The Skinny on My First (Un) Fill

Well, last week I know I was all gung-ho about my super-duper restriction. Yippee, I was hardly eating and I was losing weight fast. What more could a lap-bander want? Well I’ve got to tell you, it got old quickly. You see, this past week I actually started to experience some hunger. Only problem was—I couldn’t eat…or drink. Maybe it was just because I was actually hungry that I noticed it more, but my band actually seemed tighter this week than it was last week. Looking back at some of my MyFitnessPal daily food logs, this seemed to be supported by the fact that I started out eating about 800-900 Calories a day on mushies and was down to less than 600 Calories a day. Not only that, but I was hardly getting any water in. Even drinking gave me chest pain. It wasn’t good.

So Tuesday night was the monthly support group meeting for patients of Dr. G. and associates. I made my way down to the hospital and met with several other patients as well as one of the PAs and the psychiatrist that works with the program. I sat through several recently banded patient’s descriptions of bandster hell before finally getting to express my (opposite) concerns.

The PA, Deirdre agreed that I was too tight and told me to make an appointment to come in to the office. It was nice to have someone agree with my worries. It seemed that everyone else I told was like—“GREAT! You should be happy. Isn’t this what you wanted?” Well no, not exactly. I didn’t really go into this aiming to become practically anorexic, experience chest pain constantly, suffer from dehydration, send my body into starvation mode and totally screw up my metabolism. That’s not really what I wanted. But alas, while everyone I know has been very supportive, it doesn’t mean they understand what I’m going through. Deirdre however was much more appreciative of my predicament. She shared the same concerns about my lack of nutrition, and while I stated that I was afraid of going into starvation mode and seeing my wonderful weight-loss stall, she added the concern of losing weight too quickly. I can’t really say that I was too worried about that one, but still…at least she acknowledged that there was a problem.

So Wednesday I called the office and set up an appointment for first thing Thursday morning. I went in as scheduled and met with the same PA. She explained that Dr. G. fills each band to capacity to ensure there are no leaks and then takes out enough fluid to get rid of all the air/air bubbles and equalize the pressure. This leaves a slightly different amount of fluid in each person’s band post-op. Sometimes there is as little as 0.5ccs, in one patient she saw recently, there was 5ccs left in their 14cc band. Anyhow, I lay back on the table and she stuck and big needle into my port. No local anesthesia or anything, but I prefer it that way. I hardly felt the needle at all whereas lidocaine burns like a mother effer. She attached a syringe and aspirated the fluid from my 10cc band. For some reason Dr. G. puts a dye called methylene blue into the saline so the fluid that came out was bright blue. She aspirated until no more fluid came out. Deirdre told me there was still about a half a cc left. In the end she wound up removing 3.2ccs. She had me take a few sips of water and it seemed to go down smoothly this time. We said our good-byes and I left.

I subsequently spent the next 15 minutes looking for the valet ticket I got when I pulled up to the hospital. I never did find it but it turns out it didn’t matter anyway; the valet was happy to take my word for it. Apparently I have an honest face or something. I got in my car and drove to work while sipping happily, pain-free, on a Medifast protein shake as I was instructed to stick to fluids and really soft foods for a couple of days.

It’s definitely a relief to have all that restriction gone. I know I’ll probably be in bandster hell soon, but to me that’s better than chest pain every time I swallow. I’ve definitely been hungrier the last 2 days but it has hardly been unbearable. I still do seem to have some restriction and am mostly satisfied after a meal. If it stays this way I think I should do alright moving on to solids on Monday. And if worse comes to worst, I go back for what was supposed to be my first fill (and may technically still be, I suppose) in just over 2 weeks. I can suffer through some hunger pains until then.

On a completely unrelated note I would just like to quickly tell you about the extreme shopping high I am currently riding. You see, a few years ago I received a Coach purse as a Christmas gift. Sadly, earlier this year the leather strap began to tear. Well, for those of you who don’t know, Coach has a life-time guarantee. I sent the bag back and received a voucher for the full retail price of the bag—over $320. I took my voucher to the outlets today where they had sales galore. I bought a large purse, a wristlet purse, sunglasses, a key chain and an umbrella. Actual retail value—over $1000. Actual price I charged to my credit card--$51. If I could get deals like this all the time, I would have been a shopping addict over a food addict long ago. Hmm, maybe outlet shopping will be my new vice after all.