whippledaddy

It's the only part of Christmas that I don't get sick of. Except for those quiet moments when I understand the joy, Christmas is so stressing. Makes me feel fortunate that at least a small part of my family and childhood were'nt too messed up.

We grew up poor. Our Christmases were never about the presents, there was no giant windfall of brightly wrapped gifts under our scruffy little tree.

But it's lights, though few, shone with angelic brilliance, and what little fruit it did bear, meager as it was, seemed to be the bounty of kings.

This was because of my Mother, a woman who knew how to keep Christmas, and how to keep it well. All of Santa's gifts to me were hand made. Some were just for fun, but most were practical, and just what I needed at the time. He always knew when I needed more warm socks and gloves. And he seemed to manifest a muffler just as my old one wore out.

Now as I look back I realize just how poor my parents were. My heart goes out to them for the sacrifices they made to give me a good life, and to make me feel loved, and to show and tell me that I was special.

Mother was a magician. She could turn a few hard earned dollars into a royal feast, trade some time and sweat in for presents for her sons and husband. She loved to give, but she knew the real gifts of Christmas didn't come in boxes, however brightly adorned. She knew how to bestow those gifts on a little boy in the country, how to give them so that he unwrapped the truth in them.

Each year, just before my bedtime on Christmas Eve, she would put on her coat, and bid me to put on mine. And we would step out our front door, and she would give me the first gift of the Season, and, in so doing, pass on to me a tradition I carry on to this very day, some forty odd years later.

Outside, in Michigan's bitter nighttime, she would stand, leaning slightly forward, eyes cast upward at the sky. I would speak, and a kind, yet work worn, hand would lift a single finger to her lips: "Shhh". Then I, too, would take her stance of listening. That first night I must have looked at her like she was crazy, standing in her snow bound front yard in the middle of the night, listening to something I could not hear. She looked back at me and said "Can't you hear it?"

I strained harder. We stood there shivering and listening, and hearing nothing in the physical sense. But I heard it. At first it was faint, as subtle as the beating of my own heart. It was silence. It was profound silence. It was the silence of Christmas Eve. No cars were traveling the streets and roads, there was no reason then, no stores open, no crazed search for the last minute gift. It was silence screaming in my ear the sure and sound knowledge that all was well. "What do you hear?" She asked. There were no words for a little boy to use to explain just what it was. I heard no birds singing, I heard no engines running, I heard no trains, or planes, or the drone of the nearby factories. Yet I knew she expected an answer: "Magic" I replied.

No clumsy words of mine can tell you what you hear on that Silent Night each year. But every Christmas Eve, just before I go to bed, I step outside, and shivering and shuddering I look Heavenward, and lean out just a bit, and strain my ear to hear the nothingness.

It takes longer to hear it now. I am further from childhood each year, and everyone knows magic can be heard easiest by children. Also there are always cars roaring, trucks rumbling, people talking. The twenty four hour gas station on the corner sends out waves of light and noise. Christmas Eve isn't enough reason to close any more, and it's just enough of a reason to venture out for the last minute gift.

But it's there, the stillness of this night. Just beyond the human ear, just beyond our noise and light, is the Silent Night. Finally I hear the silence, the magic that only this night brings. And, I remember the woman who bore me, gave me life, and passed on her quiet wisdom to me, (and a joy in Christmas that can't be bought or sold).

I stand alone to listen now, as I have for the last twenty years. At least no one looking could see anyone beside me. I don't feel alone. Not at all. And as I remember why I'm out there, shivering in my front yard, I smile through my tears.

congrats Darcey! Ain't it Great!?

I'm there! Count me in! Can I help?

Hey Kelly, whassa LMBM? All I could think of was Lemon Meringue Bowel Movement, but it just didn't seem right.

Bandstock here I come!

What an inspiration Leo! We need these things from bandsters who are further out. It still has an unreal quality to it for me. While I'm fifty odd pounds down, and in smaller clothes already, it still doesn't seem real.

