chameleon

I hope to be in your boat angyl! I still do not have final insurance approval but they expect to get it in Dec after I have jumped through my last ring of fire for the ins company and finish my 6 month clinically supervised weight loss attempt....what a joke! Try a 20 year weight loss attempt. Just the ins co. pathetic attempt to delay the inevitable. I will be going to the Cleveland Clinic and they are about 3 weeks out after I get ins approval and approval takes about 3 weeks so I could possibly get scheduled for the last week of Jan!!

My band dietician said that I need to get used to using either a kids chewable or a liquid vitamin. Also she wants me to start on chewable calcium citrate. I have been using caplets so far and I plan on finishing them then going to the chewables before surgery. Those viactiv chewables look like they would be good....they have chocolate, caramel, or strawberry.

Ariel, Don't ell him at all!! Just go to the hospital and have it done,and tell your mom to act like she didn't know you were doing it either, that way he won't be mad at her!!! Thats what I would do any how. You deserve your privacy and you are entitled to it legally, even if his health insurance is paying for it, they are not allowed to let him know.

I have been wrestling with this issue since I decided to persue this procedure. I am still not banded but it looks pretty promising for a January or February surgery date. Anyhow, on on ehand I totally agree with yeehaw...I don't care what kind of stuff people spout about not caring what anyone else thinks, we all do care to some extent, and she is right about having to endure the judgement of stupid people. On the other hand I feel the need to help other fat people out there who are suffering pysically and mentally because of their weight so I know that my need to help will over ride my need for privacy...this is just how I am, but I can appreciate both points of view.

beachee...first off, you look great! Is it ok to just stop taking bipolar meds or did you wean yourself off. Does the DR. know you took yourself off because I know that when my friend did this a few years ago she had a terrible manic episode. Take care and I'm glad you're doing so well!

I do have a paypal account as I sell some stuff on ebay but I really don't know how to use paypal outside of ebay....anybody have any info?

Ok, I have to write about the events of last night. I have been having pain with my back lately. I have a herniated disk and sciatica that kinda comes and goes, well right now I think it has moved in for an extended visit. Anyhow, it hurts like a beeeatch so I finally had to break down last night and go get my vicodan prescription filled. I went to wallgreens cuz it was like 9:30 when I realized that I would never be able to sleep without a pain pill and wallgreens is open 24 hours. So I pull in in my husbands big quad cab 4X4 Dodge ram truck which is hard pressed to fit perfectly in a conventional parking place, but it does, it just takes some doing. anyhow I was a little crooked but the truck tires were all inside the lines so I got out of the truck to go inside and some guy in his middle to late 50's with balding hair and a mean looking face is walking out to his car which is parked next to the truck but still has about 3 1/2 feet of clearance. So anyway this f-er says "what the F is wrong with you ya fat bitch don't you know how to park that thing? You would think that you'de have practice what with you havin to maneuvere your fat ass around all the time. How the F am I gonna get my car out?..." I turned aroud and look at his car and there was plenty...and I do mean plenty of room there and I go " Ummmm I think you can get out just fine and if you can't you don't need to be driving" Then He goes "shut the F up you fat F get your fat ass over here and move your F ing truck." I just kept walking into the store and he goes "You better hope your truck is in the same shape you left it in when you get back" and when I was going throught the door he goes "lets see if you can fit your F ing fat as throught that door ya fat C---" I got inside and I was so shook up that it took me 2 minutes to think that I better go out there and get his license number and make sure he wasn't vandalizing my truck. I picked up a pen and went out with my date book open and there he was parked behind my truck and just stepping out of his car. As soon as he saw me he got back in and with the window down he was yelling "What the fuck is your problem ya fat bitch did ya think I was gonna do somethin to your F ing truck...well you better be scared ya fat C---" After I went and looked at the side of the truck I went to the back of his car and wrote down the plate number. He was like "Your a F ing cow ya know that? Do ya think that scares me ya fat ass bitch? Finally as I walked by I turned around about three feet from his face and flipped him off. He goes Ya know what bitch that's the kinda shit that gets fat bitches killed" and I just kept on walking into the store. Once I was inside he drove off and I called the police. They came out and just told me there was nothing they could do about it because he didn't outright threaten me. The police woman who showed up was kinda laughing about it and saying theres really nothing we can do about someone yelling obscenities at you unless we actually hear him, then we could charge him with disorderly conduct. As far as the threats she said he would have to say "I am going to vandalize your truck" or "I am going to kill you" in order for it to be taken as a threat. I was so angry and in shock about all of it that I just left after giving my useless information and the useless License number to the store manager who at least pretended to be sincerely concerned about it and she didn't laugh about it like the female police officer had. The police woman was not even interested in taking down his license plate number! I was so appalled by this and I thought God I am so naieve to have been taken by surprise like that ...I mean when I was younger, in early 30's and I looked about 23 or 24 because fat girls always look youger just because we look like babies with our moon faces...anyway I expected youger men to treat me badly because it had happened a number of times and I wasn't even that big then...like a size 16 or so. What I'm saying is that as a 42 year old mother of 2 almost grown children and as a professional I just don't encounter these kind of men in my daily life ever and I was totally bowled over by the unprovoked evil and hatred this man showed. I am still reeling from it right now! Anyway, I just had to write this and I think I will also copy it to a thread entitled "Evil comes in many forms". It really shook my already shaky self image and I am now trying to regain my composure and my pride.

