NanaRenan

If you think you can make it with liquids only, go ahead and switch -- if it relieves your worrying over the whole issue. Otherwise, I would say "small" could be defined by eating dinner on a saucer rather than a dinner plate. Just DO what they tell you -- you want your liver to shrink!! My surgeon almost had to close me up unbanded because my liver was still so big!!! Took him almost 2 hours to do what should have taken a half hour or less! DON'T CHEAT!!

Clara, I'm sorry to hear your sister is feeling worse and I know you're disappointed. I will continue to pray for you both.

I DID get the go ahead to move forward a little yesterday when I called to make post-op check up! So I had some bean soup last night, but had my first -- ALMOST -- golf ball today trying to eat some grits. Got in too big of a hurry cause they were SOOO good. Had to lift my hands over my head and pray for a few moments! When I need to slow down, I turn my spoon over and my "bites" turn to licks. I'm venturing out to the store today to examine everything on the soup aisle that might be good blended. btw -- what do you have against frogs?? :mad:

WasA, you're my hero, my brave leader -- I will diligently follow in your footsteps..... I long for that day!

Fat people and Christians -- the last two groups that it is complete PC to ridicule publicly. Gotta love it. And so called 'celebrities' in sports are entertainment are worshipped and adored regardless of their moral character and integrity (or the absense thereof) while the aforementioned people are derided. Don't get me cranked on that stuff!!! :mad: Kids, its called, THEY'VE GOT US OVER A BARREL. You gotta wear something. At least we used to have the camaraderie of the maternity department!! But they finally said, "Screw this, we'll wear what we already have til it pops." *sigh* And ya'll will laugh, I am a professional seamstres by trade. But I hate sewing for myself, so.....:tired

Oh, Claramae -- I'll be praying for you and your sister. I'm glad you're able to be with her, because you might not be able for a while after your surgery. I got an email from a childhood friend. Saturday afternoon her SO died after a lengthy illness -- then Sunday morning her father passed away!! I'm SO bummed that I can't make the trip to be with her for his funeral. I SO wish I was another week out. I'm doing good, but I'm just not up for a 6 hour car trip each way and staying in a strange place overnight.

Judi -- I am impressed!! You're a better woman than I if you can wait until the doctor's to weigh!!! If I weight any more, I'm gonna have to put rechargeables in my scale or get an AC adapter. But it's okay -- I've hated them for so many years -- it's nice to actually ENJOY getting on them for a change! I'll be watching for your ticker tomorrow!

I think I was up about 2.5 to 3 when I walked out of the hospital, but lost all of that within 24 hours. I've always found it frustrating how your weight on the scales can fluctuate 2-5 lbs through out the day -- always rising by evening. Right now the opposite is true.....I'm going to bed about a pound lighter than when I wake up! LOL I know it won't last and the first of many plateaus looms just over the horizon, but its fun watching it now!

If you don't have anyone who can be with you, at least try to arrange for regularly scheduled phone calls. Any anesthesia can cause some delayed problems after you're released. Better safe than sorry.

You may feel fine and be hungry and feel no restriction, but your body is still healing and I would think a doctor foolish to start to tweak your fill before your body's done with all the healing, swelling, etc. Relax.

Hello back atcha from Pearland!!!

Hey! Hey! DH and I split that can of soup tonight! I did think it with broth, spooned his out and the took my THUNDERSTICK!!! (Immersible blender, that sounds like a porn movie!) and whirred the rest of it into liquid. Yummy! Tomorrow I'm gonna venture out to the supermarket to pick up a few more things and add more variety of flavors to my menu!!! Pam<---happy once again!

FOTU Fear Of The Unknown I'm becoming more aware all the time of what a buzzkill that is! I don't even think I yet realize all the things it stymies. But last Monday night I was having spasms of it. I was banded Tuesday and felt so FREED on Wednesday! I know there's work ahead. But I know I can make it through. So can you! Ya'll let us know how it goes!

Thanks a lot, WasA!! Printing those out to put by the scales!

