anonemouse

I am sorta-technically approved, but denied officially until I can get my insurance company the results of my drug/alcohol screening and Upper GI test. I had the drug screening on 3/22 and the upper GI last Wednesday (3/28). So far, I haven't been able to get anyone to call me back from my doctor's office, so I haven't been able to get them to send my results to the surgeon's office. I am getting really worried now, because they are scheduling surgery dates for late summer already, because my surgeon is going on maternity leave. When I talked to the office manager a few weeks ago, she said the earliest date available would probably late July. They technically aren't supposed to give me a date until I get officially approved. This is a problem because I have to change insurance policies when I turn 24 on August 2nd. I'm starting to get really tense and worried that I'm going to have to go through all of this again because I can't get a date before I have to change insurance. :omg: I just emailed the office manager to see if we could go ahead and at least tentatively schedule my surgery, since all my insurance needs to approve me are the results of those tests. I am keeping my fingers crossed. I really don't want this to keep going and going and going....

Well, here are some of the reasons I've chosen the band over bypass: 1/10 (at least) the risk of dying Stomach is not cut, intestines are not rearranged Most complications are not severe Most severe complications can be rectified by unfilling or removing the band Surgery is easily reversed if needed No dumping syndrome No malabsorption Not required to take supplements for life Adjustable, so no "window of opportunity" for weight loss Weight loss is slower, reducing need for plastic surgery later on due to excess skin

Cranberry juice! If you can have it, that is.

Very good debate. I especially like Warren's last statement, because it is something that just about every Christian says at one time or another when discussing Atheism versus Christianity, and I think it highlights exactly what one of the major components of Christianity is that Atheists disagree with. To me, that just states that he believes in Christ because he's afraid of what will happen to him if he doesn't. That isn't a good reason to believe, and it isn't a good argument for others to believe in Christ. He's believing out of cowardice, essentially, IMO. And to me, true altruism comes out of knowing that you aren't getting anything in return for what you are doing. If you are doing a good deed because you think it will help get you into Heaven, you aren't truly altruistic. You are basically paying your way into Heaven.

Congratulations! Wow, that's odd to say in the event of a divorce. But anyway, good for you! To me, this doesn't bode well for him doing what he is supposed to do in terms of support. Seems like he's going to try everything he can think of to get out of it. I'd recommend calling your lawyer to nip this in the bud before it gets out of hand. If he isn't abiding by the divorce agreement less than a week after being divorced, he won't later on, either.

I am observing the provisioning behavior of the parents. That is, I'm looking at how often the males feed the young vs. the females, and the prey items each one brings to the nest.

That's bull. You think we didn't know what Saddam was capable of when we helped him into power? Of course we knew. That's WHY we wanted him in power. The only reason we joined WWII was because we were attacked. We knew exactly what Hitler was doing. We knew when boatloads of Jews tried to come to the US for refuge and we turned them away. We just didn't care until we were the ones dying. All this crap about us taking out the bad guys is just that, crap. If we were so humanitarian-minded, we would be occupying the Sudan right now, or heck, even China. The real truth is that we don't give a crap unless it is Americans and American interests being affected. The real truth is that we don't care how bad the bad guy is, as long as he caters to our interests. Come on, even his former advisers have said that he basically told them what he wanted to hear about Iraq and didn't accept their analyses until they told him exactly that to keep their jobs. Even the people that made the intelligence reports have admitted that they were incorrect or misleading. He wanted to go after Iraq and Saddam. It was stated when he first came into office that that was what he wanted. He saw 9/11 and took advantage of it to get what he wanted.

Anyone seen him lately? I haven't seen him around for the last couple of days.:confused:

Wouldn't a punctured stomach be more likely, then, if you had a Medical ID saying "no NG without scope" than if you didn't have the ID?