And a couple more:

a few more items:

apparently the stupid mofo never watched super size me. I hope he drowns in a puddle of old fat person urine...lol

Ok, I have to write about the events of last night. I have been having pain with my back lately. I have a herniated disk and sciatica that kinda comes and goes, well right now I think it has moved in for an extended visit. Anyhow, it hurts like a beeeatch so I finally had to break down last night and go get my vicodan prescription filled. I went to wallgreens cuz it was like 9:30 when I realized that I would never be able to sleep without a pain pill and wallgreens is open 24 hours. So I pull in in my husbands big quad cab 4X4 Dodge ram truck which is hard pressed to fit perfectly in a conventional parking place, but it does, it just takes some doing. anyhow I was a little crooked but the truck tires were all inside the lines so I got out of the truck to go inside and some guy in his middle to late 50's with balding hair and a mean looking face is walking out to his car which is parked next to the truck but still has about 3 1/2 feet of clearance. So anyway this f-er says "what the F is wrong with you ya fat bitch don't you know how to park that thing? You would think that you'de have practice what with you havin to maneuvere your fat ass around all the time. How the F am I gonna get my car out?..." I turned aroud and look at his car and there was plenty...and I do mean plenty of room there and I go " Ummmm I think you can get out just fine and if you can't you don't need to be driving" Then He goes "shut the F up you fat F get your fat ass over here and move your F ing truck." I just kept walking into the store and he goes "You better hope your truck is in the same shape you left it in when you get back" and when I was going throught the door he goes "lets see if you can fit your F ing fat as throught that door ya fat C---" I got inside and I was so shook up that it took me 2 minutes to think that I better go out there and get his license number and make sure he wasn't vandalizing my truck. I picked up a pen and went out with my date book open and there he was parked behind my truck and just stepping out of his car. As soon as he saw me he got back in and with the window down he was yelling "What the fuck is your problem ya fat bitch did ya think I was gonna do somethin to your F ing truck...well you better be scared ya fat C---" After I went and looked at the side of the truck I went to the back of his car and wrote down the plate number. He was like "Your a F ing cow ya know that? Do ya think that scares me ya fat ass bitch? Finally as I walked by I turned around about three feet from his face and flipped him off. He goes Ya know what bitch that's the kinda shit that gets fat bitches killed" and I just kept on walking into the store. Once I was inside he drove off and I called the police. They came out and just told me there was nothing they could do about it because he didn't outright threaten me. The police woman who showed up was kinda laughing about it and saying theres really nothing we can do about someone yelling obscenities at you unless we actually hear him, then we could charge him with disorderly conduct. As far as the threats she said he would have to say "I am going to vandalize your truck" or "I am going to kill you" in order for it to be taken as a threat. I was so angry and in shock about all of it that I just left after giving my useless information and the useless License number to the store manager who at least pretended to be sincerely concerned about it and she didn't laugh about it like the female police officer had. The police woman was not even interested in taking down his license plate number! I was so appalled by this and I thought God I am so naieve to have been taken by surprise like that ...I mean when I was younger, in early 30's and I looked about 23 or 24 because fat girls always look youger just because we look like babies with our moon faces...anyway I expected youger men to treat me badly because it had happened a number of times and I wasn't even that big then...like a size 16 or so. What I'm saying is that as a 42 year old mother of 2 almost grown children and as a professional I just don't encounter these kind of men in my daily life ever and I was totally bowled over by the unprovoked evil and hatred this man showed. I am still reeling from it right now! Anyway, I just had to write this and I think I will also copy it to a thread entitled "Evil comes in many forms". It really shook my already shaky self image and I am now trying to regain my composure and my pride.

