whippledaddy

It always seems that just when I think I've got problems someone else comes along who really has problems, and then I feel so selfish for not being thankful for what I have.

Lauri, my hopes and prayers are with you. But I think that your answers are coming too slow. Get on them docs and get them working a little faster, they may be wasting valuable time.

Thanks, it is kind of lonely around here. Chefs hate cooking for one. Patty's beaten the infection. Don't think it tested positive for MRSA, but she's had it before, so we gotta be careful.

She'll come home Monday, or Tuesday. Don't know what the pain doc has up his sleeve next. Hope it's something good.

Well, she's really sad about how the new year is starting off, that's for sure. But she'll be coming home monday or tuesday. I'll be there with her bright and early Monday morning. I'll have to leave by 4AM to arrive at 9.

She will be minus one of her pain controlling devices, so we'll see what comes next.

Thanks for all the well wishes. I'm off my pitty party now, and ready to take up the fight once again.

At my doctor's seminar there were printed handouts. If your doc did this too maybe he put the offer in writing. If he did it'll be easier to hold him to it. If not, contact the other people in the group who heard the offer.

Doctors are businesses too, no matter what they claim. They must follow ethical business practices.

Don't know what you should do about the fills. My doc gave me a 3cc fill and I have the 10cc band. He did it under fluoro, and got the first fill in before the end of the year so I won't have to pay deductible on that one, anyway.

You might try calling Inamed directly and voicing your concerns. Also most states have an office of Licensing and Registration, or some such name (they differ from state to state) you could call and voice your concerns on your doctor renegging on a deal. You could also give your state Ombudsman a call, as well as your State Representatives office. They can be quite helpful. You can even call the Attorney General's office to see if his practice was fraudulent.

You can fight if you want to. Just use the free government resources at your command.

Good luck.

02-03-05!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Yay, it'll be here before you know it.

Yesterday is a memory,

Tomorrow is a dream.

But today? Today is a gift. That's why we call it "the present".

As I sat alone in my living room I thought about the year past, and the year ahead. I'll set no goals for weight loss, because I didn't do this to lose weight, I did it to gain life. So one thing I want to accomplish in 2005 is to do just that, gain more life. Make some memories.

Also I did it so I could be a better husband, and caregiver for my wife, Patty. Now, I couldn't possibly love her more, but I could show it more. I could have more patience, with her, with myself, with day to day life. I can be a better man, and caregiver, with the added energy and self confidence this band can bring.

And I also plan on continuing a project I have been doing. Warning nurses. My wife was a nurse, and it's the job that got her where she is today. Be careful. You have a more dangerous job than you know. Needle sticks, lapses in sterile procedure, combative patients, are a few of the pitfalls. But the real bugaboo is lifting. When lifting alone, be careful, use safe lifting techniques. When lifting with others, be even more careful. Know your lifters, their character, and their strengths. Patty's partner dropped her half of a patient, just to hurt Patty. And it worked. Very well. Patty will never wear scrubs and walk the halls again. She passes meds only to herself, now. She needs a nurse, but her days of nursing have drawn to a close.

Take care Vickie. I don't think you'll ever find the glamour of your job. But you will find the caring sharing side. You'll be a great nurse. But take care of yourself first.

Happy New Year, Everyone!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Three elderly gents are sitting at the nursing home. The first man says, "I'm seventy years old, and it ain't too bad, except I wish I could have a good pee."

The second man said, "Well, I'm eighty, and I have a good pee every morning. I just wish I could have one good bowel movement."

The third man leaned forward in his wheelchair. He pointed a finger at the other two "Well, I'm Ninety years old. I take a good pee every morning at seven. I take a healthy BM every morning at eight." Then he leaned back in his chair, and staring straight ahead he said "I just wish I could get out of bed before nine."

Wow! There are so many hotties here. Did I already say that?

I DRANK ENOUGH Water TODAY!!!!!!!!!!

Enough posting, I gotta go pee.

I had never kept a resolution for more than a few days. Then, a few years ago I realized that I was an underachiever. How liberating! Now, each year I set resolutions that I can follow easily, a failsafe plan. Sure there isn't any challenge, but my poor battered ego really gets a boost when I realize that I kept my resolutions for an entire year.

Here are this year's resolutions:

Never get naked and roll around in fish hooks.

Never run through the car wash naked and ask for the "Hot Wax".

Never eat a Jeep.

I'll keep them and be happy. Not like past years when I broke my diet, or didn't mow the lawn often enough.

Two Irishmen leave a bar.

It COULD happen.

They pulled the tunnelled epidural catheter. Now she's laying in a hospital bed three hundred miles away. I am home with my dogs, and my worries. You see she's infected. It may be at the site. That means there may be MRSA in her spine. Not good. I'm not yet giving up hope, but I am concerned.

