I waited over 2 years for mine, but that is because I was scheduled for surgery and was sent home for not quitting smoking, and then when I was rescheduled medicare decided to not pay for wls anymore if the hospitals and surgeons were not centers of excellence, well it took forever before Baptist was made a Center of Excellence and a year and half after my original surgery date Dr baker was finally able to take Medicare patients, which was Nov 06, and I started the paperwork and started getting the ball rolling again, and finally got my surgery Aug 15 07 which was just shy of 2 years since the day I was sent home from pre-op room. 

Yes it was frustrating to wait, I wanted to give up a few times, but the day finally came.  The wait is so worth it though.  My only regret is that I didn't quit smoking earlier. 

I'd go to some place like  caloriecount.about.com 

I use it a lot. All you do is put in the ounces of what ever you're using, the serving size and then hit "analyze"

you can put anything in there.  Also, you can google or yahoo it as a question and see what you get.

Why don't you just call Addie and tell her you need her to fax the list to your PCP? The two year labs are the same as the one year's.

I didn't know iron helped w/ rls.  Interesting.

Yeah, Windows Vista stinks!!!!

Hi Evelyn,

I read you other post, so I'll just comment here instead of both places, okay? 

First of all, you need to see Dr Baker every year around your anniversary date. Go to their website and you'll probably find a list of the lab tests he wants you to have done before you go. If you don't have them done, there won't be much for him to see you for. If the list isn't on the website, call Addie and she will send it to your pcp.  Some tests, like Vitamin D, are specialized and sometimes take a couple of weeks for the lab to get the results back to the Dr's office, so I'd make the appointments about 3 weeks apart.

Now, for the iron. Why are you taking so much? Does your multivitamin have iron in it? If so, you probably don't need extra unless your iron level is low, which you won't know until you get your labs drawn. Remember, you can't take iron within 2 hours of your calcium or they cancel each other out.

The tolerable upper limit of iron intake is 45 mg a day.  18 mg is the recommended daily intake for females 18-50.

So sorry about your rat. We're keeping a close eye on our old dog. Appears his days are numbered. it's the worst thing about having them....letting them go.

Take care!

I went to the chiropractor today, I go every Mon, Wed & Fri.  I am on day 9 of this awful headache and just wi**** would go away.  My rat DustBunny died of Resp. Failure saturday night, so I only got a couple of hours sleep as I stayed up all night with her, giving her xanax ( to keep her calm and slow her breathing down since she was gasping so hard she made a clicking sound everytime she took a breath) and updrafts of albuterol and kept an oxygen tube near her mouth.  She died a little after 4am. 

Then last night my restless legs decided to give me trouble and I was up every hour rubbing them, walking circles or taking hot showers, finally decided abt 9am that there was no use getting back in bed.  

My iron should be fine since I take iron pills, my sister says potassium, my chiro says magnesium/calcium and gave me a magnesium packet i mix with ho****er and drink 30 minutes before I go to bed to help me sleep and to help my legs.  It is a calm/relax thing according to the writing on the back of the packet.  So I will give it a try and hope I can get some sleep.

Meanwhile I am feeling sorry for myself, I am so tired of all the work I do around the house and just not feeling appreciated by my siginificant other.  Why does he wait till night time to tell me he needs laundry done?  He gets home from work most days around noon to 1am, if he would just say when he gets home that he needs his work clothes clean, then I could fit it into my schedule, not till night time when I am already exhausted from washing dishes, cooking dinner, and picking up the kitchen.  Did I mention that we don't have a washer/dryer that I have to go a few doors down to the building laundrymat, that only houses 1 washer, 1 dryer, and its a small room, with about a foot between the washer/dryer and the wall, and its a front loading washer and the door can't open all the way because the room is small so I have to bend down to try and get all the clothes in, then bend down to get them out and get them over to the dryer.  If I am lucky, the washer/dryer is not being used by one of the other 36 people who live in this building. 

Oh and for anyone who might just say, make him do his own laundry, I barely fit into the laundry room, he weighs 350 the only way he can get to the washer is to pick the dryer up on 2 legs and wedge in there.  Atleast before surgery I could use my weight as the excuse for not doing laundry, so I can't use it anymore and now its his turn to play the "to fat to fit in there" card, cause I played that card for several years, LOL. 

Also I forgot to call my surgeons office today, I am almost 2 years out now (Aug 15th will be the day) and I have not heard anything from the surgeons and I am sure I need to have some kind of labwork or something done, and I am thinking that he sees patients at the 2 year mark.  So I would think that I would have gotten something in the mail saying I need to schedule to come in and to have this and that labwork drawn beforehand.    But I don't want to wait until the last minute to do it, so I am just gonna call and ask them myself what I need to do and plus I need to have time to find a ride to little rock, and my sister will need to ask off for that day to drive me atleast 2 weeks in advance, so better to do it now, LOL