Dragonwillow

It should be fine...but I'd wait till after a tummy tuck if you eventually plan to have one of those....they move your belly button then. It would not interfer with the band in anyway. I might decide to get sassy and have mine done later . Melissa

My mother in law is pertty small, so has never been heavy enough to have to loose 100lbs ever...but she has dieted and fusses about her weight when at most she might be 20lbs heavier than should be if that? She doesn't think much of my family...and can't say she is wrong about them but I would NEVER say something negative about someone elses family to that person. I feel like when we visit she spends all her time talking about my husband's brother and his family. I'm just overly sensative I think, since I feel like I've fought her for ever inch of respect, and it was just given to the sister in law from the get go. Course I meet my mother in law at age 15...my sister in law was around 27..so if we base everything on first impressions I'm sure my sister in law made a better one. Melissa

Ah that's across the street from the gym I work out at. And pretty convienent to me. But anywhere off of 485/85/77 is fine with me. On another note, looks like I'll be home this weekend. The trip got cancelled because the girl scout leader isn't feeling up to it. I tried to call the pysch office and get the appointment I turned down for friday but it was already taken. LOL I have got to find something to do to keep from driving myself crazy. Good news or bad depending on how you look at it, I can't justify postponing starting my diet till monday now. And I'll be home to get the new harry potter book! I wan't have to wait 3 extra days. I know I'm sounding pretty obsessive...and I'm feeling pretty obsessive. Melissa

Hmm, there is a I hop in pineville....right across from the Mall area? Convient to I 485. I don't go up 485 past that area much so not familiar with what else is further up 485. I'm cool with anywhere as 485 and 85 and 77 are all pretty convient to me...there are advantages to living in the landing path of the airport. Melissa

See you even make it sound even MORE heroic! LOL Melissa (gawd I hate it when I'm up in the middle of the night because I can't sleep)

I had mine pierced with my 13 year old as a bonding experience right after she turned 13. Since you got it done with a regular gun just remember to stick to REGULAR earrings. I like an idiot wanted to wear piercing studs...and no one told me before hand that the guage they pierce with a gun is much smaller that piercing gauges. Cartlidge does NOT STRETCH...so don't try. I had to let mine grow up because it stayed swore (mostly because I kept trying to put the piercing gauge studs in (even the smallest 16 guage was tight) and most of the bars I liked were like 18 guage. Anyway I still have a small "knot" on my upper ear many many months later. Now my daughter she just wears a regular earring in hers and it has healed FINE and she has NO promblems with it. I am planning at some point to get it done again, but this time will go to a tattoo/piercing place and have it done with the coring needle. Its a bit more painful sounding, but the only way to go if you want wear the bars. Oh and if you don't frail with it..., unlike I did mine, it heals up in no time. Before I messed with it, mine only hurt very briefly when they did it, and then for a few weeks when i forgot and tried to sleep on it. Melissa

I don't even know where Waxhaw is? But she said something about living off of 485 I thought. I'm going to start counting weight watcher points again monday, I think I'm out of control sigh...we won't talk about the chocolate chip Cookies I baked for the kids today. I talked to the nutritionist today..I apparently misunderstood the paper work totally she gave me for pre op diet. When I told her the protien drink I made ended up being like 46 grams a protien and i didn't think I should do six of those a day. LOL, apparently her scoop and the scoop in my protien mix are NOT created equal. So new instructions say about 21 protien grams total in my protien drink 6 times a day. That sounds more reasonable. Melissa

I plan to share food with one of my two kids, so hopefully it will be dropped! LOL I can get bitchy if people keep pestering me. I think I scared a poor waitress at cracker barrel recently....she kept apoligizing everytime we asked her for something....it was really bothering me. LOL she was doing a find job but the sorry thing. So I fianlly said " you know you are doing great, but you really got to work on apologizing all the time." I thought she was going to cry. I will have to keep from speaking my mind on annoying presistance after surgery. Melissa

Oh those pictures are awesome! I have my consult on Thursday I'm going to ask my doc if he will take pictures for me. LOL My 13 year old would hate it She fusses because I tend to watch my plastic surgery shows are er type shoes while eating LOL. I told her I'm fine with everyone elses blood just not mine . Glad to hear the nipple is healing up well. You should consider the nipple piercing thing now, can't be much worse pain wise and it could be symbolic of your lapband surgery. Melissa

