TheWomanWithin

Amy, Dr. G's office gave you that info over the phone? they made me go to a seminar at Dade City Hospital to get info in Jan and told me that was the only way I could get it. Maybe I should call them like I have never been there? lol Was $17k for 1 or 2 night stay? this was a 2 night stay, maybe the hospital started charging more? did the other charges I put down seem right? After researching I don't see why a 2 day stay - I live 20 min from the office and about 25 from the hospital. Im telling you when they told us that, my mouth fell open because I had already checked out some drs on the east coast and se coast near miami. The highest I had gotten until Dr G was $19,000, so I started searching OUT of the US :grouphug: I saw Dr. Jessee's website, but they never emailed me back and no one could answer my questions that I called about well enough, so I put her on a back burner - do you know how much she is? I have no clue what is a good amount for fills, because I just couldn't get past the pricing to bein with lol so I said $250 a fill and 4-6 fills the first year.

Hey Yoda, I was supposed to be banded the day you were. During pre-ops from my PcP they found a mass on my kidney from problems I was having - so I had to reschedule - now my date is May 26th IF my urologist releases me on May 2nd :grouphug:

Welcome Patti and GRATS! on your band. Try PhotoNut's post here: http://www.lapbandtalk.com/showthread.php?t=16218 it's great and helped when I had to do mine

If we don't have any special occassions such as bdays or parties, we take the kids and go to the zoo, Disney, the mall - sometimes just to walk and look around, g'parents house - park - the smaller kids are into picnics, play games - or just sit and play on the pc's oh wait, does my post count since I am not banded yet? lol Ive quit living my life around food and going out to eat until may, does that count :bananadoggywow:

Ahhhh Fran you must be the person someone told me about. I asked did anyone have info on Dr. G (good or bad) and they told me about your story - or someone else similar to yours? When I first started researching I thought I would go with Dr. G - UNTIL I found out the self pay pricing (Jan 06) I was told the Hospital was $14,500, Dr G was $6,500 pre-op & post op testing etc. was around $3,500. I decided to go with Dr. Ortiz ($8,500) because of this and go with Dr. G for followup care since he is so close. :bananadoggywow: sorry to hear about your first surgery - please tell me it wasn't dr ortiz? pm me if you dont want to put it here, I chose Dr Ortiz because he did Dr. G's band and taught him the procedure and all of the happy patients here.

When and IF I do lose 100 lbs I will be wearing Levi's - havent worn jeans/pants in 15+ years but I always did when I was normal weight. Oh btw, I would have NO clue what size to even buy so I will just steal a pair of my daughter's and say I'll wear them when I get her size WOW! I might never get there but I'd love to be her size - she's 5'8 130 lbs [keeps dreaming]

Hey Teresa, OMG I Just had another cup of coffee and read your post before mine - 3 miles woohoo! :clap2: :clap2: :clap2: Im just up to 1 mile walk/run - how long have you been walking? I think if I tried to walk more than 1 mile at this point I might :faint:

can I plead the 5th on this one? :heh: lol haven't exercised in 2 days and it's driving me nuts - I think I have exerciseocd! <exercise Obsessive-Compulsive-Disorder> Female problems threw a:brick: in my plans for this week - and we were going to the Zoo or Disney this weekend :think Oh on a good note - I have my DH take pictures each week - omg I dread this, but it gives me some hope when I see changes - my oldest son says to me - mom look at your head it's so much smaller :bananadoggywow: I died laughing!

wooohooo that is great Fiona - what a way to start your WL journey!

Teresa, did you get over being afraid? hehehehe did they kidnap you and let you take your computer with you at least? :bananadoggywow: j/k