Pics like yours bring it home somehow. You should be so proud, and thankful! Good job. Big "Attaboy"!

Sorry to hear of your accident. I've had them, and those comments about being glad you came out of it relatively uninjured just don't sink in for a couple of days. But it's true. After some of this wears off, you'll realize that the material things take a back seat to our health.

I also agree with others that say seek any kind of medical help you can. Many injuries don't manifest themselves until much later, and without evidence of going to the doctor you might have a hard time connecting a future problem to the accident. I've heard this can be especially true in rear enders.

Sorry about your car. Perhaps this is an opportunity to find one you like even more? I for one am glad that you are ok, and know that everything will be all right in the end. If it isn't all right, it isn't the end.

HUNG CHOW????????

Ewwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Meanwhile, my mother would torture us if we didn't clean our plates. If there was one disgusting bite left, she'd put it in the fridge and make us eat it at Breakfast.< /div>

Oh, Wow! My Mom did the same thing. If you refused to eat the crust on the bread that's what you got at the next meal. Your plate right out of the fridge and in front of you with these pitiful dried up bread crusts. While everyone else got the real meal. Anything you refused to eat at a meal would come out at each meal until you did eat it.

HMmmmmmmm. I have an abhorrence to throwing away food as well. But now I have too. I can't eat it all like I used to.

Now. I'm hungry. My third meal is about to be cooked.

What everyone else said. I can't add anything but if you haven't been seen by an MD by now, go to your nearest emergency room. These may be nothing, or they may be vital early warning signs. But you'll never know until the testing is done. With your symptoms and circumstances tests can be done immediately that are normally scheduled weeks out.

Go to the E.R., because we all love you and want you to be safe.

Geez, sounds like Erin's a little slow on the uptake. Suggest she go downtown with you and pick out her casket. When she asks why tell her. "You're killing yourself, and driving me nuts. The least you should do is save your family the job of picking out the casket."

Then ask her if she's getting six of the male members of her family exercise equipmentfor Christmas. If she asks why explain to her that she'll want pall bearers who are fit, and strong.

Sounds extreme, but you'd think she'd get the hint. Good luck. Coworkers can be the worst or best part of our day.

Good luck, you deserve for things to get a little easier for you!

Tina,

Congratulations to you! It's a tough decision, and it takes courage to decide to change. Change is the most frightening thing we go through in life. Many people stay fat and unhealthy because of this fear.

I was afraid that the Band, or any WLS surgery for that matter, would change everything about my life. And so far it has. But the changes have been good. I no longer fear change, I welcome it.

People in our lives have no idea how to be supportive, I'm convinced of that. I'm also convinced that many of the people who seem so unsupportive think they are being just the opposite. But remember, change is a frightening for them as it is for you. They too are afraid. After all, any change in you could result in a change in your relationships.

They are afraid, and their fear has no reason behind it. They forget that you will still be YOU whether you band or not. They forget that your quality will shine through.

You are afraid, and it's normal. Change is scary. Everyone you talk to knows someone who's best friend's aunt, had an acquaintance whose youngest daughter had the surgery and she only lost the weight on one side then her left leg blew up like a zeppelin and they went in and found the band broken into seventeen pieces and lodged near a perfectly preserved donut in her uterus. (preceding ludicrous story for illustration purposes only). So, if that kind of thing bothers you, by all means, keep it all on the down low. It's your life, and your business.

But fear not. The beauty of the band is it's safety. Low complication rate. Non invasiveness, and ease of reversibility. Of all the courses out there it is the logical choice. I had to decide. I picked this, and now I'm one month out, it was easy, fast, and nearly painless. Well, a lot less painful than my overactive imagination had drawn it for me.

Diet and exercise do not work. Lose the weight, gain it back, plus a little bonus. Will power is good for the next meal, and maybe for months, but sooner or later the will power fades, and we fall into our old ways. If the will power worked there would be no fat people, no alchoholics, no addicts of any kind.

