Bettina

:ermm Still haven't slept since last week...its killing me. But I know I will get it under control..still on for Tuesday's fitting. Discussed putting feathers on my mask with my sister (having a moment of insanity) she advised Rhinestones...LOL...I can always count on my sister to help me out of a funk. Ya ever hear anyone say that they would pinch you or stomp on your foot if you were saying that something hurts you? (you know ...my arm hurts...okay I'll stomp on your foot to make you forget about your arm....LOL) well, that is how I feel...the sleep apnea thing is making me forget that I was so ansy to get the banding! I had the strangest dream last night during one of my cat naps....I dreamt that the doctors office handed me this fancy envelope shaped like a pink pocketbook -even had a fancy handle on it, and I opened it up and it said that I was approved for surgery......LOL ! Maybe its a sign that I will def be approved...lol. (my sis would be proud of the pink pocketbook envelope...thats her speed, she is a total girly girl:cheer2: , I am more of the earthy one :hippie: ). I want to thank Teresita and MoOrLess for their comments of support to my last post....thanks so much you guys are great!!!!

Finally its over, I had my fitting last night. OMG I asked for the nose pillow head piece. And while it is skinny....I felt like Warf from Star Trek...big bumpy ridges along my nose. The air was doing 90 up my little nostrils...lol Okay so I calm down ---I put it on...sitting on the bed watching "Jaws". Its blowing air out the front like nobody's business....I am thinking hubby is gonna have a fit, I'll never be able to sleep in bed again!!! :notagree The worst part was the freezing. The tech told me it would be room temp air....umm no, my teeth froze, my nose froze, my ears were starting to ache.....and now I had to pee. (i never ever get up in the middle of the night for anything!!) The air was so fast that my cheeks were filling with air....for fun, I'd open my mouth and a big bunch of air came out...too funny. Twice the nose thingy's pressed against my cartiledge of my nose and the air stopped...lol. :painkiller: I was gonna call the tech, but she was watching me....lol. So she came in and gave me a plain hose with two little nose things...with a strap for my head. She put the humidifier on too. OMG I am cured (not really but you know what I mean) Finally found my C-Pap "happy place".:clap2: And, it doesn't make me sound like Darth Vader (like the first one did) I was laying in bed snickering like an idiot thinking "Luke, I am your father" Ugh. So the tech was really sweet and I was explaining "nurse-zilla" (prev Journal) to her and she said "you know what you are done with that...I am putting a rush on this and you'll be done....it says you need your surgery in August in your file, and we are gonna make it happen" OMG I wanted to cry!!! So they are reading the report asap...I will have my machine two days later and then I can call the doc and say.....Sign me up!! I am afraid that he might be booked for August:nervous ....so it has to be done early Sept before my classes are too hot and heavy into work. That should be that for the hurdles!!!:clap2:

You're too funny!!! :biggrin1:

Can you feel it......I just gave you a big squeeze!!!!!!!!!

I don't blame you for being angry (and I hope you aren't upset about that) your parents really screwed you over. Probably not intentionally, but they did it just the same. Journaling is very important...keep it up. And yay for taking charge of your own life and doing something for you for a change!! I am sure you'll get to goal in no time!!! :welldoneclap:

the important thing is that you enjoyed it and ...its still down right? I sat in front of a friend of mine the other day and watched her eat a sub and drink a diet pepsi like she never had GB:hungry: ...LOL And most importantly, it stayed down....luckily for me..lol

yeah but the question is, was it worth it?? :hungry: :omg:

ummm okay but what about the upper GI that they do before they send you home to see how your stomach handles how you are swallowing? I am sure they want to make sure you can at least handle Water before you leave. (just curious)

"but what about past the 30 days out? What about after the first year? When bypass patients begin losing teeth, and hair, and color, and their eyesight? What about the years that are taken off the end of their life due to malnutrition and permanant damage done to the body? What about the alarming rate at which bypass patients gain their weight back because they are never taught how to properly eat, and their no-brainer surgery basically reverses itself after 3 years?" Yeah this could be discussed with my sister who is 4 yrs out from her bypass! I salute the bypass patients who succeed! I really do, but there are a lot of people out there who have life altering (stomach slicing) surgery done who don't change their lifestyle. My sister lost a lot of hair....has to search for "special" Vitamins. BUT SHE STILL DIDN'T CHANGE HER BAD EATING HABITS. She didn't get the memo that said she had to eat right apparently. She still throws up after 4 years. At birthday parties, she eats the icing off the cake because she claims that she can't get the cake down....hmmm how about skipping the birthday cake all together. She eats a lot of processed food. macaroni and cheese seem to be a staple for her. Elio's pizza. Super High calorie Latte's....it goes on and on. A friend of mine has had GB and lost a crapload of weight, i watched her down a whole sandwich..no problem...followed by a diet pepsi! Then said she drinks beer too beause she loves to kick it back on weekends. Yet she can't understand why she is at a standstill in the weightloss. So while GB can work wonderfully, don't be duped into thinking that is the total answer to losing weight!!

I have been up since 6:45am......yesterday. This is frustrating. When my husband got up for work at 4:30am...I quick ran in the kitchen and pretended I was doing dishes. I will make it a point today to take a nap. I can't wait to get my sleep mask and get back to normal...ugh.

Yeah they did say 40% of the people have complications!! I wonder why the guy didn't set her straight......he had to know something about it before he had it done! All he said was that it went smoothly for him. 40% is pretty high!

Isn't your lapbanding considered an overnight stay??? My doc insists you stay overnight to make sure everything is okay.

