Fill #2 and a few curse words

I went into fill number 2 with little concern. My first fill had been so quick and gone so smoothly. I should have known. Little Guy came with me and he was SO good. It took over 20 minutes with me on the table and he just sat and played with his baby doll and the plastic stomach model the nurse gave him. What a good kid. The fill...oh, the fill. She stuck me once and kept moving the needle around but could not access the port so she took a deep breath and tried again. No success. As a last ditch effort I rolled on my side and she stuck me again, it worked. Phew. I got 1cc to bring me up to a total of 4. I made an appointment for 2 weeks out for another fill since she doesn't think I'll have much restriction until at least 5cc's. I am not looking forward to doing that again.

Catching Up

It's been a busy few weeks. Right after my first fill the boys got sick. First Little Guy and then Big Guy. A few days later it was my turn. I didn't recover nearly as quick as the boys, ugh. After 7 days of feeling like horse poo I went to the doctor and she gave me some antibiotics, phew. All is well now :) In the beginning of not feeling well I gained weight. Nothing healthy sounded good. By the time I went to the doctors though I was back to where I had been, thank you! Then I just started losing.....I honestly wasn't even trying. I'll take it! So my new low is 242.8 :) I am up a bit this AM but forgot to take my diuretic BP meds yesterday so I am sure that attributed to it. We'll see what the scale says tomorrow.

My last post was an emotional one. I absolutely HATE the before pictures. I hated them when I first saw them months ago. My brother in law took them and put them on Facebook. I quickly de-tagged them. Ugh. I love the new pictures which is such an odd feeling, it made me cry. The person in the pictures matches the person I see in the mirror, finally. It's so hard because I am so hard on myself and still see how far I have to go but that post reminded me of how far I have come.

In other news, Big Guy starts Kindergarten TODAY!!! WOW! I have to go with him today for a sort of orientation but tomorrow he will board the big yellow bus (sniff sniff). Can someone pass the tissues?

I have another fill tomorrow as well, first thing in the morning. I need it and can't wait to see how it feels. I also need to get walking again. All the sickness led to a sedentary me, blech. Time to kick it up again and get moving. The weather is changing and that makes walks so much nicer. I love the cool Fall-esque weather :)

Well, hopefully that's it. I'll let you know how fill number 2 goes tomorrow!

Pictures!!!

Before:

After:

I actually like some of these new pictures of myself!! I'll post some befores too if I can figure it out.

It Paid Off

All that hard work the past few days trying to rid myself of the water weight paid off in more ways than one. I did shed the water pounds and some others as well. The grand total is now 60 pounds gone forever! Adios! Bon Voyage!

In fill news.....I like it! There is probably still some swelling from having the fill done but for now I like the restriction. We went out for ice cream last night and I couldn't even finish my SMALL. Wow! I was full, full, full.

Anyone interested in inches lost? I never thought I would be but wow! I took the first measurements the day before surgery, 6 weeks ago.

Waist: then 46" now 43"
Hips: then 55" now 51"
Bust: then 46" now 44"
Thigh: then 28" now 26.75"
Calf: then 16.75" now 16"

So......in 6 weeks I have lost 11 inches!! Woohoo! I love that more than half of those inches came off the waist and hips :)

And it's over

Phew, the appts. are behind me. The 6 week check in with the surgeon was pointless. It went something like this:
doc: "any questions, concerns, issues, anything?"
Me "nope"
doc: "let me take a peek at your belly" poke poke poke...... "OK, let's get you out of here"

I waited 20 minutes in the waiting room for a 3 minute visit. Go figure.

Next I went to the office next door to meet with the RN for my fill. I have a 10cc band, a good thing to know. Apparently they flush it with 5cc's at the time of surgery and some gets left in so she has to figure out how much I have in there and she can give me up to 2cc's more but not bring me to more than 4cc's. So she poked around my belly for a while trying to feel the port and then stuck the needle in. Some people have 3cc's left after the flushing, I had 1. So that's why I've been so hungry and why I can eat a lot. I had no restriction. So now I have 3cc's in my band. Let's see how that goes. I do have an appt. in two weeks for another fill, the nurse was fairly confident this one was not going to cut it. She said typically patients seem happiest between 5 and 6cc's.

Oh wait, I did leave out the part where the surgeon said that a lot of people don't lose as much weight as I had in the 6 weeks b/c of the hunger and that I had done well. Yay me!

Ah ha!

Take that water weight....ADIOS! I worked my butt off and it paid off. The 5 pounds of water weight are gone as is an extra 1/2 pound. Thank God! I feel so much better about going to the appts. now. I will update later with the doctor scale official weight and tell you all about the fill (still scared!).

ARGH

Thursday things were looking good. I was going the right direction on the scale and a mere 2 pounds from the goal I set. Then it all went to hell. I ate a few things I shouldn't have and took in too much salt. That combined with a sudden heat wave here in Maine added up to unwanted pounds of water weight. It started yesterday and I have been trying to make it go away ever since. I WAS up about 5 pounds and now I'm up about 2.5. So frustrating though, right before a weigh in. I haven't eaten much today and have been downing water and water with lemon to try to flush the water out. I worked out hard this AM, took a short bike ride with Big guy after dinner and plan on a long walk again tonight and tomorrow morning. Something has to work, right?? I'm not sure why it's stressing me out so much, probably just b/c I set a goal for myself and I'm falling short. I have no idea what the surgeon and/or bariatric center are expecting at weigh in tomorrow.

I am also a bit of a stress case about my first fill tomorrow. I now know that I DO need one. I am not necessarily very hungry much (aside from head hunger) but when I do eat I can eat a lot! I look forward to having more restriction so I can eat less but I also worry about adjusting to the restriction. It's learning to eat all over again. Will something get stuck? How much can I eat? Oy, so much to think about.

So for tonight please think water dissipating thoughts. I need to sweat and pee 2.5 pounds out by tomorrow, yikes! Wish me luck!

I'll be back tomorrow to tell you all about the first fill experience and give you the official weight-bah.