with any bodily trauma for a couple of years but has since resolved). I was up and walking in the hallway a few hours after surgery so if my heart hadn't acted up, I would have gone home the next morning. The worst pain I had felt like a pulled muscle. I think I only needed one dose of pain medication and that was when I first woke up post-op. Glad to hear you're doing so well!! Eddie

If I did my math correctly, it's now 12:30 and you head to hospital in an hour and a half, surgery in 3 1/2 hours. Please let me know how it went when you feel up to it. And when you're ready, my brain is yours for the picking! Good luck later today! Eddie

Hi Bruno! I'm six years out and maintaining for a while now. I'd be happy to mentor you if you'd like. I'm attaching a few pics. The first one is pre-op, about 325 lbs I think (I'm not sure, I stopped weighing myself because I didn't want to know how bad it was!), then early September and the far right is late September at Arches National Park in Utah. My husband and I had done a 3 mile hike in Bryce Canyon and a 10 mile hike along the North Rim of the Grand Canyon earlier in the week. Eddie

Hi! I'm not really active in here much anymore but I still get notifications. I totally get what you're saying about being overweight and gay. I really lucked out. My husband always had a thing for twinks (we all tend to have a "type" I think; mine was bears and he isn't) but kept his mind and heart open to love however it presented itself. So when we met it was no big deal for either of us. Don't give up yet! But getting the weight off has been a literal lifesaver for me. No more diabetes, no more sleep apnea, labs are normal and I actually have energy. I was NOT overweight and active like you. So you have a good head start. Keep us posted about approval and surgery!!

Depends how long. We moved up from FL 5 years ago but now that we're here, I'm not going anywhere.

I live in the Appalachians, the Blue Ridge to be exact in Asheville, NC. Good luck with your sleeve! My only regret is not doing it years sooner than I did.

Hahaha!! I can make a pretty mean chai. Protein & nut milk (more protein and less carbs than milk and besides, I'm lactose intolerant now), black tea, spices and stevia. You'll have to come to the mountains for it though...

Yes you did. I wasn't trying to beat a dead horse. Now I'm the one who gets to apologize. I'm sorry.

Still not appropriate. Way off topic.

Hello all, I'm back! I've been in Bandster Hell for about 15 months and am trying to get back on track. I was apparently over-restricted because I could barely eat anything. Then last year was just the year from hell. In February, one of our cats died right in front of me, then a week and a half later my sister-in-law died suddenly. About three weeks after that a former co-worker/close friend died, also suddenly. Then another dear friend was (mis)diagnosed with lupus; turns out she has Stage 4 uterine cancer. This was all by the end of April. Nothing else quite as tragic for the rest of the year, but it remained overall quite shitty. And as many of the "old-timers" in this thread know, I'm a stress eater. So combine that with being too tight and it's just not good. I've only regained 20 pounds, but because I haven't been able to eat much Protein (and I HATE shakes) my hair is thinning horribly. So, I went back to my surgeon last week. He thought I may have had a slippage and sent me for an upper GI. I had that done today (yum yum, radioactive chalk shake!) and fortunately all is well with my band. Dr. Webb did do a complete unfill last week though, so I can eat. He wants to let my stomach rest for a couple of weeks, then he'll start doing fills again. He compared it to rebooting a computer. Anyways, Who all is still lurking around here? I would love to chat with all my old buddies and make some new ones. And of course it's always good to venture out into the other threads and stir up shit. Just kidding, I don't intentionally go looking for it, but I also don't back down. Hope to hear from someone soon....

Hi family! Everyone can stop worrying now, I'm back! You can't get rid of me that easily! We've been on vacation and just got home last night. When I was checking my e-mail this morning (159 of them BTW!) and had a PM from Jo, I realized I didn't let you guys know I wasn't going to be posting for a while. I'm sorry!! Anyway, after Christmas we went to North Carolina for vacay. Nine days in the mountains - yeah, it really sucked...NOT! We rented a cabin outside Maggie Valley and most of Sean's family met us there, so it was also a family reunion of sorts. Our kids each took a friend too, so we had a houseful of teenagers in addition to everyone else. There were 14 of us in all. We stopped in South Carolina on the way up and boght fireworks for New Year's eve. And of course there was lots of food and liquor (ya think?). The funny thing was that we did most of the drinking on the 30th, not the 31st! :cocktail: I actually had a little too much and wound up tripping on the railroad ties around the hot tub and whacking my shins pretty good. Hey, it was dark and I couldn't see them! :guess At any rate, I didn't get into the hot tub after that - I just went upstairs and went to sleep. I wound up not drinking anything on New Year's eve! The best part of the whole week? It started snowing on Tuesday night and we wound up with about 4" by Wednesday morning! Our daughter's best friend had never seen snow before (mountains either, actually) so she was pretty excited. Our son and his friend went snowboarding on Wednesday and we all went snow tubing on Friday. What a blast! We also had a photographer come to the cabin and take a lot of pictures, so once Sean gets them up on our website, I'll post a link. I haven't gone and weighed yet, but I think a gained a few pounds back. No worries though - I have a fill scheduled for the 28th so it's back to normal. I see we have several new additions to our family! How cool is that!? Welcome to you all! I'm looking forward to getting to know all of you. Happy New Year!!