Congrats and just imagine yourself at a healthy weight and fit...it'll be worth all the gas pain in the world I'm sure! Melissa

just keep in mind I think the 6th is tax free shopping weekend so things are crazy out that weekend. I so rarely shop that weekend so it doesn't matter to me....but others maybe planning to do all their school shopping then? Melissa

Right now the calendar is wide open for August, especially since it seems I won't get the surgery until at least September at the earliest. I can't tell you how bummed I am about that. But with the Pscyh not being able to see me till August 1st now for that darn evaul testing. And him and dr. V taking at least a week to do their paperwork ...thats another two weeks and then I gotta get insurance approval, yet another week or two and then a date scheduled and a two week liquid diet. Heck it maybe even October.....how depressing. Melissa

The shuffle is what I have but the 1 mg size...so I can get over 200 songs on it (i haven't filled it yet lol). But I love it for working out. It hangs over my neck doens't get in the way and is so light weight that I forget it is there. Hubby has the ipod mini and loves his, my daughter likes his and hates mine. She fusses because it doesn't display the song its playing. The whole purpose behind mine was to take to the gym, SO the shuffle is perfect. Before this I used a mini disc player. I liked this just fine too, but I wasted alot of time setting myself up at the machines, so didn't use it when I lifted. With the shuffle I leave it on for the whole 2 hours. It is great. Melissa

When I lost 50lbs once before my reward for myself was a tattoo. I have a thing for dragons so it would have been weird for me to pick anything else. You can see my tattoo here. It took about 3 hours to do, and a couple of visits with my artist to get it drawn up on paper how I liked it. I really want something on my lower back when I get to goal. Melissa

My mom once told me amoung many other things...that I wasn't really her baby...her baby died in the hostpital and the lady in the room was giving up her baby for adoption so they just gave her hers. I think I was about 8 years old. Imagine my disappointment when I found out it wasn't true. My husband says that when he first met me he noticed that when I spoke with my mom if I was withing arm distance I cringe and shrank as I talked by any movement on her part. This is because I wasn't allowed to have a view on anything....anytime I said something no matter what I was in danger of "talking back". Which if she decided I was talking back, it was usually followed with a slap. I almost failed jr high gym because I didn't dress out as much as I should have....I think the only reason I passed was the gym teacher suspected and took pity on me. Willow switches sting and leave nice straight lines where they strike. My mom cooked in batches. She would cook a huge pot of stew and we would eat that for the week. Our idea of a after school snack was a hotdog that she cooked up at the begining of the week wrapped individually in wax paper for us to heat up after school. When we got a micowave we finally got to eat more variety...well what was available in micowave meals that is. My dad...he was just weird but in and enduring way, at least until I wanted to bring friends home. On my first date my dad wrote down the date's tag number, driver liscense number, checked his insurance and registration card, checked the tire pressure in his tires and made sure he had sufficient gas. (all of this data he wrote done in the calander that he kept along with a blue pen, a black pen and a .07 lead pencil in his front pocket of his dress shirt. He did stuff like take pictures of us holding a frame around our face or calculate the perfect distance for the picture to be the best light, etc etc. There is a small look into my child hood. Melissa

If you like pink, i have most of her misunderstood and try this on my ipod. Most of her music is upbeat so great to work out to. I also have Smash Mouth (astro land), Simple Plan (No pads no helmets..just balls), Marron 5 (songs about jane)..I also tend to like Avril Lavigne (lets go). Melissa

Could you handle a protien drink? I still preband but sometimes when I don't feel like eating in the mornings I take a water bottle and a baggie of protien powder to the gym and mix water/protien powder after the workout. If you can't handle it with water, I'm sure you could find fat free milk somewhere, alot of fast food places even carry it now. If you are able to eat mushies maybe a ff sf pudding that you can mix a little ptotien powder in? They sell them in little cups that you could just drop in your bag. Pretty much anything you could mix a little protien powder in would be great. Also some of the protien drinks aren't so bad room temperture..I think the eas advantage coffee house drinks are okay this way. Melissa

Why keep it? Plain and simple, I'm cheap....I can tell you how much I paid for something in most cases. I'm still trying to become less of a horder...and even though I'm bad, I"m not as bad as my parents were...maybe my kids will be even better? Melissa Heck how can anyone with an game name of Dragon Willow not be a horder...hehe dragons are famous for it.

