GreenChrysalis

I still watch FN although not as much as I did awhile back...nothing to do with being banded, though, I think the quality of the shows has gone down overall. But somehow I can separate what I eat from what they're making, most of the time. Or I start thinking of a way to modify it so it'll be healthier. I love Ellie Krieger's show Healthy Appetite. She makes really great looking, healthy food. So that's my favorite FN show right now. :thumbup:

Definitely normal -- as Terri said, it's different from the other incisions since it involves stitching to muscle. At four weeks out I still have pain there if I turn the wrong way, do too much bending over, et cetera. But it's getting better all of the time. Congrats!

Glad to hear that you're doing better, a2m2p4. Heck, I still have pain at my port site sometimes and I'm almost a month out. How is your surgeon making you go back to work? Or can you not stay out longer without a doctor's note because it's a new job? I only missed 4 days of work because I didn't have enough leave to miss more. Otherwise I would've liked to take two weeks off. 20 pounds in 8 days is a lot and as you know this is healing time, not weight loss time anyway. So hang in there. My weight loss slowed way down when I started on real food, but that's how it is for many people until you start getting fills. Congrats on doing so well with your eating and it will get easier! And the walking is great. Keep us updated.

Bigbaby, I have a friend who is blind and uses his computer to work from home. He has screen reader and voice recognition software -- so text is read to him and he surfs the Internet and types using voice commands. There's a lot of different types of hardware and software out there these days; technology is pretty amazing. I'm guessing Serenity uses something like that as well.

First off, congratulations! :clap:I'm jealous...I'm hoping I'll be getting similar news in a few years myself. Second, that doctor was a real a-hole, no two ways about it. I would definitely let your regular doctor know about the jerk who was being rude to her patients while she was gone. I hope that you can find an OB who is cool. Someone suggested a CNM; if your insurance will cover one it's definitely worth exploring. I've had friends who had CNMs for their pregnancies and were very pleased.

Julie, I will more than likely use someone local for the rest of my fills, but I decided it was right for me to see my surgeon for the first one.

Welcome, Debbie. It sounds like you are educating yourself very well about your options and that's definitely the best first step. I hope that you find what you're looking for here. I've found that most people here are generally very supportive. Sometimes it's "tough love," but sometimes that's what we need. Good luck and I hope you keep us updated no matter what you decide to do.

Oh man, Southern Missy, I couldn't even contemplate living in my parents' backyard, and of course never my in-laws! And that SIL that told you that your Christmas gifts suck is an ungrateful witch. Yeesh.:tt2: Blund, I loathe Dr. Phil. So I don't think that's a solution. :tongue:

Thanks Dynamo and Brandy for the empathy. Sometimes it's one thing to know in your head what you're supposed to do and another thing altogether in practice. I had a pretty good idea that the meat was going to be too dry, but I hoped that with a lot of sauce on it, it would be OK. Couple that with eating too fast, talking while eating (my family tends to talk all at once and it's hard to get a word in unless you're quick) and...PB is the result. It just shows me how little attention I actually paid to eating. I paid plenty of attention to which foods I put on my plate and how much of them, but once it was there, a lot of times I was like a vacuum just inhaling everything without really thinking about it. Now I have to think about it, and relearning is definitely going to take some time. But I know I can do it. :tongue:

Hey Kat, that is a perfectly reasonable comment. My mother is actually bi-polar so she acts strange on occasion anyway, although it's generally managed quite well with medication. But this behavior is even beyond her usual weirdness. She was going through peri-menopause, but a few months ago she had an endometrial ablation (as an alternative to a hysterectomy). I'm sure that these could be playing a part, though.

Hazel-eyes, I was banded at 1 pm on a Thursday and 24 hours later I was walking around in a mall (slowly, and on my DH's arm, but still). I did spend most of the weekend inside but I was back at my desk job on Tuesday. My Lortab had run out by then too. I was still sore, especially the port area, but took liquid Tylenol and was just fine. I agree with the above poster about clothes. I didn't wear "real clothes" until probably the following Friday -- luckily I work in a casual environment and could get away with nice loose elastic-waisted pants. Good luck!

