A Time To Heal

Remember last week's five pound gain and the frustration that went along with it? Yesterday I was finally able to get to the office for my unfill.

If you'll remember, I got a 1.0 cc fill a little over two weeks ago (on April 6th) wherein I couldn't even get water down for most of that weekend. Five days later, I went in for a slight unfill of 0.5 cc. I was afraid to take the whole 1.0 cc out because I didn't want to have paid for nothing, and I felt like I truly needed a fill at the time. 

Suffice it to say that 0.5 cc was not enough. I was PBing at almost every meal. I was unable to eat any sort of meat. I could get down liquids and most soft/mushy foods, but I'm not a person who can live like that for extended periods of time (And you shouldn't have to with the band. That's not how it's supposed to work.) So I would keep trying the meat - small bites, chewchewchew, eat slowly, and still get stuck and PB. Almost every time. So what was happening is that my band/stomach/pouch/esophagus were constantly inflamed and angry with me because they were never getting a chance to heal from all the PBing I was doing. 

So like I said in my previous post, I went into this appointment yesterday with a plan: unfill A LOT and stay that way for a month to allow my body to heal. Fortunately, Kim wholeheartedly agreed with my plan. Unfortunately, Kim was the one who was going to perform my unfill. 

OH. MY. JEEBUS. 

But I'll get to that in a second. 

According to their numbers (which I don't agree with) I had 8.75 cc in my band. My calculation is that I actually had 10 cc yesterday before the unfill. But anyway, we were going off of her numbers, so I told her that I'd be okay with her taking half out. She agreed to take 4 cc out of my band and thought it was a very good idea to give myself a month to heal at that level. 

And then, out came the needle(s). 

Kim's first several fills with me were painless. One stick and in and out in a matter of seconds. Then something happened and she just wasn't getting it right. Several sticks and lots of mini pokes while the needle was in my stomach, but not in my port. And lots of alarm-raising scraping of the plastic sides of my port. Trust me, that feeling is NOT something I wish to repeat. And yet, every time I see Kim, I get to repeat it. 

For my first unfill (on 4/10), she had to stick me twice, and did the zillion-little-sticks thing and scraping-the-plastic thing for a bit before she was finally able to get in my port.

I noticed afterward that she was sticking me right above my port scar each time that she was having difficulty. Previously, when she (and Kristina) were able to get my port in one stick, the spot was right under my port scar. So, hoping to not have to go through this un-fun process, I mentioned this to her. Luckily, she's a nice, fun lady and didn't take this as me trying to tell her how to do her job. She seemed really surprised and felt around for my port again. She kept saying that it felt like it was right above the scar, and I kept telling her that all I knew was that when they're successful, the sticks are right under the scar. 

She stuck me once - and got nothing. A zillion little sticks and scrapes later, and she told me I could put my feet down (they have you lift your legs a couple inches to make the port easier to find) and rest for a minute. Raising your feet a few inches off the table for a sustained period of time is a surprisingly tough workout! 

She stuck me twice - and got nothing. Rinse and repeat. Rinse and repeat. At one point, she told me to relax and we were talking, and I didn't realize that she hadn't actually taken the needle out of my stomach. I looked down as we were chatting away, and there it was, just poking out of my body (with her holding on to it, of course). Strange. After resting for another minute or so, she tried again. Still nothing. 

She stuck me three times - and got something. Unfortunately, the something that she got was the plastic side of my port. She jammed the needle right into the damn thing! After pulling on the syringe and not getting any liquid, she realized that it wasn't in the right spot and went back to her usual practice of a zillion little sticks and a zillion little scrapes. 

Eventually, she found the damn thing and I (very literally) breathed a sigh of relief. She took out 4 cc, and all of a sudden I started feeling a really painful pinch in the area. I kept saying "Ow! Ouch! What are you doing?!" and she looked at me like I was crazy. Turns out, what she was doing was pulling the needle out of my port and stomach. The BENT needle. Ask me how it feels to have a bent needle pulled out of you. Go ahead. 