Get up and move. Not what you wanted to hear, I'm sure, but it will help dissipate the gas. At any rate, welcome! I love newbies!!

Newbies! Yay! Welcome, fellow bear! You do realize after we get down to goal we can't call ourselves bears anymore, right? We will be some mighty fine otters though! BTW, my DH was banded in February, so we have something in common. Wow, Juli was right - you are a hottie! Too bad I'm not single and a couple of decades younger. At any rate, it great to have you aboard. Damn boy! Talk about your hotties! I may have to dump Sean and move south! You're looking mighty fine there Edd. (I have to admit, I am curious as to what other components of the Santa suit you may or may not have been wearing when that pic was taken :heh:). Don't worry about the weigh-ins. I went through a phase of weighing every day and would get very frustrated when I hadn't lost something. Now I weigh whenever I think about it. I'm still at a plateau, but trying to get my restriction right. I went for a fill last Thursday and only got 1 cc. Now I'm too tight again so I'm going back in on Monday to have .5 cc taken back out.:tired I'm very sensitive to fills apparently. That one cc was the difference between feeling like I could eat anything in sight and not being able to keep hardly any solids down. Oh well, I knew coming into this that it was a process. No worries. :Banane48:

I'm getting one on Thursday. I'm hoping it moves the scale for me too. I've been stuck for weeks. So, who's done with their holiday shopping?? :heh:

Well, I guess I'm probably a 5.9. There was that little hetero marriage thing, but that was definitely not because of any sexual attraction. Everything happens for a reason, though. I wouldn't have my kids otherwise. How was everyone's Thanksgiving? I did eat a little too much, but that's certainly relative now. Overeating these days means two bites too much, not two plates too much!! The only bad part is that I couldn't fill up on turkey and just nibble at the sides like I had planned (my sister did the turkey and it was pretty dry so I couldn't eat it - thank goodness she doesn't ever visit this site!).

:bump2: We were almost to the bottom of the page again. Can't have that, can we?

Hey fam, Sounds like everyone is gearing up for Thursday. Several years ago, my family of origin started rotating hosting Thanksgiving. This year we're at my sister's house (mother of the nephew involved in the accident) so all we have to do is make a couple of dishes and show up. No major cleanup! Yay! Of course, next year it's here at our house... :rolleyes Lucy, congrats on reaching Onederland! That is totally awesome! I've been stress eating the last couple of weeks (can't imagine why) and I'm stuck, so I'm really happy for you - and a tad jealous, I admit. Many thanks to all of you for your thoughts and prayers over the past week or so. I appreciate you guys so much, and can't imagine my life now without a single one of you in it. Hmm, something to be thankful for, huh? I hope everyone has a safe and happy Turkey Day (well, except you Mark - since there's no Thanksgiving Down Under, you'll just have to have a happy Thursday :heh:).

Oh, shit! I didn't think anything could be as funny as Wheet's post but OMG, that is hilarious!!

