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I went and got my fourth fill on Tuesday December 18th. I was somewhat scared because I didn't know how much less I would be able to eat. I am sooo horrible with food. Me and food have this relationship (as most of you do) and food was not happy that I was going to get another fill and not be able to eat more of it. But, I opt'd for the fill. :) I recieved .95 cc's, not a whole bunch, but boy can I feel the restriction! I have had to be even more careful when choosing foods to eat. I tried to eat a burger yesterday, that was not smart. I had like 4 lodgers through eating just half of it. They hurt! I don't throw up though. I just sit there as my eyes water and I hope to god it passes quickly. Usually about a minute of that then the pain is gone. Today we went out and I had chili mac (trying to keep protein in mind of course) and it went down smoothly. It was the first meal I have enjoyed in the last few days.

One thing I have noticed is that I am eating more crap than stuff that is good for me. I am still losing weight, that is the most important thing. But all the cookies, crackers, chocolates, and candies go down the shoot fine, so I tend to eat them more than I would have before I had the surgery. Oh well.

Hope everyone is doing well and happy new years and merry christmas!!

Yeah so I think I need another fill. I was a bit concerned when I started thinking about it, but it's been almost 3 weeks since my last one. I am concerned because I am eating alot (like many times, not in large quantities), but maybe it's because I am supposed to be starting my period soon. Either way, I think I am going to wait at least another week before scheduling a fill. I think also it could be because I've been under extra stress lately, so I think I am eating to compensate for that. :(
I had to go in for a pap today with a new doctor (I was totally miserable) - my blood pressure was really high! Like 145 over 90! I was shocked. But I also started sweating while in the office, so I think it was the whole pap with new doctor thing. I was traumatizing, as all pap smears are. Usually my blood pressure has been good - like 130 over 85 or 123 over 80 (my last 2 checks). So, I am going to have it checked again later this week just to make sure I'm okay.
Besides that, I am doing good. I don't think I am loosing much, but as long as it's something, it's good. I am going to start trying protein shakes (I know I thought I would never drink them again) for breakfast instead of cereal. My new doc had suggested it because of the sugar and carbs that is in cereal. I don't think it will be too bad considering I have a hard time even getting the cereal down in the morning.

Well I will report back after my next fill.
Hope everyone is doing well!

So - yes I got ANOTHER fill today. Another 1.5 cc's. My last fill went great for the first 7 days or so - then it just didn't do much after that. So I decided I would make another appointment with Day One Health (my new office in Chicago). I happen to be at a training by my dr's office today and they had an appointment available - so I went in! It was great to find out that since my last fill I had lost 3 pounds. I wasn't exactly sure what was going on with my weight because I recently bought a new scale so and I was checking my weight at my gym at work and they were both saying different things. I am glad to report that I am 215 now! I can't believe it! It is hard to think that not even a year ago I was 260 and miserable. Thanks to Jenny Craig for the first 20 pounds and the lapband for the other 25 (plus more to come!).
My doc was a little concerned at first that I was back so soon, but when I told him I had eaten a whole regular turkey sub at Quizno's today for lunch, he agreed that it was a good time to get another fill.

With my fills, I have noticed that I seem to get a slight headache after them. I had some tomato soup for dinner and am planning to take a dose of liquid Tylenol and then head to bed. Alot of stuff is going on a personal note so sleep sounds really good. Nothing better than sleep to cure the blues if you ask me!

Day One health has group meetings the 3rd Tuesday of every month so I am excited to go this month to meet other patients.

Thanks for reading everyone!

Sorry I haven't been writing alot. It's wierd! You get soooo excited about the surgery that you obsess with oh.com and other websites all day everyday! Once your surgery happens and you start dealing with the new changes in your life - you start to not obsess as much and just live your life. So - sorry for not writing, but I will promise to at least write every few months, at the least.

