PamRN

What is your name? Pam 2. What color shirt are you wearing? Heather Grey 3. What are you listening to right now? Nicktoons 4. What was the last thing you ate? 3 bites of a La-bamba's chicken Quesadilla 5. Do you wish on stars? Yes 6. If you were a crayon, what color would you be? Black Cherry 7. How is the weather right now? Beautiful fall day, Warm in the sun, hot in the car, chilly in the shade 8. Last person you spoke to on the phone? Son in Law 9. Favorite Sport? Volleyball 10. Favorite drink? Slushy mudslide or fuzzy navel 11. hair color? Chestnut brown 12. Eye color? blue/green 13. Siblings? 1 brother 14. Favorite month? June 15. Favorite food? Food! I love ethnic foods of nearly any kind 16. What was the last movie you saw? Longest Yard 17. Favorite day of the year! Christmas 18. What do you do to vent anger? voodoo baby ~ just kidding, ever the diplomat, I look for a way to turn it into a better situation (get my way)... or verbally burn the ears off the offender. Depends on my mood... ooh and I clean the hell out of my house too! Thanks Kathy! 19. What was your favorite toy as a child? The forts we would build outside with scrap wood, and whatever we could find. 20. Summer or winter? Summer 21. Hugs or Kisses? either one if it's chocolate! Kisses from my man. 22. Favorite ice cream flavor? Mint chocolate Chip 23. Restaurants or home cooking? I love to cook, and feed people, but I hate the mess. 24. Will everyone care enough to respond? not everyone, just the ones who count! 25. When was the last time you cried? When the seemingly healthy wife of one of our heart failure patients, had a stroke after finding out her long sick husband wasn't going home this time. Later that night we put her in the same room with him, pushed their beds together, and while I was assessing her, looked up to see him holding her hand, and gazing at her with an expression of such despair, and tears welled in his eyes. I had to leave the room. Every one on duty that night cried for them. She passed away in the morning, 6 hours into their 65th anniversary, (he died 2 days later). 26. What is under your bed? a heating pad, a blanket... & dust bunnies 27. How long have you been a member of Lapband Talk? 'bout a year and a half 28. What did you do last night? Worked a 12 hour night shift at the hospital. 29. What are you afraid of? Big spiders 30. Favorite car? Mustang 31. Favorite flower? Iris 32. How many keys on your ring? 5 33. How long have you been at your current job? Since 2001 34. Favorite day of the week? Sunday 35. What did you do on your birthday? DH and the kids brought me a cake and gifts, then we went out to dinner 36. How many states have you lived in? 1 37.How many cities/towns have you lived in? 4 38. What is your favorite form of exercise? Dancing 39.Your favorite store for bargains? ebay 40. Wasn't this fun? kinda If you have any questions you'd like to add, go right ahead.

It grew on me in my late twenties and early thirties. I had my third child at 32, owned an ice cream shop and was going full time to college... I ate my way through lectures, studies, pregnancy, and summer time... I went from the 130's to the 230's in about 5 years, continues growing clear up to 280 size 24's at one point. I was averaging 265 to 270 at surgery time. Today I put on a pair of 14's and there's room in them!

ok so I tried it friday, and yep it felt a lil cakey around my nose... read about lightening up the amount on the brush, tried it again last night and BINGO it works! I guess I was overloading the brush, even though it always seemed like there was so little there. It does cover redness very well. I am tan with a few "speckles" (daughter's term for freckles at 4) and it doesn't cover those, but that's ok. It stayed in place for my whole shift which from application to getting home is about 15 hours... and NO MAKEUP RUB-OFF on the phones!

I have the midband, and there was no difference in price as of Sept '04 when mine was placed.

Congratulations and welcome to the otherside! I see you got a fill too at surgery. I'm over a year out and thanks to that still haven't needed one. May you be as lucky! I'm glad you had a good experience, and hope you have continued success.

I think I'll call mine phoenix, like the bird re-emerges from the ashes, I am re-emerging from my fat suit... and my life is renewed thanks to a healthier, happier me.

Ok girls, I'm gonna drag it back out tomorrow and try it again. I had the problem with it looking weird on my nose too Vera, so I'm gonna try applying it there with my fingers and I'll let you all know how it goes, I'll wait a bit after moisturizing, and we'll see what happens. Kathy, the true blend stuff is very silky and light, I like everything about it, except the rub-offs. For people who can stand to powder over it, it might not be a problem. If you run a dry skin type you might absorb it better too. Don't skip trying it on my account, walmart sells tiny trial size packs, try those then decide.

I have good restriction, and pasta doesn't go down real well for me. I try it now and again, but I don't crave or miss it like I thought I would. Once something makes you miserably uncomfortable you'll find that you're ok with not having it anymore.