Hey Southern Missy (where are you? I'm in Georgia so I'm a Southern girl myself), I hear you. I am glad that you are all cool with your MIL now. My DH is an only child and his mother completely whacked out, to the point of making up vicious lies about me and stalking me and my family. I didn't call the cops but let me tell you, I considered it. I don't exactly recall getting the "you're stealing him from me" line, but she did expect us for dinner every night and wanted to build a house in their backyard for us to live in. No ma'am! DH stood up to her and she said that it had to be her or me, he must choose. I hope he feels like he chose wisely. We've been married for almost 13 years and we haven't talked to them in about 8. I'm not saying we'll never reconcile, but that's where it stands now. So the worst thing about my Mom is that she saw all of this go on. She was the one I called all upset when his mother accused me of being a drug addict, practicing witchcraft, et cetera. And she swore she would not be that kind of mother, she would accept whomever her children chose as partners as long as they were happy. Yet when my brother chose somebody that she didn't know well and didn't care for, that all changed. I've warned her that she is in danger of alienating him entirely but she doesn't seem to get it. I hope she comes to her senses, because otherwise she won't have him in her life.

Oh hey, I get to confess. Hurray. At my parents' house yesterday (who don't know I'm banded, long story, nope, don't want to go into it now) for lunch. Couldn't eat much (dry meat, salad, fibrous stuff) but my brother made a sweet potato pie and boy did that go down nice. With a scoop of ice cream, although at least that was low fat and sugar free. Can't say the same for the pie. Looked it up on SparkPeople and it was over 400 cal. I don't want to go look at the fat again; I don't remember it. More carbs that I usually eat in a day. For dinner my DH, who is my biggest junk food enabler, suggested fast food. Ate half of a french dip (cut into small pieces and dipped in au jus), a few of his fries and then...a chocolate turnover. Argh. Two Desserts in one day and I've only been eating sugar free stuff (with the exception of some 100% juice in the clear stage) for over a month. I know I was stressed from the parental encounter -- and I eat out of stress. Learning to manage it but not there yet, obviously.

Jan_08, I am so sorry to hear that. I hope that everything works put OK, please keep us updated.

Dee, Michelle, John, the Red Robin pic is fantastic! You guys look wonderful and happy. I wish I could be there but it is so nice to know that Dr. K's patients hang out. Ameriu, congratulations on reaching Twoterville! I sent my card for Dr. K's birthday the other day. Hard to find a good birthday card that fit, but I wrote a note about how much I appreciated him doing the surgery at a reasonable cost, very important for us self-payers. I also told him that I appreciated how warm and kind he was; even on the phone I immediately felt comfortable talking to him. I hope he gets lots of cards! Well, the drama about my first fill was all for nothing -- stupid admin at work had the date wrong, it's 4/18. So I will be there next week for my fill, on 3/18. I'm just going to pop in and out, leaving late on the 19th. I wish I could stay a week and really see more of Denver but I don't have the leave from work, sadly. I had my first big family lunch yesterday since surgery and it didn't go very well. To make a long story short, I PB'd. It is so much more difficult, I'm finding, to eat slowly and chew a lot when there are a lot of people around and chatting with me. And I always feel like they're watching me, as the resident fatty, when I eat anyway. If I eat a lot then I'm a pig, if I don't eat much then I must be sick. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. Too much pressure. Luckily the PB didn't really hurt much, no slime either, I just knew that was what was happening thanks to reading so much about it. I felt just fine after that but had no appetite. The evening wasn't so great either. I let DH -- my bad food enabler -- talk me into eating some unhealthy stuff. Obviously not the mass quantities I used to consume, I still barely broke 1100 calories for the day, but I knew it was wrong. And then I had a, um, constipation issue. Unpleasant. I'm having a hard time getting in all of my water. So I took something for it and had the other problem get me up at night a few times. Sigh. It'll get better, though, right?

Kat, thanks for your advice. I have never spoken much with the fiancee one on one so I think it might be awkward. I was thinking I would write her a nice note. I have spoken with my brother many times about this and let him know that I am there for them and trying to help with the mom situation. I think it would be good for us to organize a meet up at a restaurant or something like that as your family does. It would definitely keep my mother happier! I didn't mention it in my original post but my mother does not work and doesn't get out of the house much. She has health issues but she could definitely volunteer or take classes, something like that, but she does not. I think if she had things to distract her it would be different. I would hesitate to suggest a shower as the fiancee's family has already planned one and has invited members of my family. If my mother goes then I will be keeping her in check the whole time I'm sure! Blund, you are lucky. Good for your SIL for standing up to your mother like that. I don't know if my future SIL will do that. She seems pretty quiet and more the type that would just avoid the situation altogether. I hope my brother stands up to my mother and defends her. Of course that's what my DH did and now we don't talk to his parents, so...

