Major update time, folks. Sorry for not posting lately (I say as if anyone is sitting around with baited breathe, anxiously awaiting my next entry!) Life has been really busy, and good. Great really.
In the band realm, the past month has been hard because since my appointment on July 2nd at which I told Dr. A that I thought I was good without a fill, I've been regretting that and feeling like more than anything I did need one. I wasn't supposed to go back till 8/13 but I called in mid-July and got bumped up to 8/5. He put in a whole CC which means I have either 4.5 or 5 depending on whose math is correct. I believe I only have 4.5 cause he took out .5 of the initial 3.5 he gave me back in May. But he told me I have 5 now so I'll go with that. 5 is definitely around the point where I should be feeling it (my band only holds 10ccs so from here onward it's more full than empty.) And man, am I feeling it!
I have only ever felt this tight immediately after surgery and never even close to this after my first 2 fills. Well, 3rd one's a charm - I can only hope. But what a sudden change! For the past month I've been able to eat whatever and however much of it I could want. Not that I have been, but I know I could. I have not been satisfied on solid protein and vegetables the way I had been previously and I started experimenting with pizza, pasta, and bread again in my last week before the fill. I didn't gain any weight, in fact my own scale had me at 211.6 the morning of my appointment, but that was due to my own diligence in limiting myself even while I felt I could, in theory, have eaten my way back to 273 most days. Then there were the few, very few, odd days where the extreme heat and humidity did something weird and took away my desire and ability to eat. Those days I drank protein shakes and enjoyed the wonderful new feeling of not being hungry. But most days I felt as though my band had fallen off, disappeared, or just vaporized. Maybe it was absorbed into my body or something? Ohhhhh no it didn't! It's still there. Took another CC of fluid to prove it but it's definitely live and kicking.
I got the adjustment on Thursday at 4pm. My doctor is always impressed with my loss but this month I was being down on myself cause I only registered has having lost 5.5 lbs. The first thing that happened sort of lightened the mood a bit. Dr. A walked into the room holding the printout from the computer with all my numbers and said "I think they messed these up." I immediately figured he was referring to my small loss of 5 lbs this month and said, "No, I just had a hard month." He shook his head no and said something wasn't right and they (the nurses who take weight and enter it into the computer) had done something wrong. Turns out they had. They'd entered me at 288 somehow instead of my actual reading. So, about 75lbs more than I actually am, if my math is correct (it's probably not.) Anyway, that was funny and got me a bit more relaxed. I told him I thought he was making fun of me for not losing more this month and he said something along the lines of "I tell you every time, you're at where we expect people 3 years out" which I don't believe but ok. And then he said he wished 50% of his patients were as successful as me and that made me feel very good.
So, on to what happened next, I got another CC bringing me to 5 by his count. I drank the glass of water slowly with no trouble. I left. Come to find out that anything more than water is a different story. For the past 2 days I have been walking around perpetually drifting between extremely hungry and 2 sips later - OMG gonna puke. I got STUCK on a couple of bites of liquidy instant oatmeal and after a few minutes had to hack it up cause it was just too painful to keep trying to keep it down. I have never experienced tightness like this, at least not since the first few days after surgery, so I've been going back and forth since Thursday night between loving it and wondering if I'm too tight.
It's been well over 48 hours now and finally I can drink water at a normal pace without feeling icky. I had what I approximate to be 1 tablespoon of guacamole for dinner along with a bite of cottage cheese and a teaspoon of diced up tomato/onion "pico de gallo." The really delicious protein smoothie I made for myself this morning is still in the fridge cause 2 spoonfulls of it is enough to satisfy me for hours. I know this will change as the swelling goes down but this is amazing! I have no idea how long it'll last and I'm hoping at least for 2 weeks of this kind of restriction even if I have to eat softer foods for a bit. It would just be so nice. I take one bite and I have no interest in the food anymore and I've already learned that it's not worth it to take an extra bite just to see (that ends badly.) Fingers crossed...
But anyway, I'm enjoying it for now. Despite being a little bit frustrating to really want to enjoy even a few bites of something and really not being able to. I don't care! This is what I asked for after all, this tool to help me. And right now it feels like a power tool. Industrial strength.
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