Falling in love with my band all over again

It may sound sappy, but I'm falling in love with my band all over again.

For breakfast this morning I made my usual cottage cheese & Greek yogurt with berries. Had to stop eating after 2 bites, so I think I'm going to have go back to Click protein shakes for breakfast and save the cottage cheese & yogurt thing for lunches.

I didn't cook any supper last night because I had to work from 3:30 - 9:00 pm. When I started getting hungry for lunch at 11:30 this morning, I looked in the fridge and remembered that we had finished all the leftovers of this and that yesterday. Finally I found a small container of chickpea, broccoli & feta salad - about 1/2 cup. I ate that (slowly and carefully), thought, "That wasn't enough to feed a gnat," and promised myself that I could eat some grapes and cheese for a snack mid-afternoon. Well, mid-afternoon came and went. At 4:00 pm I fed the dogs and realized I had completely forgotten about my snack. Bells went off in my head: I FORGOT A SNACK! I asked myself, did I want to eat the snack now? No, not especially. At 5:00 pm I started supper: a batch of eggface's cottage cheese pancakes, some cucumbers in vinegar, a lemon caper sauce made of Greek yogurt, and some smoked salmon. I had planned to eat two pancakes, 1 oz. of salmon, 1/4 cup of cucumbers, and 1 tablespoon of sauce. I ate all of that (slowly and carefully), but I was TOO FULL TO EAT BOTH PANCAKES!

I feel like telling my band: "It is wonderful to be reunited with you! I've missed you so much! I almost forgot what a dear friend you are!"

Another fill

The other day, I told a friend that I hoped my next fill would be a "kick ass" fill. I think I got my wish.

This morning I saw Dr. Weaver's nurse practitioner, Vanessa, for a fill. She put in another .3 cc, so I now have 2.4 cc in there. A long, long time ago, 2.55 cc was as close as I ever got to a "perfect" fill level (I put that in quotes because I'm not convinced there's any such thing as a perfect fill), so I didn't expect 2.4 cc to be quite this effective. Tonight I made baked ponzu-marinated salmon and a chickpea & veggy (finely chopped) salad for supper. I knew I should just stick to liquids, but the food smelled and looked wonderful, so I had a little bite of salmon. Everything down there in bandland protested loudly. As my British friend Kate would say, I am a very silly cow. When all seemed quiet again, I tried a few chickpeas. That went better, but having been strongly reminded about my band for the first time in a year, I wised up and stopped eating.

Holy Crapoli!

Holy crapoli!

So far I've gotten 3 EOB's from Anthem for my April 7th port repair surgery.
$34,628.70 - hospital outpatient surgery (insurance paid $3689.86; no co-pay for me)
$1,260.00 - not sure - think it's anesthesiologist (rejected by insurance because they need more info)
$5834.72 - surgeon's fee (insurance rejected $5,000 of it, I think because of a billing error, and paid $212.24)

That's a total of $41,723.42!

Like I said, holy crapoli!

Back on the bandwagon

After almost a year of no fill or not enough fill, I thought everything would be better after my port repair surgery on April 7th, but bad weather caused flooding that closed all the roads between here and Memphis, so I had to delay my follow-up appt. with my surgeon for 2 weeks. Good things are worth waiting for, right?

This Monday I saw Dr. Weaver, who said my incision looks good, my weight looks good (somehow I had managed to lose a pound since the port repair), I look good, and was I ready for a fill? Yes, ma'am! So I now have 2.1 cc in my band, and am feeling the difference already - early satiety, prolonged satiety, no negative symptoms, just my band doing what it's supposed to do. I feel like I have a new lease on life!

Making progress

My port incision looks much better now (though it's very itchy - I think I may be allergic to the surgical adhesive). The site is still swollen, as you can see in this photo. The fine red line below the incision is from my scratching - bad girl, Jean!

Port repair - day 4

A lot of the swelling has gone down, but I look like I've been beaten with a baseball bat. I'm 99.99% sure I didn't look like this after my original band surgery. I think I would've remembered that.
I guess I have less adipose (fatty) tissue to cushion the blows now, and clearly Dr. Weaver encountered a struggle when trying to extricate my port from its tilted position and fight it into the correct and obedient position. And as we say in the south, she's just a tiny little thang!

Survived my port repair

I survived my port repair surgery. My belly is not a pretty sight at the moment...not just because of the incision but because it's grotesquely distended, especially on the right side (port side). I only feel pain at the incision site when I exert myself physically (rolling over in bed, for example), but the pain from the intestinal gas is continuous. I have 2 GasX strips left and a whole bottle of Percocet. I'll have see if I can persuade my husband to do a rescue run to Walgreens tomorrow for more GasX.

The dogs have been pretty good about not jumping on me, but this afternoon Jinx greeted me happily and put his front paws right on top of my incision. That was not a good moment.

I'm so glad it's done! I go back to see my surgeon again in a month. Let's all keep our fingers crossed that I can get a fill then.