Here's another one that just came out recently:

I was set on getting one, but someone at OH who was an EMT said that there wasn't any reason for a banded person to get one. She said there was no chance that your stomach could be punctured by a NG tube because the tube was not stiff enough. I don't know what to think now. I may still get one just for my own reassurance.

It's not. That statistic isn't anywhere near correct. I just looked at the Inamed Lap-Band brochure that I was given by my surgeon, and it states that Lap-Band weightloss is the same as RNY at five years post-op. The 36-38% statistic may be true for the first year after surgery, but it increases after that.

How can we be 'supporting our troops' by wishing that they stay in harm's way? How can we be 'supporting our troops' by continuing to fight an unwinnable war? How can we be 'supporting our troops' when we continue to support a President and administration that knowingly underfunded and under-manned the troops? How can we be 'supporting our troops' when we support an administration that sends them back for multiple tours? How can we be 'supporting our troops' when we support an administration that mislead the public and congress and put those troops in danger in the first place? I support our troops because I know that they are just doing what they are told to do, following orders. I know they are doing the best they can with what they have. I don't support this administration. There is a difference between the two, even if you refuse to see it.

I prefer to think of it as "flinging opinions," No one's opinions are "poo."

Exactly. None of us wish harm on our soldiers. They are just doing what they are told, after all (with the few exceptions that have made the news). We just feel that they shouldn't be forced to risk their lives because of the misguided (and downright illegal, IMO) actions of this administration.

I hate all this talk about "winning" or "losing". Shouldn't it be about our soldiers? If "winning" requires us to sacrifice thousands of American men and women and thousands of innocent Iraqi civilians for a pie in the sky ideal, I'd rather be a "loser". This isn't high school football. It's people's lives. How about we pray that our soldiers don't return in pieces or in coffins?

He's not very knowledgeable about lap-banding, IMO. He's also not up on the latest research, which states that RNY and lap-banding have statistically equal weight loss between 3-10 years post-op (RNY is more successful the first couple of years). It also suggests that lap-band would be more successful than RNY more than 10 years post-op (8 year average weight loss with lap-band was statistically equal to the 10 year average weight loss with RNY), but there wasn't enough data to tell yet. To be honest, that's a red flag to me about his expertise with banding. Any time a surgeon tries very hard to convince people not to go with a certain procedure, it makes me wonder why they are doing it. I would really consider finding another surgeon if you decide to stay with getting a lap-band.

I have been working on the data for my thesis. :phanvan I don't have it all completed yet, but I have to present a seminar in two weeks on the data that I have right now. I've been entering it into Excel. So far, I have 25 pages of an Excel spreadsheet, and I still have 10 double-sided data sheets to go through and enter the data from them. I have a crappy sample size (full data on only 3 nests and partial data from one, so far), but I have about 900 data points so far, not counting what I haven't entered into Excel. This is going to be SO much fun to analyze. What makes it even better is that I am only halfway through my big-ass box of videotapes, which I'll have to finish for my thesis. Kill me now.:faint:

I'm pretty sure it means what you think it means.

An interesting article on the funding. Apparently, the war effort is actually funded until July, so this thing can go on for a few more months.

Where the hell did you get that from that statement?

We may have a presence in those countries, but we aren't actively fighting there. We will be fighting every single second we are in Iraq if we don't leave. They won't tolerate our presence.

Instead of quoting everything you said, Carlene, I'll just say that I agree with everything.

The war in Iraq will not follow them here. That war is a civil war that we are stuck in the middle of. I support the idea of our soldiers staying in Afghanistan, where there are people who actually did attack our lands and our people. By the simple fact of us being in Iraq, we are making ourselves more vulnerable to terror attacks.

Being there isn't stopping it, either. Wait, so keeping the troops in mortal danger is somehow supporting them? I don't think so. Keeping them in an area that is imploding and continuing to fight a war that we can't win isn't support. Continuing to fight a war that we cannot win is not only stupid, it's completely insane. When you can't identify the enemy, you can't win the war.