well, I have fallen off the ww wagon...actually I fell off about 2 weeks ago when I went in and the scale said I had gained back 3 of my hard lost 7.5 pounds in just 1 week! Even though I had my period that week I was crushed. I was also getting bored with the counting and journalizing even though thats the only way i can ever loose weight. I did not go for my weigh in last Tuesday and I missed today also so if I do go back next Tuesday it will have been three weeks. I only lasted for 6 weeks. That seems to be my limit with ww. I don't know why. I am going to go back to it as of today though and hopefully the scale wont be completely horrifying next week. The fat dietician (me) meets with the skinny dietician this week to get my dose of why I am fat and how to get skinny from a sweet innocent size 5, 23 year old. She really is rather nice though so I won't be catty just because I am jealous!! The irony of the entire situation really gets to me though. I am just going through the motions because of hte whole insurance BS. Getting real old too. I have decided on how I am gonna do all of my surgeries though and that has eased my mind some what. Hopefully I will get the go ahead from my insurance company in January and I can have the band procedure done in February. Then in July I will have bilateral skin sparing mastectomy with implant reconstruction and an oopherectomy or possibly a full hysterectomy at the same time if they will do it all at once. I am waiting for my BRCA 1 results to officially come back...just a technicality since I know I have the mutation...well theres a 1 in 10000000000000000 chance that I don't but...I'm not holding my breath. My sister lucked out and she tested negative Thank You God. Now my greatest prayer will be that both of my children are spared. If my daughter has the mutation she says she wants to have the bilateral mastectomy soon. I hate for her to have to face such a decision so young. She is only 22. Chances are that she won't have to worry about it for another 10 or 15 years, but the chances of me getting breast cancer at 37 were less than 3% of all breast cancers. So I don't trust odds. I won't try to influence her decision because I could never live with myself if she waited because I advised her to wait and then ended up with breast cancer. Please God..please spare my children from this disease. I ask this in your Son Jesus name. Amen.

PREBAND~1.pdf I am trying to figure out how to do this with the pictures...Oh my I think I got it...here is an avatar my friend sent me...lol

well, I have fallen off the ww wagon...actually I fell off about 2 weeks ago when I went in and the scale said I had gained back 3 of my hard lost 7.5 pounds in just 1 week! Even though I had my period that week I was crushed. I was also getting bored with the counting and journalizing even though thats the only way i can ever loose weight. I did not go for my weigh in last Tuesday and I missed today also so if I do go back next Tuesday it will have been three weeks. I only lasted for 6 weeks. That seems to be my limit with ww. I don't know why. I am going to go back to it as of today though and hopefully the scale wont be completely horrifying next week. The fat dietician (me) meets with the skinny dietician this week to get my dose of why I am fat and how to get skinny from a sweet innocent size 5, 23 year old. She really is rather nice though so I won't be catty just because I am jealous!! The irony of the entire situation really gets to me though. I am just going through the motions because of hte whole insurance BS. Getting real old too. I have decided on how I am gonna do all of my surgeries though and that has eased my mind some what. Hopefully I will get the go ahead from my insurance company in January and I can have the band procedure done in February. Then in July I will have bilateral skin sparing mastectomy with implant reconstruction and an oopherectomy or possibly a full hysterectomy at the same time if they will do it all at once. I am waiting for my BRCA 1 results to officially come back...just a technicality since I know I have the mutation...well theres a 1 in 10000000000000000 chance that I don't but...I'm not holding my breath. My sister lucked out and she tested negative Thank You God. Now my greatest prayer will be that both of my children are spared. If my daughter has the mutation she says she wants to have the bilateral mastectomy soon. I hate for her to have to face such a decision so young. She is only 22. Chances are that she won't have to worry about it for another 10 or 15 years, but the chances of me getting breast cancer at 37 were less than 3% of all breast cancers. So I don't trust odds. I won't try to influence her decision because I could never live with myself if she waited because I advised her to wait and then ended up with breast cancer. Please God..please spare my children from this disease. I ask this in your Son Jesus name. Amen.

