TheGh0st

Darn it all. Here I thought I was joining in some intellectual debate about a topic not directly related to my life and now I'm sitting here crying over a father that didn't leave my mother until after it was to late for Child Support to even be an issue. I think I need to go to bed.

Bonnie - I also have to say I LOVED LOVED LOVED your post about your personal experience growing up. Thankyou so much for sharing something so personal and painful. And I agreed 100% with everything you expressed. Luckily or unluckily as the case may be my parents did not divorce until over a decade after I left home, despite my constant pleas since gradeschool for them to quit staying together for the "sake of us kids". And my father is my biological father which basically throws me completely out of this discussion. However, in some ways I still feel I am dealing with some of the same issues as many children of divorce. Even though my father was still living with us, I never felt he was emotionally or even financially there for us. One of my biggest issues with him was that he had this policy that if he worked any overtime the money was his to spend as he wished. This was a two edge sword. First in that he would spend many hours away from home working to earn those overtime dollars, then just as many out spending them on his hobbies. While at the same time my mother was forced to both raise us and work a full time job. Even with both of them working and his overtime that he kept for himself we still qualified for free school lunches through most of my childhood. But my parents were too proud accept the assistance and risk anyone in our small finding out how poor we were. Each year my grandfather would slip a $100 dollar bill into my sister & I's hands. My mother would invariably start crying telling her father he didn't need to give us the money and that she could make do, then he would start crying to and insist we keep it. The truth of the matter was she was already wearing her own clothes until they were literally falling apart and could no longer be patched or mended in order to add another $50 to my sister & I's chlothing budget for the year. This was in the 1970-80's and though $150 was worth more than now it was still no where near average. The worse times were when I would find my mom crying over a box of family heirlooms that she was getting ready to take to auction so we could have enough money for food that week. All things considered I do still love my father and I know my dad loves my sister & I. He is only a product of his own difficult childhood. Still to have the memories of my crying as she was forced to sell her family memories just to put food on the table for another week while my father was out working overtime or spending it on another piece for his collection continues to break my heart and continues to have serious effects on my relationship with him to this day. For the life of him he can not understand why I don't just "grow up" and get over the past. I can tell it hurts him that we aren't closer now. He sees what happened back then as strictly between him & my mother and nothing to do with me or my sister. I'm really not trying to "punish" him for the past but like Bonnie I can only feel ambivalent to his "pain" when compared to the pain he caused me and my mother.

Since I am not Green I will leave it to her to choose whether or not to respond to the bulk of your post, however, I did want to point out that Green is a girl and I think you mistook her negative phrase at the end. I truly believe she was NOT stating her personal opinions of these husbands or wives, but her percieved opinion of the court system. Though I will say that any woman that would INTENTIONALLY lie to a man about the paternity of her child in order to gain profit is HIGHLY suspect in MY EYES. Yes, I know there are unfortunately many cases that could be pointed out where it was not intentional, but more wishfull thinking on the woman's part that led to the deception, and I am not making any judgements against those women. I also tend to seek the good in people and want to believe those that lie intentionally are in the minority. In my opinion she was only trying to describe how it seemed that in the situation where a man was (in the courts eyes, not necessarily hers) "foolish" enough to marry woman who would lie to him about him being the biological father (therefore making her appear to be of "of suspect morals"), then proceed to raise the child with the wife for a period of time believing her lies. The court appears to frequently take the "easy out" stance of making them pay the CS rather than deal with all the difficult issues surrounding this hopefully unique set of circumstances posed by the original poster. I think if you reread her post keeping the original topic in mind her comments may make more sense.

I read the article below from ABC a few weeks ago about how they had found that sitting for prolonged periods effectively shut down your lipase enzyme, which is reported to be a key enzyme in breaking down fat cells. It seemed to show that even if you exercized for an hour a day and had an otherwise healthy/active life, if you sat for hours at a time the effect on the lipase enzyme could still result in weight gain. It was this article that made me wonder if maybe using an exercise ball at work might keep those core muscles active enough to stop the enzyme from shutting down. I went so far as to track down the head researcher at the university that did the tests to ask him his thoughts on this. He thought it sounded feasable but wouldn't commit one way or the other. I'd like to try it but as I said before I'm the only gal in an office of guys that already like to poke fun at me I'm afraid the ball might be just too easy a target for them. Still I might give it a try. If I do I'll let you guys know if it seems to help. ABC News: Overweight? Standing May Be Solution

Good on you girl, you can do it!

