Argh!!!! And a Double Quadruple Argh!!!!

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This is not going to be a pretty, positive, flowery blog entry today. I warn you. This is going to be one of the ugly truth kind of blogs. Yesterday I was so super angry and frustrated. It all started when I went to get a fill in my lap band. I was hoping for a tiny .2 or .3 cc fill that would help give me a little more restriction.  WELL, the nurse decided that she needed to pull out all the fluid to see how much there really was in there. On one hand I could understand the thought behind it. My lap band can only hold 10 ccs and since I'm getting really close to the maximum amount that it can hold it's important that they know how much is really in there. I'm guessing something bad can happen to the band if you go over the 10 ccs.

The problem is this. A year into having my band I got a bad stomach virus and I threw up for a whole day. I was so sick that I had to go in to have some fluid taken out. I went back and started having it put back in but ever since that time I stopped losing weight and I have never been able to get back on track. So yesterday was a big deal.

I couldn't believe she had to take out all the fluid to measure it. When she she started putting the fluid back in I knew all of it wouldn't go in and I was right. I was super tight and she had to keep taking more out until she could get me to a point where I wasn't too tight. (When you are tight you feel like you are going to throw up water.) Apparently I have a very sensitive stomach that can't take too drastic a change. So instead of getting a fill I left there with 4 ccs less than when I went in.

I was livid! I felt like I took 3 steps back instead of a step forward. I felt frustrated and angry. I'm better today but I'm hungry. After having them mess with the lap band that much, and especially because of my reaction, I have to stay on liquids for 4 days and then soft food for two days. I'm on Day 2 and I'm starving. I hope I can hang in there for two more days.

So that's the story. We'll see how this all works out. Hopefully the 4 days of liquids will give me a kick start.

The Challenges of Eating & Not Eating

Design by Anne Taintor

I was on the phone with my husband today, right after warming up some soup for lunch. I told him I was about to eat lunch and while we were talking my stomach growled really loud. It was so loud he actually heard it through the phone line and he laughed. I told him I felt like I was starving so I hung up with him and started to eat. Well, either I started eating too fast (which I didn't feel like I did) or something just got stuck. I had to stop eating abruptly and now I feel like something is lodged in my chest and it's taking away my appetite, simply because I can't eat a thing now. So now I'm getting the sensation of being full, but really I'm still hungry. That my friends is a lap band experience sometimes.

Then there is the opposite of this kind of experience. Wednesday night I went out to eat with some friends and I was able to eat eight nachos with beef fajita on them. EIGHT! That's insane and shouldn't even be possible, but somehow on Wednesday I was able to do that. Then today I'm starving and this... 

The lap band is so finicky. On the day that I needed a fill I had to have some liquid taken out after the nurse filled me, because I was too tight. Yet after doing the liquids and the soft food days I could eat like I did before getting the fill. What happened that day that I went in for the fill I don't know. My body and stomach just decided that they didn't like that little bit of liquid tightening up the lap band so they decided to rebel. That and my hormones were starting to act up too, so the combination did it. That's the only explanation I can think of.

Yes, having a lap band is a challenge and yes I may not have lost all the weight I was hoping  and yes, sometimes I can eat a lot, but in the end I will never eat as much as I did in my past life. And that is what keeps me motivated.