IT FUCKING HURTS. 

Apparently, when she jammed the damn thing into the side of my port, she did it hard enough to bend about a quarter of an inch of the tip of the needle. After she pulled it out, she kind of looked at it, then looked at me, and gave me this sheepish little "oopsie!" kind of smile. 

Oopsie, my ass. 

She did have one small shard of brilliance, though. After she shredded my insides pulled out the needle, she circled the blood spot with a pen and asked me for my phone so she could take a picture of the "successful" spot. Successful here is a VERY relative term. But at least she'll have a picture to go off of if she ever touches my port again. Which I'm very doubtful of, since I think I'd have better success if I gave my two-year-old a syringe and said, "go at it!"

 

You can see two teeny tiny pokes very close to each other at the top, which are from 10 days ago. Then the three other pokes are from her blindly playing pin the tail on the port yesterday. You can see how the one on the bottom is bigger than the others - that's because of the bent needle. And the redness to the right is what happens when you give me a band aid. Is anyone else "allergic" to the adhesive?

And as a side note - I'm so glad I'm a good healer! Look at that pretty scar! :-)

In any event, I feel so much better after having 4 cc taken out. I haven't had any trouble eating or drinking, and it almost felt "weird" to me to not get stuck. It's amazing how, even though it's so uncomfortable and unpleasant, you can get used to a feeling like that so easily. 

For now, I'm taking a month off of fills and weigh-ins. And I'm feeling very good about that.  

Over it.

Last Week: 239.6 lb
This Week: 244.6 lb
Gain: 5.0 lb

And I'm over it.

Especially over it when I gained back five freaking pounds and yet, I'm still PBing at almost every fucking meal.

I can't eat "normal" foods. I can't live on protein shakes.

I'm calling for a serious unfill today. I want it out. Everything I just got and more. 2cc, 3cc, I don't care at this point. I just want to get to a point where I know for sure that I'm not going to be PBing on anything.

And I am going to stay that way for a month. And during that month, I'm not going to weigh in. The weigh ins have just become something I dread, and something that makes me feel like crap. So I'm not going to do them for a while.

This sucks.

Unfill

I decided yesterday to see how lunch went before I made any unfill decisions. So when I couldn't get down more than four bites of some chili, my decision was pretty much made for me. 

Luckily, someone had cancelled their 3 pm appointment, so I was able to get it. I noticed as I left work and was driving there that I was starting to feel some uncomfortable tightness in my chest. Not quite the same feeling as being stuck - I'm guessing what I was feeling was my esophagus/stomach feeling swollen and inflamed from everything that has been going on. Yet another sign that an unfill was necessary. 

I ended up seeing Kim yesterday. She's the nurse I originally liked going to, but not the nurse who did my fill on Saturday. We discussed what was going on and she mentioned that she would probably take 0.5cc out. I said that I was thinking more along the lines of 0.3cc because I didn't want to just end up paying for more in a couple weeks, but I also conceded that I've never been in this position before so I don't know what kind of relief I would get for 0.3cc vs 0.5cc. 

Kim said that we would see "what her syringe told her" and make a decision as to how much to take from there. I gave her a really puzzled look and she explained that if you're really irritated, as soon as she gets the syringe in the port, the saline will start coming out on its own because of the pressure from the swelling and irritation. So she said that she could gauge how irritated I was by how much and how fast saline pushes up into the syringe. 

Huh. Who knew?

If you'll remember, last time Kim did my fill, she ended up sticking me three times and jabbing at the side of my port a lot. It was not the most comfortable fill experience. On Saturday, Kristina got my port in one single, quick stick, which was wonderful. Well, I don't know what's up with Kim, but she ended up doing the same thing this time! It is so painful! She does the initial stick, and then a zillion tiny sticks while she's in there, hitting the side of my port and trying to get in the right spot. I'm not sure if I want to keep going through that with her, even though our personalities mesh. 