For several weeks after my surgery I found that if I cupped my hand over my port for the first few minutes lying (sp?) in my stomach I could then pull out my hand and the port wouldn't bother me. Otherwise I felt a bit like the old princess and the pea story. It didn't exactly hurt but was annoyingly uncomfortable. Good luck to you.

How did you like it as a chair? I've been thinking about the same idea but wondered if it would really make enough of a difference to be worth the ribbing in an office full of men.

What a great NSV. I am so excited for you!

I have a heart condition called supra-ventricular tachycardia (spell?) that raises my heart rate upwards of 200bpm without warning. Luckily it only happens once every few years and it usually goes back down on its own after a couple minutes so it isn't much of a big deal. Unfortunately I had an episode while pregnant that lasted for over 1/2 hour, eventually I had to agree to go to the ER. Everything went fine there they monitored me for another 1/2 hour with no improvement and eventually decided to give me some meds to force my heartrate to drop. The problem I ran into was afterwards when I went to follow up at my obgyn's office. My normal doctor was out so I was seen by one of her associates. He looked at some bloodwork that had been done at the ER after my episode and pronounced I was diabetic. I responded with something like "OK, I have gestational diabetes, what do I have to do now, and what are the odds of it improving after the pregnancy?" His response was "Oh No! I didn't say you had gestational diabetes, I said you have diabetes. Considering how horribly obese you are there is NO chance this is just gestational." Turns out that I didn't even have gestational diabetes but that the blood test done at the ER had been elevated due to my prolonged elevated heart rate, something I was told by several nurses should have been obvious to the doc but no all he saw was my excess weight and had no interest in looking any further.

Lynn, Call or PM me

I also like the deferred debt idea, at least for situations where the man can show some intent to defraud on the woman's part. I even see no problem in sueing the woman for additional "hard-ship" damages beyond what was paid in child support if and only if they can proof willfull intent to fraud. My problem with this when there is a lack of proof of intentional fraud still comes back to the idea if the child has though this person was their father for years (long enough to know what is going on not just an infant) and the man has been taking emotional responsibility for this child in addition to the financial responsibility, then I have a harder time with justifying the emotional trauma these cases will add to the child. I can understand hating the woman and wanting to punish her but how can he just stop loving the child like its just some light switch to be turned off? I also like the idea that the man no matter the situation could track down and sue the biological father for reimbursement of those back payments. My husband's best friend married a woman that claimed to be pregnant with his chlid even though they had broken up several months earlier. Several years later they divorced and after the divorce he found out that his 3 year old son that he had been devoted to even more so than the mother wasn't his biologically. Once he found that out he never saw the child again or supported it in any way. I had understood his desire not to give his ex-wife any money but it always bothered me that he was able to so easily abandon the 3-year old boy that had loved him unconditionally. was

I'm not sure you really want my views. I actually think it would depend more on the circumstances. Just because someone is not the biological father to me does not automatically preclude them from the responsibility of child support. In the very story you mentioned he (and the girl) spent the last 10 years believing he was the father. It does not say how long after she was born that he divorced the mother but presumably he has spent many if not all of those years loving and raising her as his own. So why should the fact that he has found out now that he is not the biological father give him the right to a "refund"? If a man & wife adopt a child and they divorce isn't the non-custodial parent still liable to help with child support despite the lack of DNA? Now if you had said that they had divorced around the time of the pregnancy 10 years ago amid suspicions over the paternity and that he had never assumed a parental role emotionally or psychologically (spell?) then I might say he had some justification for not wanting to pay further child support and if he could show intentional fraud on the ex-wife's part I could see some room for him to sue for the child-support he already paid.

