green

What really, really bothers me is the confusion that so many people make between the plural and the possessive noun. There are inappropriate apostrophes popping up all over these days and yet this same apostrophe is often missing in a possessive noun. It was decided that that girl's book would now belong to all the girls. The other thing that bothers me is the difference between lay and lie. One is transitive and has an object and the other is not. One should never say I was laying down but rather I was lying down. A person lays an object down but lies down. This beef of mine is, however, a lost cause.

Yah, Montreal is much worse than Toronto for being lookist! And French women can be real nasty to outsiders. When I lived in France almost all my friends were men and other foreign women.

Hey there you newbies who are feeling scared, don't be. I was 57 when I had the surgery done. I was surprised at how easily it went and how comparatively painless it was thanks to the excellent pain control drugs the doctor gives you. I healed up really rapidly even though I smoke and that is a negative for surgery. The thing that caused me the most grief was the gas pains.:rolleyes I was operated on a Thursday and I spent the next three days in bed reading and dozing off with the cat to keep me company. These were three of the most relaxing days of my life. Monday I had a bath, put on day clothes and hung out on the computer. I was only using the pain meds at night time and finally ended up with almost half the prescription left over. This came in useful whenever I visited the dental hygienist and during the Christmas period.:phanvan As for PBs, I had my first one at Christmas, three and a half months after I was banded. You can limit them by remembering to chew, chew, chew, by not getting over-filled, and by loosening up your band in the morning by having something hot to drink. In my opinion, the most useful tools post-op to have are a piece of furniture by your bed which you can grab in order to haul yourself up into a sitting position when you want to go to the toilet, a pill crusher, and lots of pillows to lie on. And you need a TV or books in order to really enjoy the bed rest.:biggrin1:

I've been told that the artificials tend to have a life span of 20-25 years before wearing out. This is why doctors do arthroscopies, etc first. They like to delay the installation of a knee or hip replacement. The only person I knew who had a replacement was my mum and she was old. I did meet a man who had had both of his hips replaced and he was pretty spry. The funny thing about him was that he had had them done at different times and the older one was steel and the newer one was titanium, a much, much lighter metal. He said that he had to make adjustments when swimming for this variance in weight.

Oh man, am I ever happy about it! It was an excellent move. I was very, very messed up about my body. I found it a humiliation. My weight gain pattern is odd and exactly like my mother's; I kept slim arms and legs and all the weight went to my torso, especially my gut. I looked like a spider!:cry The other thing that was hard about being overweight is that I live in the core of a large city. There are very few fat people here. Most people are fairly trim and well groomed. It had become almost impossible for me to buy clothes.:phanvan (They don't sell a lot of linen clothes in the big grrl shops up here, eh. They are all about synthetics and frou frou and pastels and cute!) I feel so much better about myself at my current weight and I love the restraints which the band places on my appetite. How about you, BJean? Any regrets?

Lee4, you have got one big advantage in the weight loss game. You are a man and men tend to lose more easily and more quickly than we do. From your comments it does sound like your wife and friends were trying to sabotage your weight loss. That is a real drag! But now you have lost the wife and you do have A Plan. That's cool! Keep us in the loop with news of your journey. BJean, my mother had her knee replaced when she was in her early 80s. She came through it okay and she continued living on her own in her condo. It will hurt at the beginning and you will need physiotherapy and the use of a cane for awhile.

I was 200 lbs and growing when I arranged for the surgery. I made an appointment with the clinic that did my operation, asked them if I was a suitable candidate, and when they said yes I wrote a cheque. Then I decided I better learn more about the band so I joined this site and I read the information materials which they sent home with me. I kinda jumped into the band back to front but that was because I had become so fed up with this post-menopausal weight gain loop that I was on I was ready to do anything to stop it. Sometimes I used to wake up at 3 in the morning, grab my gut, and think to myself that if there was such a thing as an emergency liposuction clinic I would call a cab and go there immediately!

Sounds like a good plan to me.:eek: Speaking of scotch, Green currently has a vicious hangover caused by using too much scotch and too many cigarettes yesterday.:cry I'm gonna blame the pain & suffering and the old wino cough on my old university pal.:eek: Yep, he was the one who made me do it!:confused:

I have visited the UK. I have relatives who live there. It is very different from Canada. Everything but everything is horrifically expensive there, far more expensive than on the continent. Even a cup of tea in a cafe. I did have a minor medical emergency - I cut one of my corneas - while I was there and it cost me zip.

I was banded in September just like BJean. I don't know whether I have had any hair loss or not. My hair is kinda coarse and very thick and it is difficult for to tell if the amount that I shed when washing it is the same old amount or not.:confused: It sometimes looks like I am shedding but I still have lots of it on my head. I take the Calcium because my spine is thinning.:cry I went through an early menopause and my doc didn't want me on HRT. I take the vita D because we don't get much sunshine up here in Canada at this time of year. And I take the Bs because they are very good for the heart, nerves and general stamina.:eek: And I take the multi in order to get anything that I might be missing. Everything I take except the Ds are in a chewable form.

My mother probably would have been against the surgery, too, but she died a couple of years ago. The irony is that I was able to finance it through my inheritance. It cost me $16,000 Canadian to have it done in Toronto which is where I live.

It sounds like you are going to have to cut the old girl off from this business of decision making. She seems far too volatile and neurotic. My advice to you is to live your life according to your desires and to present the decisions which you have already chosen and followed through with to your parents only after these are completed acts. This limits your parents' ability to trip out on you.

Bravo, Cloe!!!!! And it is good to hear that you are back on track, Mandi!