Once she actually got the needle in the right spot, she said, "Yeah, you're really irritated in there. It's coming right out." I had over 1.5cc push its way out into the syringe on its own, which I guess is a bad sign. Kim struggled for a bit, trying to figure out how much to take out - she even said at one point that she wanted to take the whole 1.0cc out, which I had to practically beg her not to do. 

In the end, she took out 0.5cc and I'm on liquids/soft & mushies through today, plus an ibuprofen regimen to reduce the swelling. 

I think it's going to be a few days before I'm going to be able to get a true read on where I'm at because of all the swelling and irritation. Right now, I feel much better because the general tightness in my chest is gone, and I'm doing fine with liquids - they're going through like nothing. I'm just going to baby things for a few days and then start paying really close attention. 

I'm glad I got the unfill, but I'm sad to think about how the weight loss isn't going to be so stellar. But in the end, it's more important to keep the band & my body healthy than it is to have quick, awesome weight loss, so I feel like I did the right thing. 

Wednesday Weigh In and Thoughts on My Fill

Last Week: 245.2 lb
This Week: 239.6 lb
Loss: 5.6 lb

Yes, you read that right. Five point six pounds. And after struggling for weeks and weeks bouncing up and down the same few numbers on the scale, surprise! Here are the 230s! Which puts me this many pounds down from my HNPR weight:

On one hand, I'm super stoked to have lost that much, and super stoked to be in the 230s, which my brain just isn't quite registering yet. On the other hand, this fill is STILL rough. I made it through lunch yesterday without an issue, but can't say the same for dinner. Nothing stayed down. A little while later, I tried some cereal because {1} I was hungry, dammit, and {2} I just wanted to chew something. The cereal slid right through, as I had hoped it would, which was such a relief that I really had to work to limit myself.

If I'm honest with myself, I think I need a tiny unfill. Maybe 0.2 cc. At the same time, though, I'm enjoying the benefits of being where I am. I haven't been snacking nearly as much - partly because I'm just not hungry, and partly because I'm scared to death that whatever I choose to snack on will make me miserable in five minutes. I haven't been eating breads, pastas, rice, etc. because I'm afraid to. And knowing I'm teeter tottering along the red line has made me super cautious as I eat (which I should be anyway, but am not the best at remembering). So there ARE good habits that are being forced upon me by this restriction. And there are also not-so-great consequences, like the fear and possibility of PBing up every single meal. (Which mentally makes me feel bulimic, and that's definitely not the mindset I should get from the band.)

I just know that I need to make a decision soon, because I've been told that if I go in for an unfill within 7 days of a fill, it won't cost me anything (I haven't tested this out yet, and am skeptical, so I guess we'll see). So I have to go back before Saturday if I'm going to do it. And what I want to do is just say, "oh, well, let's see how lunch goes.", and then if lunch goes fine, "let's see how dinner goes", and I'll just keep doing that until Friday night when a free unfill isn't an option anymore. I just need to decide, but I don't want to. I don't want to give up good weight loss numbers and go back to jumping around the scale for weeks on end. But I also don't want to PB every other meal and be hungry, but miserable at the thought of eating anything.

I just want to make smart decisions. What's best for my band, my body, my bank account, etc. It's just not an easy decision to make. I don't want to go back and get some taken out, only to need it back in a couple weeks and have to pay another $75 to get what I already had.

And now I'm rambling and talking in circles. So I'll take that as a sign that I need to end this and just hit "publish" and let all my wonderful bloggy pals comment to help me figure all this out. GO!

Two Things...

ONE) I can't believe I forgot to send some blog love to my dear Cheri at Staying In The Pink. She's joining the banded sisterhood today, so please stop by and send her some love!