Hi Julie, 1. I was self pay and needed my surgery date to be in a specific week due to work commitments, but I probably could've had it much earlier if not for that. I first contacted Dr. K's office in mid-December and my surgery was in mid-February. 2. If you stay overnight in a hospital, it will of course cost you more than the outpatient surgery in a surgery center -- I have no idea how much. I stayed in a hotel (of course, I flew in from another state). Even though you're only 90 mins away you might want to do that too; I can't imagine that driving that long after surgery would be very fun. My surgery was in Parker and I stayed in a hotel about a minute away. I know there are hotels very close to the hospital in Aurora too. 3. You should discuss meds with Dr. K at your consult. He should be able to tell you which one you can get in alternate forms and which ones are OK to swallow and when. There is a liquid Tylenol, which I have used since the surgery for headaches, et cetera. At my pre-op I was given a prescription for liquid Lortab and I am not ashamed to say that I used it. 4. Can't help with this one. Good luck & keep us updated!

Jack: Well, I found out that our administrative coordinator at work had the date for training wrong, it's 4/18, not 3/18, so I can return to my surgeon for my first fill. As for subsequent ones, we shall see. I was quite surprised by how much some of the docs charged; it really varies widely. Thanks for the advice!

Nanajo, my surgeon required a low-carb diet and not a liquid diet. The duration was based on BMI -- mine was for 10 days. I avoided bread, pasta, rice, potatoes and sugar. It wasn't too bad at all, although I did get sick of eggs and sausage or bacon for breakfast! I lost about 7 pounds on it and my surgeon said that my liver was in fine shape.

B - Publix ff strawberry-banana yogurt with 2 T. ff sf granola S - Atkins vanilla shake L - 1/2 c. cottage cheese with 1 T. pesto mix & 2 T. Parmesan S - 1/2 c. unsweetened applesauce D - 1 taco, 1/3 c. refried beans S - Atkins chocolate shake

Hey olgi330 and congratulations! Well, you definitely need to walk to combat gas/bloating, but I can understand how you might overdo it too. I think I did that the day after my surgery -- DH and I walked around in a mall for a little while and I got pretty tired. I had liquid Lortab as a pain reliever but my anti-nausea med was the dissolve under the tongue kind and I'm glad I only had to use it twice, because it tasted horrible! It worked amazingly fast, though, which is good because the first time I took it was on the plane back home.

I got pretty creative with the soups by the end of it, including butternut squash soup and pea and pesto soup. Yogurt smoothies are good and you can buy pre-made ones that are fat- and sugar-free/low in sugar. You can also puree just about anything in a blender or food processor, just make sure to thin it out with broth, Water or juice depending on what you've got going in there. Be careful, though. I made the mistake of pureeing some beef stroganoff sauce (no rice or noodles) and thinned it out with beef broth, but it bloated me up. I think it was too soon for meats and too salty. You could try thinned baby food. I had the chicken and ham kinds but I didn't much care for the texture -- I found it kind of gritty. I also liked runny pudding and custards. My doc allowed me oatmeal and cream of wheat on full liquids as long as they were very watery and thin.

If you like cold salads like tuna, chicken, ham, or egg, they're pretty easy to make, high Protein and filling. You can get creative, too. This week I had tuna and avocado salad (I got that idea from the mushies thread). No mayo since the avocado made it creamy, but I did add some garlic and lime juice. I made about 1.5 cups, divided it into thirds in small containers and that was lunch for 3 days. You do have to watch the portions if you add high fat items like avocado or nuts (I love pecans in chicken salad), and ff mayo tastes fine to me when mixed with lots of ingredients. But you can process them to the consistency that you can tolerate. I'm on the tail end of the mushy stage so I process the heck out of it. :thumbup: I've gotten a lot of good ideas from the "What are you eating today?" type threads here also.

If you mean a ticker, you can learn how to do it here: http://www.lapbandtalk.com/f5/ticker-tutorial-pictures-41782/

I'm with travelgirl. I'm sure your DH means well, maybe he just doesn't realize how it sounds. You're an adult and if you want to have a few glasses of wine on occasion, then so be it. You're aware that they're empty calories and all the rest of it, but it's your body and your decision. I am the on the other side; my DH has always eaten poorly and eaten large portions, although I used to match him pretty well. The other night he was eating spaghetti and I was eating cottage cheese mixed with some tomato sauce and Parmesan cheese (on the tail end of the mushies). I had to bite my tongue to keep from pointing out that he easily had three servings of Pasta on his plate -- it was enormous. He always ate more pasta than me before but now it looks even bigger compared to the amounts of foods that I'm eating. I try to buy healthy things that I know he likes and encourage him, but I can't make his food choices for him. So he hasn't been the food police for me really, although he did remind me to eat slowly and sip slowly right after I was banded. I had a pretty bad habit of vacuuming up my food!