ldswims

You are totally describing me, save I'm a month farther along. I have had three fills plus the fill at the time of surgery. And the third fill was way too much. I started eating around the band because it was the only way I could eat, I was too tight to eat Protein or even many veggies. I just went in on Tues of this week for an unfill as I started getting crazy heartburn - something I've never had a day in my life. The RNP took out 0.2cc's leaving me at 4.2cc's. And now I can eat again. I can eat protein, I can eat veggies, I can eat the right stuff and instantly, my interest in the sliders has vanished. I actually think they could take out another .1 or .2 and I'd be better but I'm going to see how this goes just awhile longer. But I hope this helps...sounds like you might actually be too tight. I was. Same exact scenario! Oh, and all fills (and unfill) are done under fluoroscopy for me. So while it all looked ok under x-ray, it sure didn't feel ok in reality!

I had surgery on April 12th. I am loving the band and currently have 4.2cc's in it. I've had three fills so far and am finally at a good level after having 0.2cc's taken back out. I've lost 30 pounds since surgery and 51 pounds since starting the whole process. My incisions seemed to heal just fine and life was moving forward. At the end of May, the main incision re-opened at one end. By the end of June it was a mess. I had fill #3 on July 7th and the RNP I saw that day didn't like it so she called in a prescription for Clindamycin, 10days. I took it and at the end of the course, things looked a lot better. Around day 8, I had a follow-up with my surgeon who scraped the scab off and declared it "ok". Fast forward to Aug and it looks a mess again. I had an appt Tues of this week, and wouldn't you know it, of all the days, the wound looked alright. The RNP I saw this time acknowledged "that would be irritating to not have it healed four months later" but "it looks ok for a wound". Um. HELLO? A wound? Four months later? Does that in itself not freak you out? I don't care if it looks ok, it should be GONE! Something's causing it and that seems like a problem to me! I go back again on Tues and I'm not doing anything - no hibiclense, no peroxide, no bacitracin, no polysporin, no neosporin, no antiseptic wipes - nothing. But has anyone else had anything like this? What did it take to resolve it? I'm getting freaked out!

Good Morning. Good Day. Happy Wednesday. To some that means Happy Hump Day. I am now rambling on a new website. My very own blog on blogspot. http://ldswims-journeytoembrace.blogspot.com/ I am of the mind that I don't want to read only about the band and it's journey. I want to read about the person and the person's journey with the band. Namely I want to read about life. And that's what I want to blog about. On this site I feel guilty for doing so - although no one has ever said anything. But because of that guilt (self-imposed) and wanting to have a page that I created, a page that is me, I liked what Band_Groupie did and so decided to do the same. I am still in the midst of transferring my older blogs over there. But anything from 1/22 and onwards is only on http://ldswims-journeytoembrace.blogspot.com/ I hope to see you there! And like BG, I'll still be here - although, in my case, probably just lurking around... PS - the page is still a work in progress - but that will always be the case. :thumbup:

Good Morning. Good Day. Happy Wednesday. To some that means Happy Hump Day. I am now rambling on a new website. My very own blog on blogspot. http://ldswims-journeytoembrace.blogspot.com/ I am of the mind that I don't want to read only about the band and it's journey. I want to read about the person and the person's journey with the band. Namely I want to read about life. And that's what I want to blog about. On this site I feel guilty for doing so - although no one has ever said anything. But because of that guilt (self-imposed) and wanting to have a page that I created, a page that is me, I liked what Band_Groupie did and so decided to do the same. I am still in the midst of transferring my older blogs over there. But anything from 1/22 and onwards is only on http://ldswims-journeytoembrace.blogspot.com/ I hope to see you there! And like BG, I'll still be here - although, in my case, probably just lurking around... PS - the page is still a work in progress - but that will always be the case. :thumbup:

Pecan Butter Ball recipe: 1/2 lb salted butter. The quality of the butter matters for this recipe, so get the best butter you can. Do not use margarine - they won't set up quite right - no matter what they say...(you'll have a cookie but it won't be worth the calories, in my opinion) 2 cups flour 2 tsp vanilla 1/2 cup powdered sugar 1-2 cups of chopped pecans (depending on your tastes) Mix that up with your hands. A mixer just won't work well and a wooden spoon is another alternative but it will take a lot longer. When it's all mixed up, pinch and roll into balls. Bake on 350 for about half an hour. Pay attention to your oven here. In my mom's it took 18 minutes. In my first apartment it took 16 minutes. My second apartment it took 45 minutes. And now in my house it takes 30 mins. I've also tried 375 and watched the oven, too. What you are looking for is a uniform golden brown. Before the cookies are done, get a bag of powdered sugar ready. I'd love to say it takes 2 cups of powdered sugar, but it's different every time and how big the cookies are also makes a difference. I generally always have a bag of sugar in the pantry just for these and add to it as I need to - but I generally make 4x the recipe, too. When the cookies come out, put them into that powdered sugar immediately and shake around. I do two at a time - and then place those cookies on a cooling rack. After all the cookies have their first coat, let them cool. That sugar will "soak in" to the cookie and make an icing. It's where the cookies get their sweetness. When they are completely cooled, put them in the bag for a second coat. That second coat is what makes the cookies look like a little snowball. And finally, enjoy.