Anyways- I went to my new doc here is Chicago last Friday and got my second fill. His name is Dr Shyani (sp?). I got 3cc's added in. It was cool because he used the xray to find my port and do the fill. He said he liked to do it that way on new patients who didn't have the surgery with him. After the fill I had to drink barium to make sure it passed through the band ok. I got to watch it go through my band on the x-ray. It was cool! The other cool part was that he told me to eat soup at my first meal after the fill, and as long as it goes down ok, I could then eat whatever I wanted. Which was good for me because my husband was coming into town (long story) and we wanted to go eat out.

I can definitely feel the restriction. I almost over ate 2 times this week. It will get to the point where food just starts coming back up a little and then I know it is time to stop eating. If I have food in my mouth that I am chewing, I will just spit it out and not worry about trying to swallow it. I am not sure if I have lost this past week, my scale is broken. I am going to try to weigh in at my work tomorrow and make sure that I have lost something since my fill. I hope I have.

Besides that, all is going well. I love my band!!!

Alright, it's been about 2 weeks since my first fill, and I think I need some more. I could tell that day that I probably didn't get enough in me. My 3 other friends got their first fills yesterday, and they got 4cc's!!! I only got 1.2cc's. At this point I am not gaining, so that is good. However, I think I am plateau-ing. I am in the middle of a stressful move right now and as of last night I really don't have a place to lay my head that I call my own quite yet. The deal that I am thinking is that once I get to chicago, I am going to make an appointment with Day One Health and get another fill. I think I was scared that they would overfill me and I would have that scare where I couldn't get even liquid down. I haven't checked in yet with my friends to see if they are eating and drinking ok, I think they probably are.

Now to my life besides the band - things have been going great. Last weekend my friends had a going away party for me where there was lots of drinking and dancing. It was awesome! It was the first time I had drank alcohol since my band. I had Skyy Vodka's and cranberry juice - they were good! And of course, dancing without getting out of breath was the best part of the whole night. I loved it. Besides that, all of our stuff is in the moving truck, ready to head out of phoenix on Monday. I will be getting on a plane on Tuesday with my cats to go to Chi-town where I will be meeting with my stuff probably on Thursday. I am super stoked. I can't wait.

Tah-tah for now - again!

My first fill went great. The only downside was that I had to lay on the fill table for at least 30 minutes with my shirt up waiting for the doctor to see me! Besides that it went great. The weirdest part was that after the doc got the needle in he made me sit up and drink water with the needle sticking out of me! It was bizzare! I understand why though - he wanted to make sure I was at a good spot before removing the needle. Aftwards me and my hubby went to Claim jumper and I had my favorite soup - the chicken totilla soup! I stayed clear of the big chunks of chicken in the soup - tried to stick more with the liquid portion of the soup. After that we went to see 3:10 to Yuma - good movie. Last night I ate some blended black bean soup for din-din. Everything seemed to go down ok. This morning I decided to be a little risky and I made a bowl of cereal - of course waited for the cereal to get mushy before eating it. I ate ALOT less than I thought I could. So the restriction must be kicking in for me. I was a bit worried yesterday after my fill because it seemed like possibly I didn't get enough fill in. But today I think I'm good.

Tah-tah for now!

Well, tomorrow is my first fill. I am excited about it because for about the last week, my appetite has come on strong. I feel like I can eat close to the same amount as I ate before the surgery. I hope the fill will help to get my full and keep me not hungry as much as I have been. I think I have probably gained about 2 pounds which sucks. But I think the fill will help.

Also, I need to start focusing on eating better. I have been eating out alot because we are in the process of packing because we are moving to chicago at the end of the month. I pretty much packed away all of my cooking stuff.

I am not scared of the fill - since I already once had the doc stick a needle in me to pull out fill, I don't think I will have much problems with it.

I'll keep ya'll updated!!