The way I saw it the only way to go was to choose between a short life and a longer one. Keeping my messed up relationship with food was the short life, the band was the longer one.

Follow your own star. Make your own decision based on who you are. One thing about these people here, they know how to be supportive, visit often, read the old threads. Contemplate. But move yourself to action. As Red says in "Shawshank Redemption" it's time to get busy living, or get busy dying. I suggest living with the band, you'll smile more than you do now, you'll laugh daily.

Good luck, and glad to see you here.

Well, it's been a month. And the day I came home from the hospital I vacuumed, did dishes, laundry, and mopped floors.

You all are moms and wives. You know that somebody's gotta do it. Well, in my house that somebody is me. Patty can't and I don't have any kids to enslave.

Doc only told me to lift less than 25 pounds for about a week. So I guess it's safe. Besides, I'm not lifting any more than I did every moment of my life, pre-band!

I've noticed that I always swallow a little air with a glass, and not with a straw. Maybe it's just one of those things that work on paper, but not in real life. You know, like it's been proven that bumblebees and junebugs can't possibly fly.

So today was the day Patty and I had set aside to do our Christmas shopping. Well, HER Christmas shopping. I don't have any family to speak of, so all I buy for is her. But she has lots of family, and they are on their best behaviour right now, too. Her family gives presents that are to die for.

We were out shopping, her in her Amigo thing with a basket, and me walking beside her. We have division of labor, she tells me what to get and then I put it in the cart.

It's her job to decide what we're buying for her side, and while we're in the stores I pick up necessities.

I bought dog food. Got a great deal on fifty pounds.

When we got home I had to carry all this stuff in the house. Sure was a lot of stuff! I carried the fifty pound bag of dogfood in last. About halfway up the steps I realized this is about the same amount of weight as I had lost. Hmmmmmm. Boy was it HEAVY! I realized I still have a couple more of those bags around my middle. No wonder I was tired, no wonder my knees hurt. No wonder I couldn't sleep.

That sure put things into perspective for me.

So try this the next time you're worried that it's not coming off fast enough, get something that weighs about what you've lost and carry it around for awhile. You will develop a healthy respect for what you've already accomplished.

Now, I've gotta go rest. The stores are murder this time of year.

Sip... Sip... Sip... no straws please....

Darcy

When I had my nutritional class for the surgery, the nutritionist was very adamant about no straws. So today I had a fill, and they had me sip some Water to make sure it was flowing through my banded tummy. Yep, you guessed it, the Doc gave me a cup with a straw.

Hmmmmm.

That coming out from under is a strange feeling, isn't it? To me it's like swimming to the top of a pool of thick gravy. You can get your eyes open, and you can observe, but each time you sink back down for a bit. I found it a bit unsettling. But it was worth it!

And you'll think it's worth it, too. Now remember, little butterfly, when you emerge you will experience a healing time, while your wings dry, and your soft shell hardens in the sun. Don't expect to fly just yet, but rest, spread your wings and relax. When the band is healed in, then you will get a fill, then the next journey starts.

Once emerged, the young butterfly crawls out into the sun, her gossamer wings glistening and wet, her young body soft and supple. Soon the breeze comes by and begins to dry her, and the sun hardens her exoskeleton, she stretches, arches her strengthening back, and in one steady glorious motion, the wings spread. They catch the sun, then the wind, and she drops from her perch and falls for a bit, then catches a puff of breeze, and flutters her new wings, and through the dappled halls of the forest she rises, to soar into the summer sky.

Zoe, those stats may not be accurate because they are the result of guessing between three different scales. My surgeon's, my doc's, and Patty's pain Doc in Cleveland just had to weigh me, he could'nt believe it! But it's in the neighborhood of fifty pounds lost. So, hey, I"ll take it.

Also, I weigh less by my home scale (don't worry folks, I weigh once a week) but at home I can get on the scale nekkid. Don't have to count the clothes.

Up 'yere in the North Woods, the days are short, and sunlight is a rare commodity, it's cold, and many days are grey. I go to work in the dark, and return home in the dark most days.