Actually Pug, I have been hanging out on this thread for 9 months and I didn't know for 7 of them what the hell it was and I felt like a dumbass asking because ...well some profesional bandsters who spend 5 or 6 hours a day in here treat ya like that when ya ask a qestion like that. Thankfully most of them have been booted off. Funny that when I went to Cleveland Clinic, one of the most renowned bariatric surgeons in the US had no idea what it stood for, and neither did the nurses or any of the other people sooooooo I guess its just a made up abbreviation like most of them are!! But most of the people on this site are very nice and very helpful so don't let the handful of @%#*@$% bug ya! Donna

Or however ya spell it...anyway I ate a whole pomegranate just now and it took like an hour so thats probably a pretty good diet food...when ya burn all the calorie in a food while attempting to eat it that qualifies it as "diet" food. Any how, I recently learned that poms top blueberries as a leading source of antioxidants. Isn't that interesting??? I wish I had another gem to lay on ya but that about does it for today. Oh my Garsh I am sooooo bored tonight!:faint:

OK, This will scare the bejeesus outta you....I have been persuing this lapband procedure for about 8 months and am still fulfilling the lastest hoop of fire that my insurance company requires, it looks like I will finally have a surgery date sometime in February. Heres the kicker...I had Breast Cancer in 2001 when I was 37 and then a metastisis to my lung in 2005. I had a lumpectomy and chemo and radiation for the breast and a lobectomy and chemo for the lung. Recently, my PCP and my oncologist are seriously discussing prophylactic mastectomy and a total hysterectomy because I am high risk for reoccurrance due to my history and my testing positive for the BRCA 2 gene mutation. All of my docs have given me the go ahead for the lapband though because I am cancer free and halthy right now. Soooooo I am planning to have the lapband in Feb 2007 and then in July of 2008 I plan to have a bilateral mastectomy with DIEP flap reconstruction... that means that they will remove excess skin and fat from my abdominal area and use some of it to recreate my breasts...they can donate the rest to a soap company for all I care!!! So whattya think...am I crazy? Does anyone else know someone who has had any of this stuff done...I am kinda scared of all the surgery...but I have a 97% chance of getting breast cancer again if I don't do it and I have a very good chance of ovarian cancer without that one too so I guess its a no brainer...but still scarry...I also wanted to know if you think that is a big enough time span to allow for alll or most of my weight to come off with the band...that is 17 months...I need to loose about 140 lbs and I know everyone is different but I'm just wondering because I do have to plan this stuff and also, I'd like to get the mastectomy sooner...like December of 2007 if possible but that would only leave 10 months after the lapband surgery for me to loose weight. I really don't want to jeapordize my health because of vanity and I wont but I just need advice. Thanks, Donna

Telly you look great!!

With a DIEP flap and or with a skin sparing mastectomy with implants you don't have to wait, because with DIEP flap reconstruction, even if they remove all of the skin (and sometimes the nipple depending on what you choose to do...leaving the nipple also leaves a 10% chance of a breast cancer reoccurrance), they replace the skin usually during the same procedure with skin and fat from the abdomen. With a skin sparing mastectomy they just use the fat and throw away the skin from the DIEP flap procedure. They also do something called a GAP flap where they use tissue from the gluteal area instead of the abdomen...but I have more fat in the abdominal area and pretty much no butt! Here is a link to some of the newest procedures being done, but some of them are pretty graphic so beware... http://breastcenter.com/breastrecon/beforeafter-images.html Anyway, I have considered doing the mastectomy then lapband then TT but if I choose to do the DIEP which is where I am leaning, the TT is part of the deal...I would rather not have these kinds of decisions to make at all but alas...tis life!! Thanks for the words of encouragement...I need all I can get! Love One Another... Donna

Or however ya spell it...anyway I ate a whole pomegranate just now and it took like an hour so thats probably a pretty good diet food...when ya burn all the calorie in a food while attempting to eat it that qualifies it as "diet" food. Any how, I recently learned that poms top blueberries as a leading source of antioxidants. Isn't that interesting??? I wish I had another gem to lay on ya but that about does it for today. Oh my Garsh I am sooooo bored tonight!:faint:

I work for a public school district as their dietician. I work very hard to provide healthy choices for the kids when I make my menus so it's really funny to me that all the other administrators want to eat are donuts and crap like that in the morning. In the admin offices were I am, one person is in charge of bringing "donuts" each pay day. On my days I bring in whole grain bagels and fruit, all of which is left at the end of the day and eaten by the night custodians. I figure that if I don't believe in it I'm not going to do it...right?? I don't eat the donuts, cakes, danish etc. that get brought in by others either, never did, wether I was dieting or not...I hate sweets in the morning and actually I really don't care for donuts at all. Now gimme a bowl of home made mac and cheese and look out....Oh did I say that out loud??...heeheee:D

Ok T....here ya go...How about sex??? we can all become sex addicts...no I guess its not really that funny for those that really are sex addicts Huh? Ok, ummm lets see, well I could let you borrow my herniated disk and you could take advantage of my current vicodin buzz....heeehee. Don't worry honey it will get better.