TWO) I was able to (mostly) eat lunch! I'm currently completely obsessed with Panera, and have been getting their Classic salad (no onions!) plus Chicken with the sweet, sweet nectar of the gods that is the Honey Tangerine Dressing. I ate super slowly, finished most of the chicken, and ate probably only about 1/2 cup of the greens total. And I had two teeeny tiny pinches of the inside of the baguette. But I was able to eat! I started feeling a tiny bit stuck after about 5 minutes of eating, but just waited for a few minutes and it passed. And, rather unfortunately, I've just discovered that my band has ABSOLUTELY NO PROBLEM letting Whoppers (as in the malted milk balls, not the Burger King sandwich, eww) slide right down. I'm cutting myself off. Right now. (Okay, I just popped one more in, but seriously. Right now.)

Fill No. 4 (A really long post.)

Holy moly, chickadees. This fill has been an experience.

A tiny bit of background: my surgeon used to be a private practice. Shortly after having my surgery, he joined a large, university-based group. So now, a lot of things are done "centrally" through the group, like making appointments, etc. Last week, he moved his office to a different building in the hospital/surgery center/medical building complex that they've been in. Previously, the office was in a section of the complex that was similar to a strip mall type set-up, where each doctor's office had it's own outside door and was it's own individual space. Now, they've moved into one of the medical buildings, so you have to walk into the big building and then find the "suite" for your individual doctor.

So on Saturday, I arranged for MFN to watch The Kid and I went to the new building to get my fill. My appointment was at 1:30 and I showed up at 1:20. I walk up to the building doors and...they're locked. I knock, nothing. I do that whole hands covering the sides of your face as you creepily peer into the building thing. Nobody. I notice that there's another set of doors directly across the atrium on the back side of the building - maybe those are unlocked? So I get back in my car, drive around the building to the back side, park, get out, go up to the doors, and...locked. WTF? My next thought is to call the office, so that's what I do. Only, remember how I mentioned that as a part of this new group everything is more centralized? Yep, I get an automated system saying that the group's normal business hours are Monday through Friday, blah blah blah, thank you, good bye.

Again I say, WTF?

Seriously, what do you do in that situation? I know the office is on the second floor, so it's not like I can go all peeping Tom in the windows to try and find somebody. I can't get in the doors, and I can't call. What the hell?

Very luckily, as I found out later, the receptionist had been taking two other women back to their appointments and heard me knocking on the door (Even though she couldn't see me because they were up on the second floor of the open atrium. She could hear me, but couldn't see me) so she came down to let me in. I only had to wait about five minutes. As opposed to the two other women who had just been taken back, who had been waiting and knocking outside for more than an hour, with everyone inside completely oblivious to the fact that the doors were locked. The receptionist and my nurse apparently just thought that those two ladies didn't show up for their fill appointments, and the consensus was that the doors must have automatically locked on a timer because other people were able to get in earlier in the day.

I finished all my paperwork and paid my $75, then sat down to wait for my appointment. At this point, it was already 1:45 - 15 minutes past my original appointment time, and had we been at the old location, I would have been in and out by now. But since the other two ladies waited outside for the entire duration of their appointment times, I now had to wait for both of them to have their fills before it could even be my turn. I finally went back at 2:20, almost an hour past my original appointment time.

My fill was with a different nurse - not the one I prefer to go to. But to be honest, that preference is really based off of "inside tips" from other people who heavily suggested I not let her do my fills. I, personally, didn't have any problem with her on Saturday, so maybe I won't be so selective in the future unless I start to see things that worry me.

I told her about what I've been eating and how my weight isn't going anywhere. She told me that according to their records, I had lost 8 pounds since my last visit in February. Not sure where they're getting those numbers from, because my records show that I had only lost 2.6 pounds in that time. I weighed in at 245.2 fully clothed on her scale.

We settled on 1.0 cc, which was the maximum I was willing to get. She said that since I'm getting up there (I'm now at 10.4 {probably really 10.5cc) in my 14cc band) I would probably start getting 0.5cc or 0.2cc fills after this one. And that's FINE BY ME. Oh, and if you're Lap Band Gal's friend on FB, you'll remember some recent conversation about a photo she posted of a recent fill where her surgeon didn't wear gloves to administer it. My nurse didn't wear gloves for my fill on Saturday, either. And I can't remember them wearing gloves any other time. Do yours wear them? Are you grossed out/worried that some don't? I'm not, but now wondering if I should be. LOL.