How about elsewhere? Needing comfort food (aka fattening) is a symptom of the winter blahs (aka S.A.D.), does everyone in the Northern Hemisphere get this way?

Also, "Here there be Dangers". Everybody and his brother are shoving goodies at you, and there's a snack tray in every breakroom, and home. It's so busy that the fast food lane looks appealing (even if the food doesn't), and it just takes less effort to let the nice person at the drive through window hand you a sack of carbs and fat.

But, wasn't our bingeing at this time of year much worse before the band? I know mine was. Yep the goodies find their way into you, but I used to eat a whole pie, wash it down with milk, and then grab some Cookies to fill up the corners. Now I must eat less. My heart goes out to those brothers and sisters who are still waiting, still striving for a band. This season must be hardest of all on them. Especially now that they see some help on the horizon, which just can't seem to get here fast enough.

Well, gotta go get ready for my very first fill which is today.

Good luck to all, and Happy Holidays. Try to love your way through them, not eat your way through!

Tellie, I'm sending the same wishes back to you. May this season be a joyous one, may life be one big NSV, and may that feeling last all year long.

No one but us knows how much we've gained by losing.

One day the world is grey, the sky an ashen hue. It takes all you can muster to suck the damp air into your lungs, and put one foot in front of the other.

Then a morning comes when the world has changed while you dreamed of sunlit lands. It is fluffy and white, and drifts down the corridors of the sky like frozen feathers lost by some mythical bird soaring in the stratosphere.

No matter where you stand and look up you see you're in a funnel of magic, and whatever your age you are transformed, and that place inside, where the children live, is closer now to the surface than ever.

The world is virginal. No foot has marked the plains of your front yard. The silence is real, and tangible. No matter how hard you try, you feel a magic, coming from all around you. You hate the cold, and you hate the snow.

It crunches and groans beneath your step, it complains of your passing. Yes, you drag the shovel, and you grumble under your cloudy breath, and when each neighbor waves, you wave back. Your smile is a little broader today, and so is everyone else's, your wave a little more exhuberant. You hate the snow, you hate the cold, but you cannot, absolutely cannot, hate this day.

So you grin as you grumble, you hum as you shovel. Such is the magic of a snowy day.

I've been getting a bald spot right on the top of my head. My doctor said to put Preparation H on it.

He said it wouldn't grow hair on my head, but it would shrink my head to fit what hair I have left.

Seriously my doctor told me that there would be some Hair loss, and thinning and that it was perfectly normal, and only temporary. If I were a lady I'd think this is a good excuse to buy hats.

Funny, but the whole time I was reading this thread the old Rock and Roll tune "The Backstabbers" was going through my head. These folks are true backstabbers, aren't they?

Theresa! Come next Wednesday you'll be changing! The chrysalis will crumble and the butterfly shall emerge!

Don't be nervous, be excited! Good luck to you my Band Sister!

The addiction never goes away. That's why it's an addiction, and not just an affinity for. It will always be there, but it can get easier to deal with. Like all addictions, knowing you are an addict is the largest step in the battle. Forgetting you are a food addict is the first giant step down the path of failure.

Since I've been banded I've found that even when I do delve into a little emotional eating, I can't eat that much, I've got some restriction, even before a fill. When I can't eat mass quantities of anything I get very anxious. So I must grab my own thoughts and turn them 'round to work on my actual feelings and emotions. In this way I'm able to fight against the demon of overeating. This way is working for me right now. But, whether food, or something else, I know addiction. It will change and twist. I will have to constantly learn new skills, and I will lose the weight.

That's what works for me. Hope it helps.

She knows I'm your banded brother. I think she liked what she saw here. She is much less critical of me being on here now. In fact she kind of encourages it. It's funny, but I think reading some of my posts reached her in a way that everything else I do could not.

It's a glimpse into how I feel about her, when she's not looking. Women are definitely mysterious. I wouldn't have it any other way.