Amen

Ok, real quick...I lost 2 more lbs aat ww this week for a grand total of 7.4 wooohoooo. I guess its better than nothin. baout 1.9 lbs per week off...hey if I could do that for a year.....yeah whatever. I actually start thinkin of that sometimes....thats what the evil insurance companies want ya to think so that I will abandone the idea of wls in favor of a self paid lifetime of ww memberships that will net me a gain of another 50 lbs by the time I die, and a loss of another 10 grand probably....they figure better hers than ours!! Anyway, I went to my obligatory meeting with the RD at Cleveland Clinic today, and I was my usual 20 minutes late for the appointment...and she was rather annoyed...oh well. So me, the FAT dietician listened to the skinny dietician tell me how to eat, because, obviously THAT must be the problem! So anyway she was nice about it and really not condescending...thank god for her sake! So we talked about nothing for 15 minutes, Cleveland Clinic billed Medical Mutual $200.00 for the visit that they insist upon and I wait til next month to do it all again. OH BY THE WAY....Very interesting finding....I have lost 8 pounds since I was there 5 weeks ago and she did not even acknowledge it...I mean, I know you can't see it on me, but she weighed me and wrote in the new weight right next to the last weight and...not one friggin word like "oh ya lost a little weight, that's great keep up the good work" Nope, nothin no yes, no, go to hell...nada. Here's me thinkin I'm not doin too bad and waiting for that little crumb...how pathetic is that??? AND THEN THE GREAT EPIPHANY CAME TO ME!....I never thought I gave a rats ass about that little bit of praise that I get at ww...but alas...I crave it!!! I never knew it before because I hav never had it...but once you get it, it's like a drug. Anyhow, that is the secret to the success of the ww empire....not the good plan they have (and it is good), not the gadgets and food and stuff...ITS THE NEED THAT MOST ALL OF US HAVE FOR PRAISE, and for comraderie...like we're all in this together...we can beat this thing...I love you, you love me, we're a happy family....(Barney sucks the big one) YES folks...it's all about a giant multi billion dollar industry exploiting our basic need of acceptance and of love. OK...I gotta step down off my pulpit now before someone knocks my ass off.. Love One Another... Nighty Nite D:D

Ok, real quick...I lost 2 more lbs aat ww this week for a grand total of 7.4 wooohoooo. I guess its better than nothin. baout 1.9 lbs per week off...hey if I could do that for a year.....yeah whatever. I actually start thinkin of that sometimes....thats what the evil insurance companies want ya to think so that I will abandone the idea of wls in favor of a self paid lifetime of ww memberships that will net me a gain of another 50 lbs by the time I die, and a loss of another 10 grand probably....they figure better hers than ours!! Anyway, I went to my obligatory meeting with the RD at Cleveland Clinic today, and I was my usual 20 minutes late for the appointment...and she was rather annoyed...oh well. So me, the FAT dietician listened to the skinny dietician tell me how to eat, because, obviously THAT must be the problem! So anyway she was nice about it and really not condescending...thank god for her sake! So we talked about nothing for 15 minutes, Cleveland Clinic billed Medical Mutual $200.00 for the visit that they insist upon and I wait til next month to do it all again. OH BY THE WAY....Very interesting finding....I have lost 8 pounds since I was there 5 weeks ago and she did not even acknowledge it...I mean, I know you can't see it on me, but she weighed me and wrote in the new weight right next to the last weight and...not one friggin word like "oh ya lost a little weight, that's great keep up the good work" Nope, nothin no yes, no, go to hell...nada. Here's me thinkin I'm not doin too bad and waiting for that little crumb...how pathetic is that??? AND THEN THE GREAT EPIPHANY CAME TO ME!....I never thought I gave a rats ass about that little bit of praise that I get at ww...but alas...I crave it!!! I never knew it before because I hav never had it...but once you get it, it's like a drug. Anyhow, that is the secret to the success of the ww empire....not the good plan they have (and it is good), not the gadgets and food and stuff...ITS THE NEED THAT MOST ALL OF US HAVE FOR PRAISE, and for comraderie...like we're all in this together...we can beat this thing...I love you, you love me, we're a happy family....(Barney sucks the big one) YES folks...it's all about a giant multi billion dollar industry exploiting our basic need of acceptance and of love. OK...I gotta step down off my pulpit now before someone knocks my ass off.. Love One Another... Nighty Nite D:D