WOW you all have given me some great ideas! I'll run them past the boy when he gets home and see what he thinks. The lil pimp is friq'n adorable, that grin makes me just wanna hug and squeeze him! The Elvis idea made me laugh out loud, I'd love it if he would do that, but he's not into flashy, so I'm thinking he won't let me go there... I'm gonna try though. I love the idea for a chalk outline, that would be totally original around here. The jack in the box is excellent too, I bet that was great. We've done the classical policeman, fireman, wrestler costumes, though he might go for a hulk hogan this time. Napoleon Dynamite is good too, that's a favorite movie here, my grown kids quote it all the " flippin' " time. Rodeo clowns would be easily do-able, IF I could get him to wear clown makeup, it's on the table too. I can't fathom how to make him into an OCChopper, but if it were do-able that's one he'd like. A mummy would be easy and great, no real makeup required, he might go for that too. Thanks so much! I'll let you know how it ends up!

You need to get some really strong room deodorizer, or maybe one of those timed wisps room fragrancers, and perhaps a candle or three... make sure they are all rain forest or whatever scent you enjoy that is NOT food scented. Keep the nice ones in your office. You must spray the strong room deodorizer OUTSIDE your space while moaning about the smell making you "nauseaus in here". Then close your door and enjoy the clean relaxing scent from your soft fragrancer while they do the job of snuffing out the scent of simmering in sludge food slurping Erin. Erin's unspoken goal is to make you fatter so SHE looks skinnier. Then SHE will be the hot amazon in the office, and YOU will be the failure she's pretending not to be. Her agenda is strictly personal. Remember... SHE wants you to look bad so she looks better, and if you wont fail on your own, she will try and force you to. Perhaps an office wide memo about the unprofessional setting produced by staff eating at the desks, not to mention ruined documents from spillage, drips etc... are creating a need for a food only at breaks/lunch, and from now on only in the break room rule? Perhaps a bug in the ear of a higher up would help everyone improve their diet habits? If you have customers come into your office that would be a "common sense approach to professionalism". Has Erin met DeLarla? I think it's time she did.

I have the bare escentuals make ups, and really don't care for the foundation, it makes my skin feel dry/cakey too. I do like the eye shadows, and use the shadow/liner from time to time, and I absolutely love the brushes, I use them with everything else. Maybe they work best on an oily skin type person. I tend to run on the normal to dry side. I used them after moisturizing to see if that helped, but no luck. I find my favorite makeups to be either l'Oreal or clinique. Clinique is pricier but the quality is so worth it. I have tried the new covergirl true blend base and it's pretty silky feeling when you put it on, but it tends to rub off... I get a lil grossed out at makeup smears on stuff...'specially the cell phone, ick.

In this part of the country there are a few nicks for parts Girls have a cooter, boys have a peeper...

I eat broccoli cheese soup without blending it, and have no problems. The cream of the soup helps it wash down. I do have problems with citrus fruit unless I seperate the membranes. Broccoli as a whole veggie is hard to get down for me too, even when I chew it to death. You'll find for yourself through trial and error what you can and can't eat. If you eat something and it causes enough discomfort, you wont want to eat it again, and you wont miss it. I don't miss cakes, breads or the like at all, and I was a big bread eater. I don't miss them because when I think about them I think about how uncomfortable I am after eating them, then I don't want them anymore.

That's a perfect example of how differing all the docs can be. Motrin and advil are just brand names for ibuprofen. I wonder why they say no Tylenol too, Do you have liver issues by chance? Tylenol is stored in the liver and if too much is taken over too short a time or your liver function is less than optimal you can end up with liver damage from tylenol. This is why many healthcare providers will advise to alternate tylenol doses with ibuprofen doses when pain or fever would require staying medicated for more than a couple of doses. When my children have had fevers/ear infection/chicken pox we give a dose of tylenol then 4-6 hours later they get ibuprofen then tylenol again at the next dose. Perhaps your doc has a concern along the lines of reduced liver function maybe related to reduced intake; less than normal requirements? Was there mention of elevated AST's or ALT's after any of your blood draws? (liver function tests)

As long as you aren't on a high potency antibiotic, and aren't running any fever, I can't see why they would cancel a surgery. I do agree with Joyce in VA about the cough thing though. It will hurt like hell to have to cough hard for the first couple of days, and if you have a need to cough, in order to clear your airway, but can't that cough could possibly take a serious turn toward pneumonia. My advise would be load up on the liquids, extra sips of Clear Liquids will thin the secretions so you can easily clear them out, or break them up. chicken Soup works, the garlic and onions in it are natural cold fighters. Steam or cool vaporized air helps. Use a vaporizer or, Make your bathroom a mini steam room with your shower running on hot while you sit outside the shower breathing it in. Make a steam tent over a pot of boiled Water, shut off the heat under it, then drape a towel over your head, and lean over the steam, breathing it in. Don't get too close! putting a few drops of essential oil in the steam would make it nice too, tea tree oil, eucalyptus oil or menthol help clear passages. good luck, I do hope you are feeling better!

