Fill #2 - again!

On Tuesday I had my second fill - again.

After a rest period of 2 months with no fill, I had gotten a 1 cc fill on August 19. I could tell the difference in my restriction (maybe because I know what to look for now better than I knew the first time around), but it wasn't much. I lost 1 lb in 4 weeks after that, seemingly in one-ounce increments, so I was delighted to get a .6 cc fill this week.

Yesterday I took some leftover cooked turnip greens and a salmon patty to work for my lunch break, which didn't come until 1:30 pm. A few bites of salmon patty went down fine, but one bite of turnip greens did not. I know it's sick to be glad when food gets stuck, but I was so glad to hear from my band again after 3 months of silence! Fortunately, I did not PB or slime yesterday (I was alone in the break room, but with my luck, the store manager would have walked in at the very moment the PB happened). After a few minutes, I felt the food "glug" through my stoma.

Hurray!

Weight Loss & The Green-Eyed Monster

Why is jealousy a monster with green eyes? My husband has beautiful green eyes and not a particle of jealousy in him (that I discovered, anyway). Is it because cats (often green-eyed) torture their prey before eating it? Or because green is the color of unripe fruit that can pain your stomach? I don't know the etymology of the term, but I do know that jealousy is harmful.

Jealousy is one of the things that drove me to have weight loss surgery. It started out as envy of a friend who lost a lot of weight after a gastric bypass. It's natural to compare yourself to others and wish for the things (possessions, advantages, qualities) they have, but when the wish turns into resentment and jealousy, you're focusing on other people rather than yourself and what you need to do to accomplish your goals.

If you can compare yourself to other weight loss surgery patients and emulate their behavior to achieve your own goals, that's cool. But even if the other person is your identical twin (with the exact same genetic curses and blessings), you have band surgery on the same day by the same surgeon with the same size band, get the same fills on the same days, and you both do everything else the same (diet, exercise, etc.), you're not going to get identical results.

When you compare yourself to others, you're needlessly tormenting yourself with the green-eyed monster, like my cat when he catches a baby bunny. He's doing it for fun, or in answer to some instinctual imperative. Judging by the screams, the bunny isn't enjoying it, and then he dies. Do you want the same fate?