Kim, I had to pay out of pocket for the dietician too. I will get all the receipts for it when I am all done......12 sessions all together...ugh...and then submit to my insurance. Luckily, the dietician is my only out of pocket expense! Anyway, she was so informative....I was thinking I could even just go to her for weight loss without the banding...but i am def gonna get banding if approved, but in the off chance i can't get the approval...I will def go back to her!! I have barriatric bootcamp and then the banding...just don't have dates for them yet.

Yeah i use it as a guide to see if I am on the right track...otherwise I use my school book and I bought "The complete idiot's guide to spanish" and I have this kick butt spanish verb book....lol I have to use these tools otherwise I am so tempted to translate into German.....LOL:rolleyes:

Finally its over, I had my fitting last night. OMG I asked for the nose pillow head piece. And while it is skinny....I felt like Warf from Star Trek...big bumpy ridges along my nose. The air was doing 90 up my little nostrils...lol Okay so I calm down ---I put it on...sitting on the bed watching "Jaws". Its blowing air out the front like nobody's business....I am thinking hubby is gonna have a fit, I'll never be able to sleep in bed again!!! :notagree The worst part was the freezing. The tech told me it would be room temp air....umm no, my teeth froze, my nose froze, my ears were starting to ache.....and now I had to pee. (i never ever get up in the middle of the night for anything!!) The air was so fast that my cheeks were filling with air....for fun, I'd open my mouth and a big bunch of air came out...too funny. Twice the nose thingy's pressed against my cartiledge of my nose and the air stopped...lol. :painkiller: I was gonna call the tech, but she was watching me....lol. So she came in and gave me a plain hose with two little nose things...with a strap for my head. She put the humidifier on too. OMG I am cured (not really but you know what I mean) Finally found my C-Pap "happy place".:clap2: And, it doesn't make me sound like Darth Vader (like the first one did) I was laying in bed snickering like an idiot thinking "Luke, I am your father" Ugh. So the tech was really sweet and I was explaining "nurse-zilla" (prev Journal) to her and she said "you know what you are done with that...I am putting a rush on this and you'll be done....it says you need your surgery in August in your file, and we are gonna make it happen" OMG I wanted to cry!!! So they are reading the report asap...I will have my machine two days later and then I can call the doc and say.....Sign me up!! I am afraid that he might be booked for August:nervous ....so it has to be done early Sept before my classes are too hot and heavy into work. That should be that for the hurdles!!!:clap2:

I highly recommend anyone that has questions to view this webinar. :clap2: It is lengthy (2 hrs) but well worth watching, if for nothing else, you can use it to know what questions to ask your doctor! http://www.or-live.com/AtlantiCare/weightloss/skin/rnh.cfm?language=english

MSNBC Video ahhh finally i found it!!

Hey Diva, You know, 52 is just a number.....I bet you don't feel 52. And just think of how much younger you will feel when its all said and done!! And...you are adding years to your life by having this surgery! (oh and if you had this done years ago, it would not have been as good....something else would have come now and you'd be thinking that you wished you'd have waited. Everything happens for a reason and there was good reason you are doing it now. Telling your mom...don't worry about that, I had to tell my mom cause if she found out ---well lets just say she gets in a snit! I just only told my older sister last week and I have been working on this since April! She is a big non-supporter...who needs to be dragged down--it carries enough stress with it all on its own! I felt like a failure too at first for resorting to banding, but then thought, I have no one to please but myself (hubby isn't happy about it, but oh well, its for me--I want to be healthy!!). And I know when the non-supporter sis will be all over my case when she gets back from vacation---but i don't care..I'm not doing it for her either..lol. So take a deep breathe, you're not alone!!! Best Wishes! And Happy Early Birthday...I am an August Baby too!

Is this cutie a Beagle??

I think that is standard for glamour shots!!! I am feminine looking and I looked like Herman Munster dressed as a woman:omg: ! But i didn't feel so bad when my sister --who is a total girly girl ---looked a a drag queen:chinese , i sent the pics back and got my money back!! LOL I think Walmart portrait studio does a better job and for half the price! :huggie:

Welcome to the Flabby Belly Club Leila, That was a good article, I put it in my favorites, I forgot about Lecithin!! The massaging of the skin is good to shrink cellulite (since it can't be dieted away. My sis lost 70lbs right after GB-very quickly and now she has an "apron" she wants removed...I so do not want that!!! Her mother in law has the apron in the belly area after having bypass also......and.....ugh......flat bum....she used to tell me that she would sit down and think she was sitting on something...come to find out it was her own flabby hiney....she had the surgery done and is soooo skinny now. But she said the surgeon did a crappy job, it was the bypass doc and not a plastic surgeon. (but, it was covered by her insurance) But my theory on that is she is like 65yrs old and the probabiltiy of her wearing a bikini -not that she can't--i know her and there is now way she would--so the surgery wasn't pretty....at least she is not sitting on her butt flap! Oh yeah she had wicked sores from the overhang! (sorry that was graphic I know!) I sold Avon up until 2 months ago and I have lotion that firms your butt and stomach....so I am gonna give it a try. For the most part, Avon is pretty good, so we will see!

Ugh family can stink sometimes can't they?? Best wishes to you!!

Aussie Chick: I know what you mean about only having flabby belly....that is the only trouble spot I will be having too. I think its prob (and I am guessing because I don't know you) is that we have most of our "fat" in our bellies --well that and my butt is in trouble too...lol. So if we lost and gained in the stomach area, it would make it stretch easier..hence be flabbier! I want to lose the weight slowly so I can do crunches to be able to keep up the firming along with the weightloss so that I don't need a tummy tuck (no way can I afford that).

Kim, isn't your doctor making you go to a dietician before banding??