The fill itself was painless - nothing like last time. She found the port in one stick and was in and out in less than a second. Sah-weet!

However, afterward, this fill has been ridiculous. As I've come to discover, for me, my fills are SUPER tight for the first 2-3 days, then they tend to relax. Well, I think I'm getting close to my maximum comfort zone, because the first two days with this fill have been seriously RED ZONE for me. Saturday, I couldn't even keep down water. Sunday, for lunch, I made it through about 5 spoonfulls of chicken noodle soup and then had to stop. Finally, by Sunday night things were relaxing a little bit and I made it through some protein - a cookout at my Dad & Bonus Mom's house where I had about 1/3 of a hot dog, no bun, in TIIIIIIIIINY bites, a couple bites of hamburger patty with ketchup, no bun, and a few bites of baked beans. Other than eventually having to PB up a bunch of slime, the food never came back.

I felt HORRID yesterday. Dehydrated and exhausted from no calories or protein. Obviously, that's not the way you're supposed to feel with the band. That's obviously RED ZONE behavior. And I'm considering going in for a slight unfill if things don't loosen up today or tomorrow. Like I said, I can tell that things are relaxing a bit because I was able to eat some protein yesterday, and I had a protein shake this morning just fine. We'll see how lunch and dinner go today and then I will make a decision.

I kind of feel like you have to find your red zone in order to find the green zone, you know? Like you have to hit a point where you can say, "WHOA. Too much. That's my limit." so that you can then back it up a tiny bit into the green. I'm not saying you should do crazy fill amounts to try to get red, but that hitting the red, while uncomfortable and unpleasant, is actually pretty helpful in terms of gauging where you're at in the process. I think being red during my initial fill phase tells me that once things settle down, I'll be pretty close to green. Of course, if I'm not able to eat any real food at lunch or dinner today, I'll be going back in to take it down a notch. But for now, we'll see how it goes.

There is ONE thing to say about being in the red: it's conducive to weight loss. I weighed in at 239.8 this morning. Obviously not the optimal, sustainable, or healthy way to go about weight loss with the band, but I'm not gonna lie: seeing the 230s this morning was kind of awesome. I'm sure it will bounce back up a bit once I'm able to eat again, but fleetingly, I'll take it.

Wednesday Weigh-In and an Embarrassing Story

Two Weeks Ago: 249.6 lb (I forgot to weigh in last week, oops!)
This Week: 247.8 lb
Loss: 1.8 lb

Inching closer and closer to new territory! Can't wait to get around 245 and start hitting new weight loss ground. My total loss now from my highest weight is 33.2 pounds down, and I'm exactly 16 pounds down from my pre-op diet weight. Wooty doo! It's been a slow, but sure, process.

And I know you really clicked on the link to hear my embarrassing story, didn't you? Don't lie...

So, I'm adjusting to my recent fill, plus it's TOM, and I think that's all adding up to me being REALLY tight. I've been getting stuck a lot and PBed a couple times since Saturday. This morning, I was heading to one of our stores to do some training, and stopped at a drive thru to get some breakfast. I made sure to park and eat so I wasn't rushed. I took small bites. I chew, chew, chewed. And I thought I was okay. A little uncomfortable in the chest, but I thought I was going to be fine. Plus, I needed to get on the road since I was about 30 miles away from the store.

I got on the highway and all of a sudden, the pressure in my chest started to get worse. And worse. And worse. And of course, I was on a stretch without any exits or rest areas. And this whole time, I'm thinking, "Please don't throw up. Please don't throw up. Please just go down. OH MY GOD, GO DOWN!!!"