Sadly both sides of my family are in similar situations right now. We live in the midwest which I believe has relatively similar home valuations as Florida. My in-laws purchased a brand-new as you said no-expense spared home last year and have been trying to no avail to sell their former home. To make matters worse the former home is in the 500+K market which has even fewer potential buyers out there to pull from. They are also thinking of putting their new home back on the market to see which sells first. Sadly the newer home really is better a better homve for them to be in as they look towards retirement. Despite being even more expensive it is smaller with the master bedroom on the main floor and in a maintenance free neighborhood. Their old home is a 6 bedroom 4 full bath, 3-car attached garage and a 3-car detached garage with a workshop & barn. It sits on 5 acres on the edge of town with an outdoor greenhouse, large pond and expansive gardens. All of which make it difficult for them to manage on their own as they get older. My mother on the other hand just re-married last year and between her and her husband they own 5 homes. None of these homes have the latest or greatest anything. They are plain old middle class mid-america homes built between the 1920's to 1950's valued between 100-120K each. To sell them they have worked out two different solutions one of the homes after listing it with a realtor for a year they signed paperwork for the realtor agency to act as manager of the property and rent it out with the option to buy. Their thoughts on this is that either the economy will rebound and they will be able to sell it at a better price than now or since of the 5 homes this is the one that requires the least upkeep and is a larger community putting it nearer hospitals and such if they start feeling "old" in a few years (or decades) they may just move back into it. A couple of the other homes they have managed to make non-traditional arrangements with buyers who didn't qualify for standard mortgages and might not otherwise have been able to buy a home. One of the buyers for example is a brick-layer who although he is paid very well while working he also experiences frequent seasonal lay-offs which made it impossible for him to get a standard mortgage. These types of homes sales basically put you in the role of banker selling the home direct to the buyer on contract. Mom has done this a few times, it can be a bit of a hassle staying on top of the buyers to make sure you get paid, but in the long run you can make bigger profits as you are also collecting all the interest from the sale of the house instead of a bank. Frequently if the bricklayer was having troubles making payments in the winter she would work out arrangements for him to work off some of his debt by doing handyman projects at some of her other homes. Maybe with your husbands construction connections he might know of someone like the bricklayer that would be interested in working out an arrangement to buy your old home?

OMG YES!!! MY DH had the nerve to buy an entire cherry pie over the weekend with no company coming or any other reason for buying it then after he ate nearly 1/2 the pie by himself within 24 hours he goes all apesh!t over me because he noticed 1/2 of one slice was missing and how dare I eat it after all the money we spent for me to lose this weight. Well how dare he buy something as ridiculous as a whole pie for no one but himself. Grrrr...

There is one (see the link below) however, it is tucked in the Lap-Band Surgery FAQs and References page about 8 "stickies" down from the top. Once found it seems a logical place as any to put it. But it wasn't my first place to look. I hadn't thought of definitions to LBT abbreviations as being a Lap Band Surgery FAQ. Maybe Alex could move it so it was a sticky at the top of the main page. Still I think that newbies should have the right to ask wether or not they can prove they looked first and old-timers have the right to get frustrated. Just no name calling please.

*** AMEN!!! ***

I've seen and used SO on this site before but I prefer to use DH when referring to my own husband. I have nothing wrong with being politically correct and all-inclusive to others and I have no wish to offend anyone by the use of DH, but I just don't see the need to extend political correctness to the point that I can't refer to my own husband as a husband and have to call him my SO just in case it my offend someone else.

I don't want to harp on this but think to yourself if you are having a conversation with a friend and they repeatedly use a word you don't understand do you think to yourself "Gee I need to find a dictionary and look it up so I know what my friend is talking about" or do you just politely ask your friend "WTF does that word mean anyway?" I realize no one here is trying to bash the newbies for this here but really no matter how tiring it is to see new people asking the same questions over and over whats the real harm?

or "D@m~ Husband!":devil: Depending on the context. I've also included a link to a thread that may be helpful with other abbreviations. http://www.lapbandtalk.com/f73/abbreviations-what-they-mean-7959/ Welcome to the banded side of life. Glad you found us.

Or as dumb as me who stumbled into this thread while looking for the abbreviations thread to give to a newbie asking what DH stood for on another thread this morning. I've been here going on two years and it still took me near 5 minutes to find that thread! I vote for leaving the right for newbies to ask what an abbreviation means intact. After all we were all newbies once and not everyone has 5 minutes to dig through LBT to find the definition when they are trying to sneak a peak during work. And what does LMAO mean anyway???