Hi family. Sorry I haven't posted for a while. It's been a bitch of a last couple of weeks. Kaitie's accident was last Tuesday morning. Last Thursday night my 24-year-old nephew who is in the Army and home on leave before he's deployed to Iraq was driving home to my sister's house after being out with friends. There was a 15-year-old girl whose mother had hit a dog and stopped to check on it. The girl was out in the middle of the road kneeling over the dog when Chris came down the road. It was dark and a neighbor was in his lane with a flashlight pointed in his direction. Chris swerved into the oncoming lane to avoid hitting the neighbor and didn't see the girl with the dog. She (and the dog) were killed instantly. Very, very sad. Chris was not speeding, nor was he in any way impaired. There was just no avoiding what happened. Unfortunately, that doesn't change the facts. Now the Army has extended his leave so he can undergo some intensive counseling, plus they will send him for four more weeks when he gets back. They have also delayed his deployment indefinitely. So that was two weeks ago. On top of everything else, Sean's working a lot again so we've had several fights about it. Needless to say, the stress level in our house has been through the roof. In fact, Sean's working right now and won't be home until probably 9:00 or so tonight. AARRGGHH!!! So, now that I've vented, welcome to all the newbies! If I didn't scare you off, hopefully you'll stick around and be a part of our little family. And we love our Str8 folks! In fact, most of the time I forget who's Gay and and who's not (except for Pamela, who looks like a Lesbian - hehehe).

I don't think I look like one either. Of course that would be difficult, what with my Y chromosome and all. :biggrin1: Seriously though, I do get the "You don't act Gay." That one kills me. People think I should be able to arrange flowers, decorate everyone's house and put women's hair up fabulous updos. Sorry, I can't do any of those. My DH is even more frustrating to folks who stereotype. He drives a big butch pickup truck (and can actually work on it to boot!), keeps up with every sport imaginable (particularly football) and yet can bake the best pies and cheesecakes you've ever put in your mouth. Boy, I'm glad being Gay doesn't define us...

OMG, Connie...er, Pamela! (Connie Conehead, for those of you too young to remember the Coneheads, the Bump or the Hustle) That is too freakin hilarious!! Sean and I just dressed up as a couple of queers passing out candy... :heh: Lisa, welcome aboard! I guess our little family here isn't quite so little anymore... :confused:

Yeah Dee, I know what you mean about folks that want something for nothing. My main experience has been with friends though. As soon as they hear that Sean does computer consulting, they want him to "come over and fix such and such." He came up with the perfect answer, which we now both use: "You couldn't afford me/him." It's amazing how that shuts people up! He doesn't do any personal work - it's all for business clients, so since the work is much more advanced the rates are much higher. We do give a "family" discount, but we've really never had anyone ask for it. Business owners know the cost of doing business and don't generally expect us to cut them a break. But I digress. Sean did make it home for dinner - believe it or not, all he wanted was meatloaf, and it didn't even have to be homemade. So it wasn't! I bought a box of frozen mini-meat loaves and stuck them in the oven. I did make one of his (and my) favorite veggies, Brussels sprouts and made mashed potatoes for the kids. Again, I cheated and used instant - that is so not like me; I usually use Yukon Golds and mash them by hand. I really took the easy way out that night. At any rate, he liked dinner and his presents (no "present" - he wasn't interested :omg:) & cards. Ana as usual, our son didn't even remember it was his birthday. Of course let us try and forget his... Yesterday was even worse. Kaitie wrecked her car on the way to school. We had just paid over $1,000 for some mechanical work we had to have done on her car and Sean took her with along to pay so she could drive to school. It was rainy and wet, and the line of cars in front of her stopped suddenly and in her panic to try and stop, she hit the accelerator instead of the brake pedal. Oh, did I mention she's had her license less than two weeks? That earned her a $130-someting ticket and a trip to the 4-hour driving school to keep the points off her new license. Then to top it al off, Sean didn't get home until after 10:00 last night. At least tonight he was here at a more normal time. Tomorrow should be much calmer. I get off work at 1:45 and am getting a massage at 3:00, not that I need it or anything. :tired So, how it everyone else's week going? Anyone care to try and top mine??

Ohh, we're at the bottom of the page again. This won't do. :bump:

OH....MY....GOD!!! Where did you get that quote Wheet? You don't know how many people I would love to e-mail that to! Anonymously, of course...

Quote: Originally Posted by Flipper64 Hmmmmm....GLBTHLCF... I like it! Don't know how many replies you'll get, but it GLBTHLCF does have a ring to it... BTW, if you're gunning for the role of Official Smart Ass, it's already taken. By ME! But you can certainly give it a shot! At any rate, Now that I've been all cheery and welcoming, I need to vent a little. Today is Sean's birthday, so I've been planning on cooking dinner, giving him his present, then giving him his um, "present"... Anyway, we were late leaving for Sea World on Friday because of a client's server issue. Well, guess what? Same server, different issue tonight. So it's almost 7:00 and I have no idea when he'll be home. I am SOO pissed. Sometimes I hate owning a business...