You might just be surprised. I see some after pictures and I think maybe there is hope that I can look like what I know I looked like once upon a time. But I do know what you mean about wishing I'd started sooner...although technically, I couldn't have. My BMI just got to the qualifying level mid-year 2009. But I do think of "the years lost" when I could have looked great and didn't...when I could have felt great and didn't...when I could have not been so self-conscious all the time...and was... But you know what? We are making the change for the future. Enough of yesteryear, tomorrow is still to come!

I'm right there with ya on not really caring for pizza. My parents thought I was the weirdest kid on the planet. Eventually figured out I can't stand pizza sauce - so I get "white pizzas" - but I always ask myself whether the grease and calories are worth it. Me personally, pizza is always a let down...but sometimes the hubby just wants pizza and I eat a slice and I'm done. I'm looking forward to the banded days when I can say - I really shouldn't eat the bread...

Holy Schnikies! And we wonder why our insurance industry is a mess...

The thing I love about myself is that when I get down and grumpy and irritated and miserable - it doesn't last long! Yay! I'm back! It's always a tiny little teensy eensy thing that makes me go "what was I so bothered about?" It's this kind of perpetual circle. I want out of the bad mood so badly that I'm running in circles - and getting irritated accordingly - to get out of the bad mood - which just exacerbates my bad mood. And then something eensy teensy happens and I'm fine. Hopefully this blog won't read like me last two. What I do have to say about the last two, though, is that to me, it's part of what this process is like - for those that have to go through the danged program. Those feelings are real and I've read them elsewhere and it's better to be aware than to be surprised when the irritable grumpiness happens. I could have kept it all to myself and I would have gotten over it all just like I have with letting it out. Letting it out didn't make me feel better and it didn't make me feel worse. The people who piped up and said "dude, we're here for you", well, that helped, but me typing out how stupid I was thinking, that didn't make me feel better or worse. But if someone reads it and says to themselves, "that's how I feel" - well then the work of the blog is done. Anywho. I had my annual well woman exam this morning. And this doc is something special. I think he suffers worse PMS than I ever have. Sooooo moody and if you catch him on the wrong day, man, hold your head in your hands cause if you don't, you may lose it. Today was a good day. The last time I saw this doc was in November when I approached him to ask for his endorsement for this surgery. He was not so very kind in saying his opinions on my weight gain were that I was basically stupid. It was a less than fulfilling meeting but at the end of the day, he did give me his endorsement and I figured "whatever". His endorsement meaning a Letter of Medical Necessity. Today, though...wow. I didn't know who I was going to meet today. I've now seen this guy 4 times and I've had 2 wonderful appts and 2 nail-scraping-on-chalkboard appts. I have always loved the office staff there, though, and, in anticipation of having to switch to a new doc in the same office when my hubby and I get pregnant, I've dealt with it. Anywho. Today. FABULOUS GUY! He was chatty, he was sweet, he was positive, he was upbeat, he was in a great mood and even complimentary! Started with - how was your New Year. I'm thinking, ok... Asked if I had questions. I asked his input on actually getting pregnant after being banded. I hear 2 years before we start trying and I don't know that I buy that, personally, especially when considering my case. Not saying I want to get banded and then immediately start trying to get pregnant. What I think is that if I focus this year on losing weight, that going into 2011 we should be in a good place for starting to try. If I can lose even just 66 pounds this year, I'll be at a normal BMI. If I can get banded in Feb or March, as has been discussed, then that seems doable. Say it was the end of Feb - that gives me 10 months to lose 66 pounds which means an average of 6.6 pounds a month. Seems to me that most do better than that when they try...and I'll certainly be trying. So we had a conversation about that. And he thought it was all very doable and reasonable. If I were heavier then it might be more important to focus on two years. But I'm not heavier. And I am older, too. For a first pregnancy anyway. And then he really surprised me. He complimented me. Said "you are doing well already!" What? YOU are saying something NICE to ME? Who ARE you? In a moment I wish I could undo - he said he wants me to do my baseline mammogram this year. This summer. Really? Am I there already? But then the whole thing got eery. He got cute. He says, as we are saying our good byes.... "I can't wait to see you next year and I hope to see less of you." Noticing that he was possibly sticking his foot in his mouth he says - "well not less frequently, just less person". Noticing he was still possibly sticking his foot in his mouth he started to stammer. And I'm just smiling cause I know what he means and I know where he's coming from and it's really cute and not bugging me and I even thought it was funny - and right on the dot. So I Iet him off the hook and said "I know what you mean and it sounds great to me, too!" He smiled and shook my hand and said he couldn't wait to see me next year - keep up the good work. Really? 10 pounds is good work? 10 pounds in 4 months? I guess it's something. But it's not a lot... I have to chuckle - cause it is a lot when I consider how I've done it. Given the program and it's design, it's been half-hearted and half-arsed. Sigh. I really can't wait to just let myself go and TRY! Anywho. Who knows if I will get banded. Who knows if this is all for nothing or all for something. But somehow, this appt gave me a warm fuzzy feeling and now I just feel better. Add to that - the cold is still on the retreat and I feel ~95% finally. Still a bit of a stuffed up nose - but nothing I can't start to attribute to allergies. Speaking of which, I think I'll go get some decongestants...