After reading that post about HGTV again, let me explain about it. I found it, but :doh: I was spelling the word wrong - http://www.hgtv.com/hgtv/shows_hiwt/resource/0,2496,HGTV_21356_52119,00.html It was SOOO beautiful and simple to do if you can mix, pour and paint. The hard part was cleaning out the grass where you want the stones/walkway. You buy these kits, HD had them at that time and HGTV the kits contain a mold that is 2' x 4' and some other stuff. Here is an example: You clean out the area you want to do, leaving a couple of inches on each side for the width, level it off, drop some play sand (silica ?) into it, put this mold down on the ground, mix the qwick-crete into a plastic can/container, pour it into the mold and let it set. You leave it for the time it says, say 24 hrs, come back, pick the mold up and you have your walkway or you can start over and make it longer. Then you get the paint they tell you you can use on it and paint each piece. Last year, they had different designs like Kare's and mine - herringbone? and ones that looked like river stones <sigh> thats what I wanted instead of a paver walkway lol Here is a diff pic of our walkway - it's 2 different colored squares and 1 rectangle inner and outerlining them. Oh I envy those of you who have yards! FL is crazy with home and land pricing - I have heard alot of other areas are too. When I see pictures of land and acreage I just drool - at least I can dream :speechles Quikrete's Walk Makers molds are a selection of reusable plastic forms designed to create poured-in walkways, garden paths, patios and pads. The molds are available in four patterns; Country Stone, Running Bond Brick, European Block and Basket Weave Brick. Just place the mold, fill it with Quikrete, pack and level it to the top of the form and then remove the form. It's a quick and easy way to create useful patio spaces or smooth pathways in your yard. http://www.quikrete.com/diy/WalkMakerandStepMakerMolds.html http://www.extremehowto.com/xh/article.asp?article_id=60278

wow that veggie garden looks like the ones in AL where my dad lives - most of the relatives I have there live off their gardens! when I was there a few years ago it amazed me because to get something like to grow here in FL would take too much work and my dad/grandad thought that was their ONLY job lol wish I could have done the stones myself; that was my husband's doing - I had a hundred other things we could have done with $6,000. I should have put that was for the front and a 13 x 20 patio in the back :doh: <that's for another thread on not understanding men> Have you checked into the stones on HGTV that you do yourself? If I had seen those first we might have done this job ourselves. You pour the concrete into a mold, (like quick-crete) let it set and then color it - it's supposed to be a lvl 2 job on scale of 1-5. Anyone done this or have knowledge of it? Anything above lvl 3 I usually don't even think about attempting. WOW that butterfly garden is gorgeous. Oh Kare, I noticed you have almost the same walkway we do, did you do it yourself?

Great thanks again :Banane20: Im such a novice at this - we bought this house 2 years ago, the plants they put in these subdivisions are just baby plantings that are dead in no time. I got tired of looking at them and decided to start with a whole plan. When I took everything up in Feb 06, was the first time I have done this. I researched and found what we liked and didn't like etc., drew out plans and then found out - no pond, fountain or any water structure etc can be put in the front like we thought. The problems we have is the heat and humidity here are so bad most of the time, plants/shrubs tend to die. We can only water 1 day a week - I think if we watered a bit more, the plants might grow in better. The hedges are almost double the size they were in the picture in Feb, the begonias are doing great and fluffing out (is that even a word?) my husband's sego (?) palm has grown about 7 or 8 inches higher. I can't seem to get that double palm to turn green like the tall tree with the marigolds around it - might not be a good sign :bananadoggywow: Dumb question, but can I use miracle grow along with weed n feed? I don't want to burn the plants up lol Any suggestions to add some "curb appeal" this what we have? Last question - how long does it take for plantings to grow in pretty well?

WHOA ~~ 130 oz of water? I thought I was doing good at 80 oz lol btw I'm 5'7" Heather - I got cross trainer shoes since I walk and run, but now I see Nike aren't the best shoes!(even at $100) Nike are the only ones I can wear that don't make my feet themselves hurt terribly :bananadoggywow: Im still stunned over 130 oz of water hehehe I may as well just get a port o let and keep it with me. Maybe that is what is wrong -- still not enough water and not enough resting between days as Sams says. At this point Im willing to try ANYTHING so I don't have to give it up totally - Im losing inches more than pounds at this point, which has been a great incentive. Is it May 26th yet? lol

I want alot of things around my house hehehe but our HOA are pain in the butts - can't have fountains!blah well why not... we can only have certain trees and we're not supposed to even change our flowers without written approval, can't have weeds, which I seem to be good at growing here[sigh] Now if I would just quit killing the plants, they would grow and look nice! :heh:

