Hi and Happy Mothers Day! I have been researching WLS for about a year and a half now. I think I pretty well know what I'm getting myself into. I was discussing the surgery with a neighbor of mine and she tells me of this horrible story of a friend of a friend (of course) who had a bowel obstruction and lost so much of his bowel that he is now on a permanent pic line to get his nutrients in. Then, stupid me, I go on the WLS complications messageboard and read all the horror stories there. Now I'm scared to death. I'm also confused. You see I've spent a lot of time praying about this and I feel pretty good about my decision. But when I start thinking about these people who have had horrible, tragic results I get really anxious. When I don't think about these people, when I think of me having the surgery and what I think my life will be like, I get really excited and I feel very happy and, well, like I'm about to be paroled from prison and can finally stand in the sun again. So, when I feel anxious is that the Spirit? I've always had trouble recognizing the Spirit, unless of course it's a lightening bolt out of the sky type of prompting. How did all of you get your assurance. Did anyone go through the fear that I am experiencing. Also, so far everything seems to be falling into place. I would think that if this wasn't right for me and my family then there would be obstacles after obstacles. Someone help me out here please? Lynda D.

When I stepped on the scale this morning after eating a breakfast of a 16 oz protein drink and a string cheese, I was thrilled to see that the scale showed a weight of 130 lbs. That's HALF the weight I started this journey with. I still feel 260 lbs and there's no way I'm going to be putting a swim suit on anywhere in the near future. I know I must be exaggerating but to me it looks like I've got about 15 lbs of excess skin around my body, legs and arms. I still stop and look in a mirror or a reflective window when I'm in or around a store. It's hard for me to believe what other people are seeing. It's taken me 14 months but the weight has come off and is still slowly coming off. For all the ones just beginning or who are discouraged and think that it won't work for them - just be patient. The weight WILL and does come off. This is the lowest my weight has been since grade school. I weighed 142 in the 7th grade if that can give you any idea of how heavy I was as a child. Now I have a confession to make. Don't bash me please and I hope my surgeon isn't reading this - I haven't exercised the last year at all. I wouldn't recommend not exercising to anyone but due to physical limitations and problems I allowed that to be my excuse for not exercising. To my delight in spite of not excersing the weight has continued to come off. Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers, those that mother someone else's child, and to those that nuture and give support and encouragement to children of all ages. Remember we don't have to give birth to be a mother. Melody

So Lynn how are you doing? Its Thursday and I'm thinking you are either home or almost home. Let us know how things went. Christy

Hi Melody, One thing we did to help enjoy family scripture time more was buy the "New Testament for LDS Families" and also the same thing for the BOM. I'm not sure if the old testament and D&C are available or not. These are really big hardback books and they are awesome. Each chapter is broken down into sections based on content and instead of the regular footnotes at the bottom, it puts things like definitions to hard words, or explains something you read about, or talks about the JST of the verse you read, but the best thing is...it asks questions about the sections. What we do is take turns reading a section (BTW-my son is almost 9) and then if we come across some of the goodies from the bottom of the page in our section, we read them and talk about them. Then when there is a question we each take a turn giving an answer and we always let Nate go first to see what he has to say. I'm telling you, there have been a few times that he just really makes our jaws drop to the floor with the answers he gives. He has been learning a lot and I contribute it msotly to these cool new scriptures we have. I'm not sure where DH bought them but you could check Deseret Books, they might have them. Hope this helps! I hear you about when they say those things that just make your heart melt!! Bren

The prophet has asked us to do four things. Have Family Home Evening, Read the scriptures together as a family, Have Family prayer and last but not least, be a better person. Our family has diligently strived to have regular family home evenings and recently started reading scriptures together as a family. We've always had family prayer so that wasn't a challenge for us but the reading of the scriptures as a family was definately a challenge. My two youngest children are 4 and 6 years old. Their attention span isn't very long so sometimes we only get 14 versus of scriptures read. It's a fight the entire time we are reading. The girls don't seem to be paying attention. They play and fight together the entire time. Still I persist. I think I'm wasting everyone's time but since we're told to do it, I persist. Both my children absolutely amaze me in their prayer skills. They give more thanks for things than asking to bless things (I'm thrilled). The other night my 4 year old took her turn at saying the nightly bedtime prayers, in the prayer she told Heavenly Father that she was thankful we could read the scriptures! Did a mother's heart good. Maybe I'm not wasting my time reading the sciptures to the girls afterall. I guess they really are learning something afterall. Melody