Even with all the activity revolving around my surgery this month, I can't help but notice it's BACK TO SCHOOL time. I'm a little pouty because I didn't get to go with my GrandDoll shopping for uniforms and supplies....but WAIT'LL NEXT YEAR!!!! So, today's “GET TO KNOW ME” is designed to take us back!! MY ELEMENTARY SCHOOL WAS CALLED: Pleasant Hill Elementary I GOT PICKED ON FOR: being skinny!!! Having freckles, too! MY FAVORITE TEACHER WAS: Mrs. Harry (4th grade), because I was her pet and she wouldn't tolerate anyone picking on me! :heh: Every morning about 10 AM she would send me on a errand -- go to the cafeteria and purchase her two yeast rolls right out of the oven. She'd give me three nickels and I could eat the third roll on the way back to the class. :whoo: MY WORST TEACHER WAS: Miss Kiel (6th grade), she taught math by putting problems on the board, sending people up to work them and paddling you if you got them wrong. :omg: I was terrified of her, but made great grades in Math that year! MY BEST MEMORY IS: One fall I was playing on the bike racks and lost my brand new birthstone ring in the dirt and leaves. I cried because I'd begged for it for so long and was so proud of it. My friends and teachers helped, we searched for days. A few months later, the fall leaves had all blown away and I was just standing there kicking my toe in the dirt when I glimpsed something. Sure enough, it was my ruby ring!! Everyone -- even people who'd not helped in the search --remembered it and were happy for me. MY JUNIOR HIGH EXPERIENCE: Was not the best, not the worst. Biggest shock was that some people who were very good friends in elementary, were suddenly in a different social strata and acted like they didn't know me. I still hate that to this day and try to be the same with people whereever we are or whoever we're with. MY FAVORITE TEACHER WAS: Mr. Causey, because he was a Science teacher at heart, stuck teaching Math and it was SO easy to ask him a question and get him to lecturing for the whole hour and guess what, no math! MY FIRST CRUSH: There were too many to count!! MY MOST EMBARRASSING MOMENT: Pretty much the whole thing was one long embarrassment!:car: Isn't that par for the course? MY BIGGEST ACCOMPLISHMENT: Editor of the newspaper in 8th grade. THE DUMBEST THING I EVER DID WAS: I skipped a LOT of school. I mean A WHOLE LOT! Never got caught, although I did have to stoop to forgery on the attendance portion of my report cards. Once we skipped and went down to the river -- had a hard time explaining a sunburn to my mom, but I managed. "Well, we had to run laps, and, like, she made us do it one at a time, so we were standing in the hot sun waiting for everyone to get done...." LAME, huh? MY HIGH SCHOOL WAS: Bogalusa High School -- More of the same. SCHOOL COLORS:Black and Gold SCHOOL MASCOT: Lumberjacks (always the buffest guy with a full beard willing to wear flannel shirts year round! LOL) MY BEST SUBJECT: Made straight A's in Typing and Shorthand MY WORST SUBJECT: Geometry!!! Only class I ever legitimately failed! I still don't get it! Algebra either. I've diagnosed myself with borderline dyscalculia -- that's my story and I'm sticking to it! MY CLIQUE: A handful of other "on-the-fringes" -- just not quite cute/smart/rich/popular/hot enough to be with the IN crowd. Plus my school had all these sort of Greek "service" clubs with initials -- there was pledge week and the more popular you were the more pledge badges you wore -- nothing like having other popular kids FIGHT over you! (I woulda KILLED for one of those stupid paper cutouts pinned to my sweater!:tired) MY MUSIC: Strictly Top 40s -- Aerosmith, Boston, Kansas, Gary Wright ("Dream weavah..."), some disco, some r&B, etc. JUST NOOOOOO country! Wasn't into albums much -- I was the queen of the 99 cent 45, tho! EXTRACURRICULARS INCLUDED: I took piano for many years -- never was good, just consistent. Didn't really do anything else...no sports. Just rode my bike for hour upon hour. Friday and Saturday nights we 'rode around' -- made the circuit which started at one end of town in the Hardee's parking lot and looped through the Sonic Drive-in on the other end. Whole trip took about a half hour, going slow enough to see and be seen, y'know. Then of course there were those trips out to the company pasture....tsk, tsk, all those windy little roads to get lost on! LOL PROM WAS: Non-existant -- it'd been a big racial issue in the '60s and was discontinued until long after I was out of school. MOST MEMORABLE EVENT: There is a popular recording studio near my home town and we were called into an unannounced assembly in the auditorium one day and treated to a live, impropmtu Stevie Wonder concert. FOR KICKS WE: Skipped P.E. every day because our teacher -- the head football coach -- never came out of the field house. So we'd go eat lunch, come back for 4th period, then go have another lunch!!! I STILL CAN’T BELIEVE THAT I: Didn't finish!! I got married at the end of my Junior year and moved to TX. I fully intended to go back to school, but the level of education was significantly higher and I was terrified of failing something and being humiliated in front of my husband and his family. I got my GED a few months later. And even squeezed in a few semesters of community college in my late 20s. MY GRADUATION MEMORY: See question above! TO COLLEGE OR NOT TO COLLEGE: See question above!