Kare, I think my camera puts more pink into the picture than is there - its supposed to be a FL color a pinkish/brown something called Dawn Mist. (btw I love your yard - wish mine looked like that) The stones in the walkway are supposed to compliment the house (or so the concrete guys says) I did purple petunia's deep/lighter contrast all over the left side of the walkway that were blooming great until I did the roundup. I don't think my husband would go for a full purple door - there is one down the road that is this deep purple that is gorgeous, but he thinks its ugly. I would love to redo our door and put stained glass inserts in the panel with purple accents. I might look into purple flowers up in the pots at the front of the house pink hydrengaes (sp) there now to compliment the colors here. Im just really bummed about the petunias - $50 on them and I kill them:think Wheestin, if you can get the name of the Weed-n-Feed you use I would appreciate it - I'm apt to try anything right now before I re-do the front walk. Oh Plunder - is that Visqueen like plastic/vinyl stuff? I tried to do that to begin with and my husband told me not to bother MEN! hehehe if the weed and feed doesnt work, before I plant anything else, its ALL coming up again and Im putting down the weed screen or plastic stuff. Any tips on doing this? do you put it down, cut it to size then cut holes where you want your plants? Ill have to go back to HGTV.com and look it up.

My sig and inspiration for the day - seems every day I run into this brick wall that is harder than my head (gotta be really tough wall then) One day I may learn to go around the wall or just remove the damn thing, but in the mean time here it is again.

Sallyjo

Oh my goodness, Dawn I am so sorry to hear this. Losing your mom at such an early age is a horrible tragedy and very tough thing to deal with. I lost my mother years ago, when she was 52 from breast/ovarian and lung cancer due to choices she made. While it was tough that she made those choices, it was very difficult to watch her be in pain for so long. I hope your mother was not in pain and that she was well taken care of. Infections in hospitals are a shock sometimes because we think of them as being sterile and clean places to be. I can only say from a personal standpoint what I would do - give your mother a great mother's day present - have your surgery and do something good for you. She is looking down on you and with you always.

thanks - going to try weed and feed next even commercial round up did nothing, except wash down and kill my petunias that had spread all over - we live on a bit of an incline (see how the paver walkway does?)and it washed into them and they were gone - but the clover came back rofl before we put in the lava rock, we had no clover - I can't stand the smell of mulch so we put in the rock to go with the paver walk and deck in back. that picture was of Feb06 - as soon as some rain came - the plants/shrubs doubled, but the clover came back in droves! we spend so much time digging and pulling the roots out of this stuff, maybe it's not worth it and just get rid of the rock - or is the rock not the problem? DeAnn - go to photobucket.com and sign up for an acct, upload your pictures and then click on the insert image link and copy & past your picture. you might have to resize it with an editing program or paint for it not to be so large. sorry if this question has been answered already

Thanks for that link Kristin - we used to get these daiquiri (sp) mixes like that and have not found them in 2 years, guess they quit selling them in our area. That is about the only thing I would ever have if I drank anything - parties at our house we made those and everyone else brought other drinks. I was a bit bummed when I read no alcohol after banding - 3 or 4 times a year we have bbq's and I thought NO ALCOHOL at all was allowed. Going to order some of those now yummm -A Mai Tai is an exotic pineapple, lemon, lime, orange, rum punch... very tropical and lightly fruity.

:help: Anyone know what clover grows in this red lava rock? In Feb 2006, we took the whole area up, dug down to the roots, covered the area, sprayed stuff the garden guys told us at Lowe's and replanted everything but the large Palm (?) on the back left. We don't want to take the lava rock out - it was a huge investment, but our HOA requires NO weeds even "clover" in your yard. Maybe they were just talking about the plants themselves :Banane33: We planted yellow delicate ground cover in the dead areas and that has improved it BUT when we use miracle grow to help the plants/trees, the clover just over runs Thanks in advance - seems alot of you have more knowledge than the lawn or garden guys - and we both have brown thumbs! lol

:phanvan Darn it, I missed part of it - had a long distance phone call. At least I got to see Chris dial idol says these are the bottom 3 : 3-5(B3)Katharine McPhee22.467 4-6(B3)Kellie Pickler19.421 5-6(B3)Paris Bennett17.36 How the heck did judges think Katharine was bad and the song too big for her? Did I miss something or do I like her too much to see that she was bad last night?

ok Dragonwillow, that picture made me want to go make use of that clubhouse our subdivision has LOL omg:embarassed: I said I would never go in that place; guess I can eat my words now hehehe