All of a sudden, I knew that there was no alternative. I was just going to have to stop on the side of a VERY busy, VERY major highway, and get out. Even if I just walked around, maybe that would help a little bit. So I pulled over, put my flashers on, and got out. No sooner had I gotten to the grass, when up it all came. Slime and all. In plain view of many, many passing cars and semis.

Oh how I wish I had someone there to hold my hair and keep it from flying back in my face as I PBed. And also, puking into the wind = not fun. Just so you know. I don't recommend it.

And of course, after all was said and done, I had no choice but to get back into my car, get to the store, and train a bunch of new associates like nothing had happened.

This morning was a bad morning. Bad, bad morning.

What Goes Down...

...must come up.

Or, alternatively titled: "A Sucker Punch from Tim Gunn: No Longer a PB Virgin"

So.

Sooooooooo.

Yeah.

If you haven't guessed by now, I PBed at lunch today.

Nope. Not this. 

For those of you who read my blog who aren't banded - allow me to present to you a crash course in Bandster Vocabulary 101:

Stuck: When you eat the wrong types of food and/or eat too fast and/or take too big of bites and/or don't chew thoroughly enough, food literally gets stuck in the small banded space in your stomach and can't/wont go through. For me, this feels like some serious pressure in my chest, bubbling up into my esophagus and throat. It makes it difficult for me to breathe and talk. Being stuck leads to "sliming".

Sliming: After getting food significantly stuck in your band, your body automatically starts creating copious amounts of saliva in order to aid the process of making the food move in one of two directions. For me, this process also contributes to making it difficult to talk, as saliva starts collecting and I feel the need to spit or swallow. (Yes, I can hear all the twelve-year-old boys snickering.) Stuck + Sliming can lead to the dreaded PB.

PB: Stands for "Productive Burp" and is the technical term for when you throw up food that has entered your pouch and/or gotten stuck in your band. Technically, a PB is not actually throwing up, because the food never makes it into your real stomach to get digested. A technicality that I didn't really understand until today.
_____

There's no getting around it. It was totally my fault. The trifecta of eating the wrong kinds of foods (hot dog/hot dog bun/shredded cheese), eating too quickly (I wanted to get to a crochet project that I've been slaving away at), and not chewing thoroughly enough (see "eating too quickly".)

Since my 2nd fill, I've probably gotten truly stuck about four times. And when I do, it's because of all of the above reasons. Fortunately, I had been able to "work it out" each of those previous times, and the food went down instead of coming back up. Not today, my friends.

I will spare you the gory details except to say that apparently it was the shredded cheese that did me in. Because that's what came back up, still looking remarkably like shredded cheese. (Gross, I know.) I think I was just eating it too fast and not chewing it up well enough, so it kind of just compacted and congealed into a big ol' ball that made my band it's home. O.U.C.H.

A couple of days ago, I was finally able to get a fill scheduled for this Saturday. And I know that when I go there and answer my little questionnaire, I'm going to have to tell them that I've gotten stuck four times and PBed once. On paper, that doesn't exactly look like I need a fill, but the thing is, I know I need one. I know I'm not in the green zone. I think I'm close, but I'm still able to eat way too much when I'm doing things the right way. I'm hoping I'll be able to explain all that to Kim on Saturday, too.

It's just so much harder to do the whole "mindful eating" thing than I think I was expecting it to be. It requires true diligence and focus. It's frustrating to know that being stuck and PBing can generally be prevented and that I do it to myself. I really need to remember that more often, because I don't really want to do this whole PBing thing again. It was totally no fun.

That Tim Gunn really knows how to sock it to a girl!

How YOU Doin'?