So we spend tonight apart. And New Year's Eve, and New Year's Day. And the day after that. She's on a pain pump. she can have 10cc's of Morphine an hour. I called her to let her know that I made it home in one piece. She was worried, she knew how tired I was. She sure doesn't need me to wrap it around a tree just now, does she?

In the last sixteen years we've been together to see each New Year in. This makes me very sad.

Suffice it to say that the five hour drive home tonight was the loneliest of my life. I miss her.

It paid for my wife's Roux en Y and my band. I'm in Michigan and have the State Health plan for state workers.

This forum has so many hotties!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I ain't never leavin'.

Well, actually, this is about the band, as Becky so rightly pointed out. One thing I have been doing is to kind of log, and make a mental note of my "head hunger". I take note of the weather, the time of day, the events of the day, my own feelings at the time, my physical state at the time of the hunger.

Grey days make me want to eat, and I crave fruits the most at this time. When I'm very tired I crave sweet gooey carbs. When I'm stressed it's on Pasta that I obsess. When the sky is clear, the sun is bright, and my tiredness is from honest physical exertion, then it's protiens like fish, chicken, and beef.

So, if you try, it can all be about the journey of the band. I know that I must get enough sleep to avoid the real baddies, and I know that I must control stress to get rid of other pitfalls of diet. So, perhaps a total spectrum bulb, and a reaffirmed dedication to exercise might help? And I can do it, too. Just as soon as these docs and nurses call back!

Thanks all, for the well wishes. They warm my heart as no summer sun could. And it's comforting to know that no matter what demons I must face each day, there are a group of caring people who stand beside me. I'll take your spirit with me tomorrow as I drive to Cleveland one more time.

Thank you all.

I need to vent, and this is the only place I could think of. Attention Health Care Providers. If you wonder why people sometimes seem unreasonable or edgy, maybe this will give you some insight.

Monday, 9:10 PM: Patty falls, bumping her head and using her arms to break her fall. Bad idea with the right arm. Re-injures and flares up RSD. Ambulance comes as she is unable to get up even with my help. Ambulance worker, after having been briefed by me on her tunneled epidural catheter steps on same while lifting her onto stretcher, pulling it out of it's spot in her spine.

Hospital takes x-rays of cervical spine to see if catheter is dislodged. No one at hospital can tell. She is sent home about 2:00 AM. I stay up with her and tend to her pain, giving her toradol shots and back rubs. I go to work that morning.

Tuesday 7:30 PM. I arrive home from work only to find her in terrible pain. I call our home nurse's answering service. Recieve a call back in about an hour. Wrong nurse. Call answering service back. Recieve a call back in about a half an hour. Wrong nurse again.

I give up on visiting nurse, and call the hospital. Ask who's on call for our family doc. Hospital won't page them as they don't think it's an emergency. Call family doc at home, ask him to call the stuck up switchboard person at hospital and tell them it IS an emergency. He does. They call the doc on call, Patty gets some meds to get her through until morning.

Go to sleep in chair at 11:00 PM. Wake up at 1:00 AM, give Patty toradol shot, massage. Stay up rest of night. 8:00 AM up and call doctors at Cleveland Clinic for evaluation on her catheter, is it displaced? Only I get a recording telling me they don't open until 8:00 AM. Call back at eight fifteen, and eight thirty, and eight forty five. Call the main number and complain. Am told that the office hadn't taken their phone off of Night Answer. 9:00 AM call doctors office in Cleveland again, told doc can't be reached but will call back. 10:30 AM call doctor's office in Cleveland again, am told that I should have been called an hour ago by the home nurse who is on the way to our house. She should have already been there already as it is only a forty minute drive.

11:30 AM put in call to Home care company asking when ETA of nurse is, am promised a call back. Nurse calls, says she'll be here about 1:00PM. She has to locate a babysitter first.

Nurse comes and assesses situation with catheter. She doesn't think it's displaced. Then she looks at it again and thinks it is. Calls family doc and asks that an anesthesiologist read the x-rays of her neck from Monday night. She leaves. 2:30 PM, we call doc's office and ask if the films have been read yet. Are told that they have been, and although they can't tell for sure we should go on the assumption that the catheter has moved. Must be tended to as quickly as possible as it could cause nerve damage. Ask doc to call the Walk In Clinic and order pain meds IM. He says he will do so immediately. We get in the car and go to the clinic, stopping at the bank to draw out cash for tomorrow's rocket run to Cleveland. We use the cell phone to make appt with pain doc in Cleveland while enroute to clinic.

3:00PM, arrive at the Walk In Clinic for pain shot. Doc hasn't called yet. Clinic calls Doc and gets order. Now clinic must send out for drugs as narcs aren't kept on premises.

4:30 PM Patty finally gets a pain shot. Now we have to get home, pack bags, and get ready to drive the three hundred miles to Cleveland tomorrow. If all those medical professionals could have pulled their collective thumbs out of their butts long enough to CALL BACK when promised, we could have gone down today, and back tomorrow. Now Patty has to endure an extra day of pain, and an extra day of possible nerve damage. And I must take yet another personal day at work.

