Our very own place to hang out ...banded friends ....Thank you! it has been a long uphill battlle....

See you soon!! Kate

Does sound awfully unfriendly, doesn't it Charline! My understanding is that we borrowed an unused board whilst hoping for one of our own. We have now got that so thanks to real PEI people for the loan! I don't know your situation but the logic behind this was that most of us vets go regularly on the main LB board and lots of us give advice and support to newbies and others needing help. But, quite naturally, the newer you are to being banded the more questions you have. And these days an awful lot of newbies seem to have leapt into banding without fully understanding that it is one of the hardest choices to have made -we have to WORK at weight loss. So the questions do get very repetitive. And after 2 years of seeing the same posts again and again, you just turn off! So general LB boards tend to have a larger number of newbie questions than of vets chatter. Our needs are quite simply different. We want to swap maintenance tips and our bands have become less significant in our overall lives. Hence a special vets board. We also tend to know each other better after all this time and so our posts might mean little to a newbie anyway! Kate

A lot of the regulars have come to Bansterville! Come check us out! http://www.network54.com/Index/88706

I had no intention of posting, I just feel like I've lost a huge resource of information. I've been reading posts for over a year trying to learn everything about band life. I didn't research the band by reading studies and reports... I wanted to learn from those who have gone before me. To me that is the reality of this surgery. I understand the vets will still be on the main lap band board offering support and I am so very grateful for that. But I am saddened that I will no longer have a first hand glimpse into long term band life. It's not my questions or really any other "newbie's" questions I'm interested in (I can easily find those answers in previous posts). It's the veteran's questions, successes, set backs, hurdles, victories and insight that are important to me. As far as the WLS wars, trolls, and trouble makers go, I don't even pretend to understand any of it. For me it's the band or I'll die fat (and before my time). I will not have a mal-absorptive procedure and I resent the way the band is being bashed. We each must make our own choice and I choose the band! My surgery is April 4 and I can only pray that I will be as successful as you all are. Thanks for listening! Kim