I'm terrible at this...and would welcome any of you that are good at throwing away crap to my house for a while to do just that. LOL The kids have too much stuff, mostly that they don't play with. We have all this other crap around that we don't use or rarely. My husband builds and services computers so we have bins of computer parts. He also has a passion for gadgets so we have a bunch of outdated "gadgets". I'm terrible at hording books. Oh and don't even get me started on the linen closet or the t shirt collection. I think at this point it would be okay to take every thing in my attic to goodwill....most of it has been there for over 3 years....I obviously don't need it. It's funny the speaker at church today spoke about his experience recently of purging his stuff because he is preparing his home for sell. I came home and boxed up a box of books but thats as far as I got. Maybe I'll try to get a closet cleaned out tomorrow. Melissa

I already use alot of their "professional" products, so will defiently have to look into this. Melissa

If anyone else goes through this experience, before you let dell reformat your drive check around. Some computer gurus...not just people trained to fix everything by reformating your computer, could have probally saved this stuff! I feel sick for you. I so dislike big companies like this. And more and more companies are sending our tech support jobs to India....it really sucks. Melissa

I agree she is beautiful..and I agree she does alot of comparing of herself to others...though she hides it...or at least tries to. I just worry about her. She also is jealous of her little sister who currently can eat like a pig sometimes and is "small" for her age. I know everyone goes on about how "small" Karah is and I know this bugs Kristen. Its illogical really, because Karah is 5 and Kristen is 13. Kristen is going through all the hormonal changes that teenagers go through and karah never stops moving...not even to watch tv. Kristen is more into artsy type of activities (writing, drawing, drama)....while Karah is our little athletic one in dance and gymnastics. The doctor keeps telling us to get kristen more active....but she doesn't like those activities too much so its hard to keep her doing them without us feeling like we are harping on her. She has red my "letter to the surgeon" that I wrote that chronicals my weight promblem as I remember it from age 12. She even said something to the effect...hey mom if your mom hadn't of made you diet when you weren't even really fat then maybe you wouldn't be fat now" . The kid is smart too. LOL Anyway, untill she actually asks me for advice I don't think I'll force anything on her. Just keep making the suttle changes needed in family groceries, and hope she will benifit from me eating smaller portions after lapband. Melissa

Kathy I'm sorry you are still having trouble with that fill. Sounds like its the best thing to get some taken out though. Let us know how it goes. Melissa

My daughter is one of these teenagers. She still dresses pretty much the way she wants, but she is about 40lbs overweight. The peditritian first said, she needs to watch what she eats about 4 years ago. She actually went to weight watchers with me for awhile but this tore her up (she cried if she gained, even if she expeted she would). I've tried getting her to exercise with me, and she moans and groans about it. I don't buy as much "junk" food to help discourage her from eating it. Since I had a mom that MADE me diet, I think I have failed because I won't MAKE her diet. I can try to encourage her...I can buy the right foods at home, but I can't make her diet. She has to take that step. If I mention anything about diet...she gets very upset and doesn't want to talk about it right now. I'm so afraid she is going to have an adult weight promblem soon. She weighs more at 13 than I did at 16 and I thought I was so huge then. Anyone else going through this with their teenagers? What do you do? Did they get better at eating habits too after you had your band surgery? I worry my daughter thinks that she can't loose and that she will just wait to have the surgery herself later. There are so many things that she might miss out on between now and then, that would be so much more enjoyable thinner. (I have tons of regrets like this over the last 22 years.) For me it was stuff like wedding pictures, wishing I was thinner and not so concious about my weight. Or being pregnant...and not looking pregnant just fatter, because I was already heavy. (i love cute pregant bellies...jealous that I never had that). Sleeveless tops....I almost NEVER show my upper arms, and that has been going on for YEARS. These are all things that I'm afraid she will regret later. Melissa

I'm right there with you Jack. I gave up soda awhile back in prep for the surgery and I don't like it at all now. I got the kids icees the other day, and I don't even like them anymore. My tastes are changing, If I could just get to NOT like sugar I'd be set. I used to be a 4 or more diet soda drinker a day. Now that the hubby is the only one still drinking it regularly (making the kids give it up too because the dentist said the acid is bad on the teeth) I don't need that fancy smacy can crusher we bought. LOL. Melissa