Okay - here is my update -
Things are going great. It took me about a week and a day to recover to the point I fealt I could drive myself around and try to get back into life. I went back to work a week and a half after surgery. My scars are healing nicely - Good amount of scar tissue. I have been trying to learn how to eat without drinking - also - I am starting to get my appetite back. I am trying to eat good - but really what I am concerned with is eating my proteins first. Mostly tuna and chicken salad for lunches and dinners. Also - instant mash potatoes with protein powder in it. I am in Utah this week for work so have been eating out. It is not too hard to find protein choices. I just need to make sure to eat slow. This morning I ate yogurt and granola. I bit into a strawberry and didn't chew it well before it went down. I think it got "stuck" or something. I didn't throw up or anything - I just fealt pretty uncomfortable for about 2 hours. I don't know if it got stuck though because I don't have any fill in my band, so I am really not sure how it could have gotten stuck. Also - I think I may have eaten a little too much at lunch- I fealt uncomfortable again after lunch for about an hour. Dinner- I ate slower and a smaller amount - then I fealt fine afterwards.

I will be going to get my first fill in about a month. Also - I will be moving to Chicago soon after that - I need to find a doc there that has a good support program..... any suggestions???

Hello all = I had my surgery on Thursday morning - woke up in pain. I ended up staying the night at the hospital because I was in a good amount of pain. I got home yesterday morning about noon. I continued to walk around the house and sip liquid. However - as the progressed, I could tell that my body was rejecting the liquids. I gagged a number of times, but tried really hard not to throw up because I didn't want band slipage. I paged my doc at 10pm last night and he told me to go to the office this morning so he could remove the little fill that was in my band. I hurt a little because since I was sooo swollen, he had a hard time finding my port. But - he finally got in there and pulled fluid out. At that point I was able to drink a whole bottle of water! It was great. So now -I'm back at home relaxing and walking around the house a couple minutes an hour. Also - I am trying to use my spirometer formy lungs, however, it makes me alittle nausous.

One thing that I noticed that I am a little worried about is my lungs. They are very sore and with ever deep breath, I can feel more soreness on them. Also, I have dried blood in my nose -I hope it's not anything too bad - I'll just keep using my spirometer.

Other than that my eye sight is blurry due to the nausia patch I have behind my ear. It said that was one of the side effect. The other weird that is that I haven't had much gas as other people had said. It's weird. I'm happy that I got through it - but I hate this heeling part. I am bit of wuss for pain - so I wish I would hurry up and get better already!!

Well, tomorrow is my surgery date! It is hella crazy. I can't believe I am doing this! I have made it through the pre-op diet. It was not fun, but I did. I will say it did get easier as the days went along, but I think that was because my finish date was getting closer. I took the day off from work to take these "flushing" pills - Methronidazol and Neomycin - I read somewhere that that would make me be in the bathroom all day, but that has not been true for me. I wish I would have went to work today so I could have saved a vacation day. Oh well. All that is happening is my stomach is gurgling and I have a slight headache. I haven't even wanted to really eat today - I am sooo sick of egg beaters and chicken. I didn't even cook any today - I would rather just drink my diet then eat chicken at this point!

So I guess I will be getting my galbladder out tomorrow. The doc took some blood on Monday - he said he would rather not take my galbladder out and give me lapband at the same time. He said lapband is what they call a "clean" procedure and gallblader is a "dirty" surgery (because of the internal cutting). He likes to keep them seperate. He said he would like me to return in 6 weeks after my lapband has heeled and have it removed then. I explained to him my situation with moving to chicago at the end of september and that I would not be able to get another surgery before I leave. Also - I will be alone in Chi-town for 2 months so I can't get it done then either. The doc said he would see whether or not I could wait that long depending on the test results. The test was to check my kidney and pancreas level. He said if I wait too long I could develop pancreatitis.
I called today and the nurse said the results looked a little elevated. She said the doc said he would talk to me before my surgery to decide what to do.... (side note - I would never go back to Weight Loss Institute of AZ because of things like this - everything is constantly chaotic - the office staff is never on the same page as each other. It is a cluster f*ck.) So - I think I am going to tell the Doc to take it out - so I don't run into anymore of that crazy pain while I am trying to move or while I'm in Chicago by myself. I guess I'll see what he says. Besides that- it looks like my insurance authorized for inpatient procedure, so I will probably stay overnight. I went to Bookman's (a local used book store) and picked up a bunch of magazine's to read while I am in the hospital. I am also about to pack a overnight bag. Well everyone - wish me luck!!! See you on the other side in bandland!!!