This is how we Canucks spell. We learn to spell the British way. Our kids have to be trained on US spellings when they compete in spelling bees south of the border. And of course we also pick up on US spelling up here. This can sometimes land us in trouble at school. I have heard of the occasional university student who was slammed by their prof for misspelling a word when in fact they were using the correct US spelling. In my edition, the 1972 edition of the Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, judg(e)ment is listed with both spellings but no comment as to whether one is favoured by the States.:phanvan

Although your question wasn't addressed to me, I'll tell you what I eat these days. I eat much smaller portions and I pay much more attention to what I eat as well. I have cut back on cheese and carbs which are things I adore! I try to make a point of using fresh vegetables every day. I started doing this after I started checking prepared food for calorie info and discovered that these foods had very few nutrients. Often I will combine the fresh stuff with the frozen or canned. I have gotten into the habit of eating avocados and eggs - not together of course - because both of these items are very, very rich in nutrients. I make stir-fries and because my appetite is much smaller they last two nights. If I am jonesing for carbs I eat products that are high in fibre like whole wheat pasta and bread. Those little cans of flavoured tuna fish are a really good and quick source of protein. And I eat lo-cal yogurt. I am lucky that I don't like soft drinks or sugar in my tea and coffee and that I do like water. My problem is that I love wine and scotch.:phanvan Oh, and I also take a bunch of vitamins: 2,000 UI of vita D, 1,000 mg of Calcium, vita B6, B12, and folic acid, and a multi-vitamin. Living in the north I really need the Ds during our winter and because I am post-menopausal I also need the calcium. I figure that the others won't hurt and might help.

That sounds like a splendid compliment to BJean and me. Thanks, Devana.

It's kind of ironic, I find, that the bride makes so much fuss because every wedding I have been to is very much like every other wedding and I find them all rather boring, pretentious events. They all blur into each other and are really only special to the bride and the groom and perhaps the parents. The only wedding I did enjoy was my brother's first wedding. This took place outdoors on his in-laws' farm and was very laid back. A city grrl could eat, drink and look at other animals, too. The cheesiest stunt was when my husband's greedy brother came back from being married in Europe, threw a pool party at his house, and asked everyone to bring their own chair, something to drink and a cheque in lieu of a present.:Banane43: The invitations to this were printed off his computer on regular weight paper. I didn't bother showing up although I should have, now that I think of it, leaving my cheque book at home.:heh: If this aunt persists in her mean-spirited ways, Carlene, you and your excluded grandchild could boycott the wedding altogether and treat yourselves to a splendid week long trip, perhaps to Disney World or Mexico.

Grrl, I always suspected that we had a lot in common. As for the tall thing, I am 5'6''. I wish I was taller because then I would look thinner but I'm not.:phanvan

Auntie sounds an insensitive shallow individual. Maybe you can explain this to the child.

While I was off work due to depression I had to be evaluated by a work appointed shrink. He asked me a lot of brain dead questions and then asked me to write something down for him. I wrote: I'm depressed is all, I don't have senile dementia.:help:

I agree with Marjon. It sounds as though there is more going on with you that needs to be sorted out before you have a fill/restriction. It sounds as though that you are eating compulsively for reasons which are either psychological or neurological. This means that you need some additional help. You need to find yourself in the hands of a good and caring psychiatrist - and these are not always that easy to find - for you need meds and talk therapy in order to sort your compulsion out. And a psychiatrist can flag a possible neurological problem if that is the case with you. At a later point, when you are fixed up, you can start working with a dietitian and getting your band slowly filled. This will be a fun and productive time for you. But in the meantime you need to treat yourself to some pre-band work. And don't forget to keep us in the loop.

Your struggles to get the band have been truly epic, grrl. I am floored!

I've never liked weighing myself and gave up on doing it when I was 25. Since then life has been figured out by clothing size issues and it was I could not longer shop in the normo stores that I figured that I needed the band. I finally weighed myself at the age of 57 on the morning of my surgery. I weighed 200 lbs and was wearing size 18W pants. This was last September. Now I wear size 14 pants. I only get weighed when I go for a fill and at my last fill which was last week they told me I weigh 170. If I were you I would throw away the scales, concentrate on eating carefully and healthily, getting in some excercise, and enjoying those wonderful Non Scale Victories which do keep cropping up. You know what I am talking about: clothes getting looser, going down a size or two, getting compliments, moving around without huffing and puffing, etc.... Afterall, we are all in this for the non-scale stuff, aren't we?

LOL! Tell her you are going to pretend to be Barack Obama instead!

I lost 30 lbs at the 6 month mark, going from 200 to 170. Like BJean, I was banded in September. I am very, very happy with my weight loss although it has not been as dramatic as that of many of the others who post on this site. I figure that this was partly due to my age and partly due to the fact that I wasn't starting from as high a number as some of the other women here. My other problem is that I have been unable to excercise except for going for long, long walks since I was banded. I tore my left rotator cuff last summer and now that that has almost healed - after months and months of physiotherapy! - my right rotator cuff is blown. My gym routine was blown, too, since this consisted entirely of ab work (I am one of those women who carries all her fat around her middle) and I needed my arms for this stuff. This was my tough luck but I am so happy to be 30 lbs lighter. I have gone from wearing size 18W pants to wearing a normo size 14. Even though my weight loss has been relatively slow compared to many I am very happy with it. I believe that a slow and steady weight loss may be healthier in the long run. And I was told that the time line for a lapbander to get to target is two years. My surgeon told me that my target was 150 lbs.