And, each phone call I had to explain what a tunnelled epidural catheter was, and each phone call I had to explain what RSD was, and each time I had to tell the whole story of the fall and ambulance trip. Everyone has all info on computer, and charts, and no desire to read or use those tools.

Well, haven't had good sleep in several nights, gotta get up and drive tomorrow, three hundred miles. Should go to bed.

Thanks, I feel better. Had to shout this out of my system. Sometimes I wonder how any of our systems work, they've gotten so large, so clumsy.

Sorry that it had nothing to do with the band. Now that I'm over being mad, I'd like to just sit down, forget about being macho for a moment and just cry until I dehydrated.

G'night.

It's just gotta get better in '05!

There are no words. In things like this they are so clumsy, so useless. Like performing brain surgery with an axe.

So, know this. Across the miles, and across the great void of cyberspace, feel this, a cyber hug. Hugs to you (((((((Nancy))))))), and my prayers go toward you, and yours.

I got in six cups so far today. Been quite a day. Yesterday right after I answered this thread, Patty fell and hit her head HARD on the entertainment center. Couldn't move her, she was in far too much pain. Ambulance came and I think they pulled out her epidural catheter by standing on it when they lifted her onto the stretcher. Stayed up all night at the ER and then at home trying to get her comfortable again. So I kinda let the Water slip my mind. But I have drank at least ten cups of coffee, not counting that though as it is a diuretic.

Later.

I'm in the process of wearing out my third Taurus. They've been reliable, powerful, and incredibly dependable for me. But, they are boring as hell.

And Mark, it sounds like Kevin has a pretty fantastic Dad.

eighty ounces, or ten cups. I'm in.

You wake up in the morning. The sunlight through your window warms you not at all, your very soul aches, along with your head. Starved from oxygen your poor head sends fiery spasms of pain around it's circumference at every move.

You're tired. Your limbs are soft lead. You lift them. You get up. You go to the bathroom, and after answering nature you look in the mirror. Yes, you are still you. There is no smile on your face. No flush of morning energy in your cheeks. There is only the pasty face of someone you hate staring back at you.

You're tired. Your body asks for fuel, to energize it. You eat Breakfast, and if it's a healthy one you still hate yourself for eating so much. If it's an unhealthy one you hate yourself for being so weak.

You must face your parents. You love them so. Especially Dad. The greatest guy in the world. Lately you've wanted to rebel, yes, but there is love in your heart. Yet you feel their gaze. You feel the reproach in their eyes. Whether you are face to face, or your back is turned, you feel they aren't looking at you, but at one thing about you.

Everyone looks at that part of you. You know inside that there is so much more to you than what other people see. If they could see the rest of you too. But you're not sure if they can see that. You only know what they can surely see. They can see the same person you see in the mirror each morning. The person you hate most in the whole world. You don't expect anyone to love you, you can't even do that.

When you think that others find you weak, and maybe even lazy. When you feel that the whole world was designed to exclude you because the seats are too small, the clothes are too small, and the jokes are endless, and daily and just not that funny. When you feel that the people who gave you life regret their actions, or, worse yet, blame themselves for your condition (now you've let them down, and they take the rap for not raising you well). When you must spend every second of every day with someone you loathe, your own self.................................

Then it's easy to find a friend in the Second Helping. Then it's easy to take extra comfort in Comfort food. It stops everything for a moment. It takes away the thoughts. The torment in your own mind. The food IS a drug, and anyone who says it's not is skinny.

How many sons have died since 9/11? See the treasure you have in your own house, DAD. Want to help him? Then help him get some self esteem. Feeling he is esteemed by you is the place to start. Don't push him to fight a demon that he finds stronger than himself. Hug him. Tell him how much you love him. Tell him how lucky you are to have him. Tell him that you'll fight the demon with him, just like you did when there were monsters under the bed.

I'm 52, and I never had a child, let alone a son. I envy you. I'll never know what it's like to be called Dad by someone who thinks I'm the greatest. Now, at this age, he needs you more than ever to show him what a man is. Help usher him into manhood. When he's strong in spirit, and does the right thing even when it hurts him, you'll be so proud. And be proud of your son. Be blind to his appearance. Remember this: No morbidly obese person chose that path. Morbid means death. Your son has a deadly disease, but it's a strange one. Not cancer, not MS. Fat. It ain't funny, no matter how many jokes there are. Cherish what you DO have. A wonderful, beautiful boy.

I'll never know the joy of a son. I'll always remember what it was like growing up fat. I envy you, not him.

Hey, why is it that the mere mention of Boobs and I have to read the thread. No matter what. Why? I don't have them. Well, yeah, kind of, fat guy boobs. Well they are kind of perky, not bad for a dude. Ummmmmm, where was I?

Oh yeah, gee Jack, all we need is Greg and Tallguy and Leo. We always show up on the boob threads, ever notice?