No kidding Laurend. Firefly - I don't know what the "real" story is and I don't care. For the most part real is only in the eye of the beholder. V isn't posting these comments here to stir things up so there is no reason for you to either. V - congratulations on your weight loss to date. Keep up the good work and don't let anything posted here scare you away from LBT.

OK I am not a doctor or even in the medical field so I can't claim to be an expert at this just because I happen to have a band inside me. And Gwen I swear we are not trying to pick on you. I completely understand how it seems logical that if took nearly 10 cc's for you to fill restricted in your 10cc band that a larger band wouldn't sound like it could work for you. For the record I was one that needed 12.5cc's in my 10cc band to feel good restrictioin. I'm only responding because I don't want someone to be unnecessarily worried that there doc might accidentally put a band in that is too large. It would be worse for a doc to put one in too small and be too restricted at the beginning. That said I too was at a support group where they passed the different bands around. The one possible difference at my group was that at my group they had rigged each band so that the tubing was attached to the end of a syringe less the needle (not sure if that is the right terminology it looked like the plunger thingy I've used before to give my son medicine when he was an infant) Point being we were able to press the plunger on the syringes ourselves to see just how tight we could make them. On each and everyone we were easily able to fill them to the point that you couldn't fit a bic pen through the opening (Maybe not even a Q-Tip) The only difference other than the baffles, seemed to be the size of the opening before it was filled, which obviously led to the ones with the larger initial opening needing more cc's put in them to obtain the same "tightness" as one another. As you said so well some people have more fatty tissue around their stomach, and some have less. A person with a BMI of 50+ can end up having very little fatty tissue around the stomach compared to one of a starting BMI of 39+ the doctor just can't tell until he gets in there. The worst part about someone with the larger bands from my experience is that I feel that we sometimes end up needing more fills over the course of the first year do to our excess fatty tissue thinning out as we lose weight.

Congratulations!!!!! and welcome to LBT. I'll be routing for you.

Mmmm Lobster. I hated it pre-band and now it is one of my favorite dinners to have when DH & I go out. Very band friendly for me and high Protein. But no I didn't cheat on the pre-op diet. I'm not saying it was easy or that I was better than anyone else for managing to do it. Just with being self-pay (on a credit card no less!) I was too worried about taking any risk no matter how large or small that the surgeon would think my liver to large to manuver around to place the band its not like he was going to give me a refund or try again another day at no additional cost. Thank the Lord my DH didn't leave me during that pre-op diet because if I hadn't had him to chew up and spit out while going crazy hungry I probably would have cracked and had that one last meal. Speaking of last meals, running up to the pre-op diet I think I had a whole month of "last meals". Everytime I went to eat I kept thinking about what foods I might have to give up after the band and indulging one last time. Ended up it was all a big waste. The foods I use to think I loved and would miss are either just doesn't even interest me any more or I am still able to eat them (in smaller portions). Sometimes I wish I had believed that pre-band, then maybe I wouldn't have started this journey nearly 10 pounds heavier than when I first decided on the band.

Mountain explained the moving sweet spot really well. I was one of those that seemed to constantly chase it. I don't know if I had a lot of fatty tissue around my stomach or what but the first year alone I had 14 fills. I will say that for some people (myself included) it can actually be better to not keep personal track of your fills. I have heard too many times both on LBT and at local support group meetings people who according to the fills they had tracked they thought their band was getting close to being filled to its capacity and yet they hadn't reached their "sweet spot". They were all worried they would never get that restriction before the band was "too full". Problem is that just because you have a Xcc band it doesn't mean that they can only fill you with that many cc's. When I finally let my curiosity get to me and asked how much was in my band, they pulled out all the saline they could and found 12.5cc's in my 10'cc band then put it all back in plus a touch. There is also the tubing to take into consideration and the fact that even though the doc tells you he gave you 1/2 or 1 cc it is just a close estimate they may have only gave you .4 or .8/9 cc's and rounded it up when they told you. Guess my point is there is nothing wrong with not wanting to know how much they are putting in you if you are afraid you might be the type to worry about hitting that sweet spot before your band reaches its max. Though trust me no matter what size band they put on you they can fill the puppy up tight enough you wouldn't be able to swallow your own spit. You should however probably know how large your band is, though I'm not exactly sure why. I suppose in case you ever need to go to a different doc.