We're almost two full weeks into 2013 now, so I figured it's a good time to check up on my 2013 Commitments. If you'll remember, I came up with a list of six "commitments" (not "resolutions", patooey!) in this post. Here's how they're shaping up so far:

1. Fills every two weeks until "sweet spot": Even though I've had a couple stuck episodes since my last fill, I still don't think I'm where I need to be. I can still eat MUCH more than I'm comfortable with, and the weight has been just kind of hovering since then. I do think I need another fill, and I would totally go in this Saturday, but they're booked up. Boo! I can't go during the week because I have no vacation/sick time until the end of April, and they don't have late hours. And now they're telling me they're not open every weekend anymore, but only "certain" weekends during the month. So I have to get with them and find the next available weekend that I can go in for a fill. Blargh. 
2. Bringing my lunch to work: I'm actually doing pretty well with this. I brought a couple times the first week, twice last week, and I packed today. With Commitments number 4 and 5, I am going to have to bring my lunch more because I won't have time to actually take a lunch at work. More on this below. 
3. At least one 5k: In progress! I signed up for the Shamrock Shuffle on March 9th (my 31st birthday, by the way. Gifts accepted.) Knowing that a 5k is paid for and looming over my head means that I actually need to prepare for it a little bit so that I'm not COMPLETELY miserable the whole time. See below. 
4. Moving more/acknowledging work fitness center: See above. I've had a slight hiccup on this one, since I seem to have shaken my booty a tad too hard on Just Dance 4, and found my way into a herniated disk flare-up. I am noticing that the flare up isn't as bad as it had been when I was 30 pounds heavier, but it's still no fun. So I'm babying things for now, but The Hubs and I did take Bubbers on a 30 minute walk over the weekend, and I brought clothes/shoes/etc. to get some treadmill time in at the fitness center today in preparation for my upcoming birthday 5k. Lookie there, all prepared and shit. 
5. Following the bandster rules: My fill has really forced me to comply with several of the rules - eating slowly, taking small bites, and chew chew chewing. I find that I'm sure to get stuck if I bite into something rather than cut it up and use a fork to eat it. I guess I just can't gauge a "small" bite by actually biting into it. I'm still having difficulties with no drinking while eating. One, because I hate the gross feeling of food in my mouth, and two, because I'm trying really hard to get water in, and find it difficult to do if I have to "lose" a few hours of prime drinking time because of eating. It's all new to me and I'm still working it all out. 
6. Focusing more on school: Excuse me while I hide in a corner. I have until the end of March before this term is over and I haven't. accomplished. anything. GAH! I'm stuck in this math class and I can't get past it. And it just makes me frustrated so that I don't even want to acknowledge its existence. But I have to get my butt in gear if I ever want to move forward and away from my current job. Blargh.  

All in all, I think I'm doing pretty well for two weeks in. This week starts my 5k prep, and even though my back is one unhappy little camper, I'm still going to try to get in there and get a t5k (treadmill 5k) done 3-4 days this week. I guess we'll see how it goes today, but I'm hoping it will actually HELP my back instead of hurt it more. 

Did you make any commitments or resolutions? If so, have you checked your progress? How is it going? 

TTT

Thanks, Laura Belle, for the wonderful-ness that is Ten Things Thursday. Wherein I get to take the lazy way out and still feel like a good blogger.

 1) Work is nutso. Part of my hodge podge of a job description involves recording training videos. I spent the last two full days recording. And I mean, literally, videotaping seminars from 8 am to 5:30 pm. It is exhausting and no fun.

 2) Speaking of work, I got "spoken to" today about the fact that I come in between 5 to 20 minutes late every day. Bummer.

 3) My work to do list is re-donk. Just shoot me now.

 4) No stuck episodes since Tuesday's lunch! Huzzah! And thanks for the comments on the last post. I am in agreement with y'all. No unfill for this lady. Just a whole bunch of slow down and small bites for me! Seems to be working now.

 5) My spaz of a 2-year-old has decided that any time between 3:45 and 6:30 am is a great time for a crib party. Seriously. All week long, he has woken up between these hours and has a grand old time carrying on a conversation with himself. It wouldn't be such a big deal if his head and my head weren't separated by about 4 inches of paper-thin wall.

