plain

Ummmm....can't put a price on dignity.

Manatee, awesome work, man.

Big Rick and Ditto, It's all good guys! Post op, y'all will be laughing at how easy the surgery was. No worries...

I know that it's been posted ad nauseum but......that one guy just cries waaaaaaaay too much. I don't watch this show often, but every one I've seen, that guy is just a huge weeper. Grow a pair, dude.

Sorry. I'm from the south. I'll try to turn the southern-to-English translator back on.

When I saw the title to the thread, I thought you were angry at the computer!! :thumbup:

Sorry you had a bad experience, Sue. I work in a sleep lab, and it sounds like the one you went to was pretty crappy. Unfortunately, sleep labs are largely unregulated (only a handful of states require a license to work in a sleep lab. There exists a loophole where an unethical lab can literally hire a wino off the street, spend 1 night training him on where to place the electrodes, and set him loose on patients). The industry is trying to rectify, but it goes very slowly. FYI, some of the very worst OSA patients that I've had in the lad were the "buck o' five" types (very thin).....and snoring is usually very indicative of partial airway collapse. So....your rant I know......but it sounds to me like the doc wasn't coming out of left field on this one.

Hey Cajun. I hear ya on the RnY thing. Seems kinda drastic to me too. I'm only about 5 weeks post-band, but so far it's been both effective and easy, without the weird digestive issues that RnY and DS pts sometimes have.

So, Watcher (and I don't say this flippantly), do you think the problem will gradually diminish as the older generations eventually die off? Race relations were pretty bad for them, but things get better for each new generation. I mean, I was born in 1970 and things weren't horrible then. I think racism is even less tolerated by my kids' generation. Do you think things are getting better?

Qbert was the best! A little phallic, but still very cool!

You are absolutely right, Watcher. It's not a competition. So why is the plight of your ancestors worse than mine? My heritage is Indian. I'm not Irish, nor Asian, nor Jewish, nor Black. My people weren't immigrants. But here's the crux of my point: Whose peoples were done more wrong? Doesn't matter. That's my point. The more time you focus on the hurts of the past is time lost from today....right now. Clearly, I'm not advocating "forget the past". Do not forget, but move on. I think if you read what I posted above, you'd be hard pressed to find any hate at all....so were you accusing me or somebody else of hating? I think I've read all the posts in this thread and haven't found any hate yet. Earlier on, you said you wanted to start a dialog.......we can't start an open, honest dialog if you accuse people of hating when they provide a counter-point. Or possibly I'm taking your comment wrong? I'd like to go back and forth, if that's what you want.

Why is such a thing an impossibility, Tommy O?

*disclaimer* easily offended DS'ers may want to stop reading So, I was snooping in the DS forum on OH, and it seems like quite a few were drawn to that surgery because they could "eat normal food all they wanted". Sure, I know that these people are probably the minority, and that most of the DS'ers use it as a tool, responsibly. Heck, for that matter, I'm sure there are a lot of banders that misuse the band (although I haven't seen many here......perhaps they know better than to flaunt their flagrant misuse of the band). Do the DS'res have to get a psyche eval like the banders (uh.....I guess I can only speak for my area)? It just strikes me as a little odd to fix the outside without even trying to fix the inside.

Oh, I didn't mean to compare the issue of health vs. vanity with WLS. Heck, I'm enough of a libertarian to not care why somebody chooses WLS. My point was (and now that I read over my OP, I see the clarity was lacking) that if somebody chooses a particular WLS because they can still eat as much as they want, they may still have some significant "inside fixing" to do. As flawed an analogy as it is........suppose one is an alcoholic. The alcohol itself isn't the problem, but rather the over-consuption of it. To constantly battle this addiction, the individual has to come to terms with portion control (which in this case, I realize, would be zero). To constantly drink alcohol-free beer, although meeting the same goal in a different way, seems to be an incomplete treatment. Ok, it was a shitty analogy, but it was all I could think of off the top of my head. If a person opts for the DS because they have x amount of weight to lose, or their trusted doctor prefers that procedure, or because they want to look really good really fast.....I have no problem with anything like that. But to choose the DS because it's "easy, and I can still eat as much as I want" sounds like denial to me.

Because you haven't turned in an "A" paper, fairy.......heehee

I'm ok with a black president (and I'm a redneck, for goodness' sake). It's the liberal ideology he brings that I have a problem with (let the flaming begin). Watcher, I understand what you're saying about the older generation having a hard time getting over the 60's. But........can't all ethnic groups kinda claim the same thing? I'm a goodly part native american (or "injun", if you live where I live). My people struggle with the same issues you speak of. For a long time there were "No Irish" signs everywhere, similar to the Jim Crow laws. Asians were used as disposible, cheap manual labor for the railroads and mining. I don't get the "no liberation" thing. Liberation from what? As wanky and platitude-istic (I'm good at making up words) as it sounds, looking backwards at old hurts only divides us as a nation.

uh........thanks Wheet......nice visual.

Yeah.......one of the posters on the other forum actually wrote that she decided on the DS because the DS support group she attended (just for info) met at an all-you-can-eat buffet. That was really the thing that hit the "WTF" switch for me.

What a wanker......Sounds like somebody is taking their job a little too seriously.

Know how to lose 20 lbs in 1 week? Cut off a leg. Sorry......now back to your regularly scheduled thread.......

Gotcha, thanks! I've never heard that particular term....

Let me quit eavesdropping and ask something totally not my bees-wax: What in the hell is a "pannis"? Sounds like the scottish inflection for the male organ? Uh, I do know what a cameltoe is.....but isn't the cure for that to wear less tight pants?

Yeah, an A is considered "excellent", not "perfect". I think some professors do the "nobody gets an A" thing because of an inflated sense of intellectualism, ie, the students are nowhere near the instructor's idea of an excellent paper.

I feel your pain Wheetsin. I detest neighbors. That's why I live on 40 acres of beackwoods in the middle of Nowhere, Texas. I have to drive 20 minutes into town, but....neither do I have aggravation of the sort that you describe.

What if the child, having been raised in the belief system, refused treatment (I know that she couldn't have legally refused, being a minor)? Then you'd have a situation where the parents are refusing treatment and the minor is refusing. I believe there was a case similar to the above scenario with a 15-16 yr old boy and chemotherapy. Sure, the cases are different. But the point is, if you hold that the government should intervene, then what age should the child have a say? Also, seems like people are starting to take this debate a lil' personally. I think if you read back, both snuffy and I agree that this child's death was needless and tragic. I was just making the point that if you are of any faith, then maybe you could empathize with the decision of choosing between religion and the realities of secular life. To argue that "my religion makes exceptions for...." or "God would never...." is not the point, because then you're implying that your religion is more correct, and that's a whole 'nother thread.