Thanks all of you for the support and encouragement. I have to say I hadn't been drinking the Protein drinks in quite a while, I'd forgotten how filling and staying they are! I had one today at 3 pm and I still feel pretty full from it. My DH and I have a bit of a routine on Mondays and Wednesdays, we drop our boy off at martial arts class then we get a moolatte at DQ and see what movies are in. I've been making the Protein shakes in the blender with lots of ice, some coffee, and french vanilla creamer, it's totally curbed my desire for the moolattes! I'm pretty happy about that. Those things must have a zillion calories and fat grams in them, and they aren't cheap. Protein powder is definitely paying off. I'm sure I'll never be a model bandster, if diet and exercise were my strong suits, I'd never have needed to be banded. But it's awesome to realize that I can make small changes in my diet and activity levels, changes I can live with, and actually see results without slipping back up the scale to square one or in my case square 280. It's nice to know that this band wont let me down, even when I've been lax, or sort of letting it down.

Enteric aspirin, or aspirin ec is coated with a slow dissolving coating that keeps the aspirin whole until it passes the sensitive stomach area, then slowly releases the medicine into the intestine where it won't cause much irritation. Ibuprofen is very irritating to the sensitive tissue of our stomachs, and could cause swelling to the point of blockage, the potential for irritation is there even in liquid form. Everyone is different, I've read others who have used it without problems... so far... You have to decide for yourself what risks you are willing to take vs. how far you will go to protect your band. You can take acetaminophen within reason, without problems. I personally take children's chewable tylenol multiplied up to equal my weight range. If I have a bad headache, I take a combination of tylenol and st josephs childrens chewable aspirin. I have taken aspirin ec in desperation for a bad headache at work with nothing else available, and though it worked without serious problem, I urped up the taste of aspirin for a while, the coating didn't hold out as long, partially because I cut it into quarters to make sure it would pass through, and it sat a while in my pouch so was dissolving before it even got to my stomach, forget the intestine part...

Yep, been there, done that, and will probably do it again. Sometimes just the taste helps curb the craving. I'm also at the stage where I know mostly what I can or can't eat. So I know how uncomfortable I will be if I actually eat something, but just chewing it then spitting it out can really hit the spot.

It's getting to be crunch time for me. I always make my kids costumes for halloween, and I need some ideas for a cool costume for my 9 year old boy. He's "too old" for most of the cartoon characters I've suggested, isn't interested in yu gi oh or pokemon... He hates scary or gory costumes... Thinks being a tube of toothpaste, or a can of pringles is "baby stuff". Last year we made him Luigi from nintendo, it was cute as hell. I made him an awesome wwf costume of the "Hurricane" the year before. He's very undecided this year, and I need to get started. I like to be original, no plastic masks here. My girls tell me that some of their favorite memories are of halloween in the different costumes we made. I'm not a seamstress, but can sew well enough to get by. I count a lot on stitch witchery, hot glue and fabric glue. Any suggestions?

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I have a renewed crush on Peter Brady/Christopher Knight. Have you all seen the new vh1 show he's on? "My Fair Brady" Man, he grew into a friq'n hunk! 'scuse me, I think I just had a hot flash...

Congrats Vines, You're doing great. Don't forget that with all the exercise you're doing, that you are trading out fat for muscle. I wouldn't sweat it too much when the scale doesn't move as long as I'm seeing changes in my inches or the fit of my clothes. I know that during the times my scale didn't move, others would say I looked like I'd been losing more. 5 pounds down is great!

Congratulations Vines! Looks like this week is a plateau breaker for many of us!

Sometimes when I dare drink while eating it causes the sliming to begin, and I've felt mighty uncomfortable. Other times I do believe it rinses the food down, because If I'm not too restricted, I seem to eat more. I've learned over time NOT to drink while eating. But that was a hard one for me.

There is some flexibility, both in the tissue of the stoma, and in the band. It gives a bit under pressure, so though it may reduce the volume of emesis (vomit), it will let it pass. Keep in mind though, that serious &/or continuous vomiting is linked to slippage, possibly because there is not enough give, etc... If vomiting becomes an issue, it would be wise to ask your doc about a prescription anti-emetic.