 6) I have an official goal to weigh in at 231 by my March 9th birthday. It's a slightly crazy goal that would require me losing more than two pounds a week, but I really think that with my new-found restriction and upping the exercise ante (which I haven't done yet, oops!) I might be able to do it. Or at least get super close. If you will recall, my highest NPR (non-pregnant recorded) weight was 281, in March of last year. If, by my birthday, I get to 231, it will be 50 pounds down in a year. Which would be total awesomesauce, if you ask me.

 7) I had to change the comment settings for my blog because I am getting SO MANY spam comments! It is so frustrating! Hopefully, the change that I made (allowing only registered users to comment) will stop the stupid spammers, but not be as frustrating to y'all as if I had turned on word verification. I really HATE word verification, and it's the last option for me as far as this goes. So let me know if you have issues commenting, please!

 8) The Hubs and I are going to see "Shrek: The Musical" on the 18th. I'm super excited for this because {1} It's Shrek! and {2} The Hubs actually agreed to go to the theater with me, which is like a "hell froze over" kind of event!

 9) I know I've said this recently, but the whole learning how to follow bandster rules thing? It's hard. But I'm kind of glad that I had two stuck episodes, because I'm so much more careful now about chewing and small bites-ing since I know that pain. And me no-likey the pain.

10) Biggest news of all: I done gone and did it. I signed up for my first 5k of 2013!!! On my birthday, no less! So even though it will definitely be cold, and there's the possibility that there will be snow - believe me, we've had blizzards on my birthday weekend in March before - I will be at the Shamrock Shuffle, shufflin' my 5k worth of buns off. And it's already paid for and everything. So I have to do it now! I've got about 8 weeks to get my butt in gear, so we definitely need to come up with a plan up in here. But I'm super excited to get back into running, and to have a goal to work toward. Woo! 

A Fill is a Wonderful Thing

Last Week: 252.6 lb
This Week: 250.0 lb
Loss: 2.6 lb

Two point six el-bees, y'all! So excited! And finally realizing what it's like to have the band. Up until this last fill, there wasn't much of anything going on in there, so I began to wonder if it really was going to do what everyone says it would do.

Um, yeah. It will.

Getting such a large fill might not have been the BEST idea in the world, because I have had a few bumps in the road. It was like I went from nothing to EVERYTHING overnight, so I had to learn to REALLY follow the bandster rules. And it has been a serious adjustment.

I got stuck.

Twice.

So far.

I can't eat as absentmindedly as I have been able to since surgery. That was proven to me on Monday night, when I sat down to eat next to my two year old. While trying to make sure he doesn't eat nothing but ketchup, or knock the tv tray over, or steal food off of my plate, I just started scarfing things down. Oh, bad idea.

Sthuck! Stuck! Stuuuuuck!

So I had to get up, let The Hubs finish with Logan, and pace around my bathroom for about 20 minutes. I wiggled and lifted my arms above my head, and stretched, and paced, and panicked and sweated. But I never PB'ed.

Then yesterday, we had lunch provided by our company. I don't know if it was the fact that it was fried chicken, or that I was at a table full of associates and we were talking and scarfing food down, and laughing, etc. Either way, it was Stuck City again. And this time it was PAINFUL. I was praying to PB this time, and spent about 45 minutes pacing, stretching, and staking out a bathroom stall. Still never PB'ed, and eventually everything worked its way through.

Last night, I concentrated hard on paying attention. I had some homemade chili with cheese and oyster crackers. I used one of Bubbers' small spoons. I took my time. I ate small bites. I chewed like my life depended on it. And I didn't get stuck.

This morning, same thing. I got a sausage, egg and cheese biscuit from Tim Hortons. Took off the biscuit and cut the sausage, egg and cheese into tiny bites. Slowed down. Paid attention. And I didn't get stuck.

I'm still on the fence as to whether I'm truly too tight, or whether I can still eat normal foods as long as I just make myself pay attention. I have to decide by Friday if I want an unfill, because it will be free until then, or $75 after.

What say you, smart banded bloggers? If it were you, would you unfill a bit? Or stay here? I gotta say, I'm loving the weight loss portion of this whole predicament! Decisions, decisions...