Watch Me Shrink

I have had so much going on in this first year with my band, mostly regular life. We moved to the coast, have a new puppy, got a new job, starting a new business on the side and with four kids in the house (9-18) even daily life has it’s challenges.

In the past my health and diet were always on the back burner to everything else going on in life. Plus, I used food as a reward (ice cream at the end of a hard day), an escape (dinner out at a nice restaurant with hubby– pasta, steak, yum!) and to just cope with feelings (busy my fingers and mouth eating chips while watching a good show). All very bad habits and coping mechanisms. With my band, even on busy and stressful days I HAD to stop and think what I was eating, how I was eating it and was limited in how much I could eat.

I had a couple of set backs. In my eagerness to lose weight fast, like many of my fellow August 07 bandsters, I rushed my fills and had to get unfills twice. The problem is that it can be hard to tell when I’m in the office if the fill is too much, especially with being so new to the band. The first one wasn’t too big of a deal. The tightness feeling that I sometimes have after a fill didn’t go away and I was only able to eat liquid and mush. The band was too tight and I just needed a small unfill.

The second one was much more serious. I thought the fill went well and was on liquids for two days, mush for a few after that and went to chewing chicken a veg really well. About a week or so after the fill I ate chicken, maybe didn’t chew well enough, and had a major PB. After the PB the symptoms didn’t go away and I wasn’t able to swallow my own saliva! So, the next morning we rushed to my Dr (2.5 hours away) for an unfill. In a case like that they would normally completely unfill but I begged that they only take half and they did, thank God!

After the swelling went down I started to FEEL my stomach again. I was H-U-N-G-R-Y! I hadn’t felt that feeling in a while. How annoying. Needless to say I gained a bit of my weight back before getting in for the refill.

I went in for another refill yesterday and finally have my restriction back. I actually relish the soft foods, tiny amounts and tight feeling. It was so hard after surgery but now I feel comfortable with it.

I was feeling disappointed that I gained some of my weight back after the unfill and haven’t lost nearly as much as many of my fellow bandsters. Then I realized having my band is for life. This is only my first year and I’m still learning. I didn’t gain all this weight in one year and it’s not good for it to all come off in one year. So, this is me: Bandster for life and learning!

I went in for my February lap band fill. Erin (left) and Heather (right) were nice enough to pose for a picture. Erin is an RN and fellow bandster. Heather is an x-ray tech. All of the staff in Dr. Neal’s office are really nice people!

The machine in the picture is were I sit for my fill. It’s a Fluoroscope x-ray machine. It reclines back and the arm (shown at the top in this image) comes down over my tummy and takes a live x-ray of my band, port and stomach. The image appears on the screen (shown in the left side of this image) and the Erin can see where to stick the needle in the port. No guessing. I’m so thankful Dr. Neal uses fluoroscope for fills!

The needle stings just a quick bit and doesn’t hurt at all once it’s in. The nurse then extracts a little bit of the saline to make sure she’s in my port and then slowly injects more saline. (Next time I will get a picture of the special needle, tubing and clamp she uses. It’s the very best, top of the line for band fills– unlike some of those weird fills I’ve seen done on Youtube.) Then I have to sit up and drink barium as Erin watches it go down through my pouch, band and into my stomach. It’s kinda neat to watch.

That’s it. It takes me a lot longer to type all this than it does to get the fill. LOL! So, I now have 8.4 cc in my 14 cc lap band.

I went in for my first fill this week. It went great! I’m down a total of 27 so far! Dr Neal says I’m doing good, healing just fine, and can start my water aerobics again. I even got to hug him and thank him for the great job he did. It’s a funny feeling to put your life in someone’s hands and not remember any of it. I feel so good and the incisions are small, even and healing nicely. I didn’t have any infection problems, or even oozing or splitting– which I’ve heard is fairly common and normal. I highly recommend Dr Neal as the lap band surgeon of choice!

The fill was done under fluoroscope (like an instant mini x-ray). I was told it would feel like a pinch or bee sting but I couldn’t even tell if the needle was in. The worst was the taste of the barium I had to swallow. Yuck! You’d think they would find a way to flavor that stuff by now. LOL Anyway, I watched on the screen and could see my pouch and stomach. It was very interesting. Because I drove so far and the barium on an empty stomach made me a little sick, I waited ten minutes in the lobby to make sure everything was going to stay down.

IMHO, I wouldn’t get a fill without fluoro and the Iname special needle. I’ve heard several horror stories lately of fills gone bad and just don’t see any point in risking it when the process I went through was so EASY.

“Thanks again Dr Neal!”