That sounds like a very wise way of approaching it! I know I was a size 4 and weighed 145-150 when I got married. Smaller than you might expect at that weight, but very fit -- so quite dense muscle-wise. I'm 5' 5". I'd like to be a size 9/10 now, so, add on 30 years, allow for excess skin left over and poor muscle tone, I figure I'd have to be at least 150 to reach that size. But, don't hold me too that -- depends on how much I learn to like exercise again and if I get that tummy tuck!

"Survival Mode" is very real and DOES happen to fat people all the time. I've lived with it for years, it's part of my insulin-resistant/pre-diabetic and eventually diabetic genetics. If I restricted my calories to 1000 calories a day for more than three weeks, my appetite diminishes to the point that at six weeks, I'm not even taking enough enough fluids to be properly hydrated. Husband comes home to an empty table because I haven't even THOUGHT about food -- in fact, I didn't eat Breakfast or lunch yet. Needless to say the weight loss stops, about 3-4 weeks in, too, because my metabolism isn't even switching on to process food - cause there's hardly any coming in. I've been to doctor after doctor, dietician and nutritionists.....they all look at my diet journal and say, "You're not losing weight because you're not eating enough." I would say, "Do you know how crazy that sounds?" Then they would explain it again. Basically, it's my body ANTICIPATING that I'm going to end up only getting that 100 calories every few days like the starving children!! The only diet I ever had a modicum of success with Weight Watchers and it's because it had a range -- and I had to eat a MINIMUM of points every day. It kept my metabolism going enough that I didn't go into survival mode. Unfortunately, I got cocky and started to think I had it all figured out! But that's another thread.

It worked just now. Maybe it had something to do with my own account only being a few minutes old. Wonder if it'll let me change my name now that I'm in!! Sigh!! I remember when I used to be the most Net-saavy person I knew. Then again, I used to be the skinniest person I knew, too, OUAT!!!!:faint: Pam<---woefully dragging behind on the Information Superhighway!

I'm so glad you mentioned this! Now THIS I would like to try. My daughter and I were just discussing my goal weight -- which she thinks might be a little light, comparing it to what she knows I weighed as a bride. BUT, I told her, I rode my bike HOURS every day, so I was small, but very firm and weighed 15-20lbs more than I looked like I did. She walked away and I was sitting here thinking how odd I would look perched on a bike and circling my new, flat, all-the-streets-look-alike neighborhood like I did the very different one I grew up in! Spinning class!! I'm off to call the gym!

....:car: Okay, by now ya'll know I go for the dramatic titles. LOL I am curious to know -- from those who are months or more post-op, can you take pills/tablets/capsules/caplets/gelcaps. I'm by no means a junkie, and expect to be taking fewer and fewer prescriptions the more I lose. But just HATE those liquid Vitamins, etc. and want to know if and when I'll be able to handle something else. I mean -- HEY!! it got me off meds quickly -- if I was popping pain pills, I'd probably be still having a few and just spending some of this stage a little stoned....:eyebrows: But that disgusting syrup -- I really have to be hurting to be willing to take a dose of THAT gak. So let me know where you are post-op/fill and what size pill you can handle. Baby aspirin Regular aspirin Regular capsule Horse pills!

Sara -- forget about "young and inexperienced" -- I'm just so happy for you being banded, and eradicating the encumberance of obesity from your future so all those dreams you have won't be deterred at all!!! Congrats and thanks for letting us "GET TO KNOW YOU!"

Thanks for starting the thread, Starbuck. But do realize there are other factors to consider as well. I did everything that you did -- to the letter. I was denied. We provided additional info and wrote an appeal. I was denied. We provided even more data, wrote another appeal. I was denied. Once more. I was denied. We appealed one last time requesting that Aetna have someone who specializes in bariatric surgery look at my case. On the final try I was approved. Factors like BMI, co-morbidities or (in my case, the policy as our employer had agreed to it) all are huge factors in the equation. Yes, there is a process, but even that is no simple guarantee. BUT - CONGRATS TO YOU FOR GETTING APPROVED!! Hooray for me for a week post op!! And "You can do it!" to everyone else who's currently wrangling with Aetna!!!

I agree, Sereana! Pronetus certainly nailed that one!

Eeek! I'm SO excited for both of you! I went in a week ago tomorrow, so I'm not far enough out to be a great advisor, but I can cheerlead because I know how good it feels to have the whole surgery ordeal BEHIND you! Let us know how you're doing!

"cotton mouth" is when your mouth is so dry it feels as though it's been dried out with cotton and IF you can manage to drum up enough saliva to spit, it comes out like a poofy, white cotton ball. Actually -- it was a constant PRE-SURGERY condtion for me, but (a) I've weaned myself off of sinus meds I'd been dependant on for years and (:car: I'm more hydrated than I've ever been -- so I'm not having that problem NOW. Feel for those who are. It's SO annoying.