Fanny Adams

ERK!! Yesterday's storm was lots of fun but today I'm flying home and all of a sudden it doesn't seem like such fun afterall :thumbup:. Lots more thunder and lightening today too

I have Dr Watson too, so I guess he would have given me the same dietary advice. This is what I ate in the post-op stages: Days 1 to 3 - Clear liquids juice and/or diet jelly in the mornings, clear chicken, beef or vegetable broth/consomme for lunch & dinner, more jelly for dessert Days 4 to 10 - Full Liquids All of the above plus custards, yogurts, various creamed Soups. I also got a lot of chunky style soups and blended them to get the chunks out. Another fav was banana smoothies made with 0% skim milk and a teaspoon of honey. Skim milk is gross on its own but was fine in the smoothies. Days 11 to 21 - Mushies: All of the above plus porridges for Breakfast (all the nummy fruit ones from Uncle Toby's), stewed fruits (eg apples, plums), various chunky style soups, cottage/ricotta cheeses, scrambled eggs & omelettes, tuna mixed with fat free mayo, tuna morney, mashed potatoes, sweet potato, pumpkin and other soft mashed veges. Days 21 to 28 - Soft foods: All of the above plus various slow-cooked casseroles, bolognaise sauce, steamed veges, basically any "wet" dish". Day 29+ - Normal food!

In case anyone's bored and wants to take a vicarious holiday, these pics are from my trip to Cairns, in far northern Queensland, last year. It was at the beginning of the Wet Season, so the weather is a bit grey but the scenery was spectacular! Skyrail (12km long!) up the Atherton tablelands to Kuranda (a grey and misty day): http://w2.photobucket.com/pbwidget.swf?pbwurl=http://w2.photobucket.com/albums/y40/FannyAdams/Cairns/Day%202%20-%20Skyrail%20and%20Kuranda/489a9df3.pbw Day Trip to the Barrier Reef off Cairns (unfortunately I lost my underwater camera, so lost all the great pics I took of the fish underwater *cries*) http://w2.photobucket.com/pbwidget.swf?pbwurl=http://w2.photobucket.com/albums/y40/FannyAdams/Cairns/Day%203%20-%20Barrier%20Reef/e95f0f70.pbw Mossman Gorge (another grey day): http://w2.photobucket.com/pbwidget.swf?pbwurl=http://w2.photobucket.com/albums/y40/FannyAdams/Cairns/Day%205%20-%20Mossman%20Gorge%20and%20Daintree/9e834f62.pbw Boat tour on the Daintree River (a brighter day): http://w2.photobucket.com/pbwidget.swf?pbwurl=http://w2.photobucket.com/albums/y40/FannyAdams/Cairns/Day%206%20-%20Daintree/375a65c2.pbw

NOOO!! Tuesdays are great! I go home on Tuesdays!! LOL! Does that mean my addiction to LBT is now official? Do I get a badge??

Aww thanks folks, but you shouldn't get me started! I just snapped the storm ones on my phone camera, so they came out not bad for that. I love taking scenery pics on my digital and have hundreds - I'll flood the forum, given enough encouragement, hehehe! Re the flooding, no, that's not near me. It's way over on the east coast. I've found that not many US folk realise that Australia is very close in size to the mainland USA. If you disregard the north = hot/south = cool opposite, I live in the equivalent of New Mexico but work in Washington state. The flooding is roughly upstate New York. This might help to give you an idea - this is my state of West Aus only (flipped left/right), superimposed on the US, and drawn to scale:

The storms up here are pretty impressive. I just hope it doesn't look like that when I fly home tomorrow night!

Check out this storm coming in right now! It's going to be a beauty!! The thunder is pretty awesome too - I can feel the rumble coming through the floor of the office!

59F is15C - I'd have the heater on too!! BRRR! Probably don't break out the gloves until it gets to 5C (40F) though, which is only ever in the wee small hours of the night, never in daylight.

The downside of course, is the heat... I just got today's Health Warning on my office email: From: SSUWA Sent: Friday, November 21, 2008 4:43:09 PM To: Health Coordinator (AD) Subject: Heat Stress [sEC=UNCLASSIFIED] Auto forwarded by a Rule For Argyle: Following data is peak value predictions for: Saturday 22 November 2008: Max Environmental Temp: 43°C. (109.4F) Forecast: Risk of an afternoon storm. Relative Humidity: 40%. Apparent Temperature: 57°C. (134.6F) Heat Stress Index: Extreme. *Note: Last Wet Season, I saw warnings come through that said the Apparent Temperature was 63C!! That's 145.4F!!!

