Hello Everyone: I am sure all of you are as busy as I am with all the end of the year stuff at school and looking forward to the summer. I have a dilemma. My insurance is requiring me to have 12 mo of documented weight loss failure for approval. I actually have this and am appealing it, however it may take some time and I might not have the WLS during the summer as I have hoped and prayed for. Did any of you have this surgery during the school year and if so how long did it take you to return to work? I teach HS Biology, full-time. I am worried. I don't want to leave my school in a bind with me being gone.....and I hope there will be no complications. I have tried so hard to get Summer approval, but BCBS/IL is HARD to work with. I keep telling myself I have got to do what I have got to do and the school and kids will be FINE without me, but I feel very guilty. Thank-you, Cindy

Wow yesterday was the first day any of the kids at school actually said "Wow, Mrs. Johnson you have lost a lot of weight. You look great." It made me feel so good that even the students have really noticed my change. They have even made comments how I'm a better teacher because I smile so much more and seem to walk and play with them more. Its great isn't it. Shawnde 310-day of surgery 197-today

I planned a similar lesson once, but never executed it. I was going to use some of the Colonial music from a CD I found in Williamsburg, Va. They were cool

diane, thanks for your response to my post needing help with a lesson plan. we too, here in western north carolina, have been battling some wintry precip. last week we didn't have school monday thru thursday, then the school system called a regular schedule for friday so that the writing test could be administered (which we were supposed to have had on tuesday). i'm wondering how those scores are going to turn out? kind of scary - bringing the kids back from a nice little vacation only to take a test. as of right now we aren't scheduled to get out of school until june 10th (students) and june 13th (teachers), but for every other day of school we miss due to snow those dates just keep on backing up. our school system is in the process of trying to get the general assembly to 'forgive' some of our built up days due to the flooding we had back in september (i think it was 9 days total we missed). i hope that works out because they've already set our return dates for the fall - august 4th (teachers) and 9th (students). we won't have too much of a summer break if things keep going the way they are. anyway, take care and hang in there a couple more months! monet *down 118lbs since 9/1/04

I hope March is proving to be a good month for everyone. Here in eastern KY we had snow and ice. School was cancelled until Thursday. This in turn cancelled all the Dr. Seuss activities that were scheduled. But, March is just a slide into testing and the most important event in a teachers career... summer vacation. Diane