That's one thing that I really love about my job - I get to see some awesome scenery in some really remote parts of the country. Before I worked at Argyle, I was up in Nhulunbuy/Gove on the coast of the Gulf of Carpentaria in the Northern Territory. Not many people get to see that, as it is 700km into Arnhem Land and they don't give out tourist visas. I've seen most part of Aus now, from the incredible tropical rainforests around the Daintree River in Qld, to the central deserts of NT, SA and WA, to the forests and mountains in Victoria and Tasmania, and of course coastlines and beaches around the entire perimeter of the country. I never get tired of all the wonderful sights there are around Aus...

That's what we've been wanting to hear! Great news, Damo, and it will only get better from hereon out!

Thats part of the Argyle Diamonds mine site, in the far northern remote reaches of Western Australia. The open pit mine has been running for about 25 years but is going to be shut down in the next year or two, as the underground mine comes on line. Basically, they've been digging down into the mouth of an ancient volcano and have got to the point where taking away the "overburden" (all the rock on the sides of the mine) is more expensive than the diamonds they are getting out of the core in the middle, so we are now digging tunnels down to the bottom of the core and are going to mine our way up it. As mines in Western Australia go, it's not a bad size but not a patch on the open pit Iron ore mines in the Pilbara region - now those are ENORMOUS!! Several kilometres across usually. To give you an idea of scale, if you look at the mine picture, in the middle of the road at the bottom, there is a tiny white blob. That is one of the huge dump trucks that they use, which is almost as tall as a 5 story building!!

I'm bored at work, so I thought I'd post some more The view from my office, looking east: The view from my office looking west: The open pit mine: Some general scenery pics from around here:

PJTP: Driving from the airport back to the mine site, last week, I spotted these and thought you guys might be interested: The mine site is on a lease inside a private cattle station (Lissadell Station) - that's the mine tailings dam in the background. There are a lot of wild horses around, but I think these are too good looking and in too good a condition to be brumbies. More likely they are the station's stock, turned loose while Mum raises her baby... Aren't they beautiful??

Hi Bubz and welcome! There's quite a few of us Perthites around, always good to see more! You've come to the right place for support and advice - the people in here are really great for that! Feel free to ask any questions and don't be afraid to sing out if you're feeling a little down and need some cheering up. It's a bit of an emotional rollercoaster at times, mostly good, but occasionally we can all do with a bit of support. Good luck and I hope all goes well for you!

I flew back to site on Monday afternoon (it's noon on Wed for me now). Things with the hunk are going swimmingly, wonderfully well! :tongue2: I still wanna see Plain's beefcake pics though! :rolleyes2: No harm in looking, right?

Are you a man or a mouse?? Are you going to let some silly MIRROR tell you what to do? I say you show it who's the boss!!

Hmpf!! For a man who STILL hasn't come across with the beefcake pics, I dunno where you get off asking others for cheesecake shots!! :tt2: *notes the sadly empty state of her Inbox*

Sorry to hear you're feeling crap. Try some peppermint or ginger & honey tea, sipping really really slowly. They really helped me when I was too tight.

The Bitter and the Sweet The Sweet: I went for my morning run this morning, at my local park as I'm home from site. Most mornings when I go, there are 3-4 quite elderly people down there with their dogs and we always smile and wave. One old guy (80+) always calls out to me as I puff my way past "That'll do you some good!!" I smile and wave. Today, he was walking with another old lady and as I passed them, I heard her say to him "Have you seen how much weight she's dropped?" and he replied, "Yes, she's doing great, isn't she?" That was sweet. The Bitter: At the end of my run, as I was leaving the park, all of the oldies (4 of them today) had gathered together in the corner where I leave and were chatting. I stopped and chatted for a while and the lady was asking how I was doing. I have no qualms about sharing and was proudly telling her that I had lost 37kg!! They were all suitably impressed, which was lovely, until one of the old guys (different one from earlier), remarked "Wow, you must have looked really horrible before!" I had to laugh, however, and just smile and say "yes, I did, but I'm getting better now."

Here are my thoughts on this topic: http://www.lapbandtalk.com/f178/wondering-why-you-hit-plateau-regain-about-2-3-weeks-post-op-my-theory-80621/

It stands for Fly In/Fly Out, and is a mining term for when you work away on site but live in the city. I work 8 days away (over 3,000km from home) and have 6 days off at home, although with travel time, it's more like only 5 days at home.

Just posting to say that I get to see my honey tonight!! YAY! I've been away on site for the last 8 days and finally home again. I'm starting not to like this FIFO idea

You don't like mangoes??? :eek: BLASPHEMY!! So I guess my favourite restaurant dinner of salt & pepper squid with chilli mango chutney wouldn't be your first choice, eh?

Just to confirm this, my extremely fit and slim boyfriend (@160lb?) also has a large one of these on the base of his spine. It's called a lipoma and they occur in about 1% of the population. Some general information can be found here: Lipoma - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia, http://www.australiandoctor.com.au/patient/010316LIP.pdf and Lipoma