The thing I love about myself is that when I get down and grumpy and irritated and miserable - it doesn't last long! Yay! I'm back! It's always a tiny little teensy eensy thing that makes me go "what was I so bothered about?" It's this kind of perpetual circle. I want out of the bad mood so badly that I'm running in circles - and getting irritated accordingly - to get out of the bad mood - which just exacerbates my bad mood. And then something eensy teensy happens and I'm fine. Hopefully this blog won't read like me last two. What I do have to say about the last two, though, is that to me, it's part of what this process is like - for those that have to go through the danged program. Those feelings are real and I've read them elsewhere and it's better to be aware than to be surprised when the irritable grumpiness happens. I could have kept it all to myself and I would have gotten over it all just like I have with letting it out. Letting it out didn't make me feel better and it didn't make me feel worse. The people who piped up and said "dude, we're here for you", well, that helped, but me typing out how stupid I was thinking, that didn't make me feel better or worse. But if someone reads it and says to themselves, "that's how I feel" - well then the work of the blog is done. Anywho. I had my annual well woman exam this morning. And this doc is something special. I think he suffers worse PMS than I ever have. Sooooo moody and if you catch him on the wrong day, man, hold your head in your hands cause if you don't, you may lose it. Today was a good day. The last time I saw this doc was in November when I approached him to ask for his endorsement for this surgery. He was not so very kind in saying his opinions on my weight gain were that I was basically stupid. It was a less than fulfilling meeting but at the end of the day, he did give me his endorsement and I figured "whatever". His endorsement meaning a Letter of Medical Necessity. Today, though...wow. I didn't know who I was going to meet today. I've now seen this guy 4 times and I've had 2 wonderful appts and 2 nail-scraping-on-chalkboard appts. I have always loved the office staff there, though, and, in anticipation of having to switch to a new doc in the same office when my hubby and I get pregnant, I've dealt with it. Anywho. Today. FABULOUS GUY! He was chatty, he was sweet, he was positive, he was upbeat, he was in a great mood and even complimentary! Started with - how was your New Year. I'm thinking, ok... Asked if I had questions. I asked his input on actually getting pregnant after being banded. I hear 2 years before we start trying and I don't know that I buy that, personally, especially when considering my case. Not saying I want to get banded and then immediately start trying to get pregnant. What I think is that if I focus this year on losing weight, that going into 2011 we should be in a good place for starting to try. If I can lose even just 66 pounds this year, I'll be at a normal BMI. If I can get banded in Feb or March, as has been discussed, then that seems doable. Say it was the end of Feb - that gives me 10 months to lose 66 pounds which means an average of 6.6 pounds a month. Seems to me that most do better than that when they try...and I'll certainly be trying. So we had a conversation about that. And he thought it was all very doable and reasonable. If I were heavier then it might be more important to focus on two years. But I'm not heavier. And I am older, too. For a first pregnancy anyway. And then he really surprised me. He complimented me. Said "you are doing well already!" What? YOU are saying something NICE to ME? Who ARE you? In a moment I wish I could undo - he said he wants me to do my baseline mammogram this year. This summer. Really? Am I there already? But then the whole thing got eery. He got cute. He says, as we are saying our good byes.... "I can't wait to see you next year and I hope to see less of you." Noticing that he was possibly sticking his foot in his mouth he says - "well not less frequently, just less person". Noticing he was still possibly sticking his foot in his mouth he started to stammer. And I'm just smiling cause I know what he means and I know where he's coming from and it's really cute and not bugging me and I even thought it was funny - and right on the dot. So I Iet him off the hook and said "I know what you mean and it sounds great to me, too!" He smiled and shook my hand and said he couldn't wait to see me next year - keep up the good work. Really? 10 pounds is good work? 10 pounds in 4 months? I guess it's something. But it's not a lot... I have to chuckle - cause it is a lot when I consider how I've done it. Given the program and it's design, it's been half-hearted and half-arsed. Sigh. I really can't wait to just let myself go and TRY! Anywho. Who knows if I will get banded. Who knows if this is all for nothing or all for something. But somehow, this appt gave me a warm fuzzy feeling and now I just feel better. Add to that - the cold is still on the retreat and I feel ~95% finally. Still a bit of a stuffed up nose - but nothing I can't start to attribute to allergies. Speaking of which, I think I'll go get some decongestants...

Too funny. I'm glad you have stuck to it, too! And it really is coming quickly. It'll be here before you know it!

I can feel your frustration and I'm not even banded yet. I'd be irritated, too, though. Nonetheless, everything happens for a reason. For what it's worth, I would think you could still play bunko. You're there for the company, not the food. Take something to sip so that when you have the urge, you can sip some protein, or something. If it were me, I wouldn't let this interfere with what I wanted to be doing... Course, the peeps I play bunko with are hard core. No time for snacking or munching while the game is going on. Once the game starts - that's it...

Thanks, Loseit! I'm gonna keep on keepin on. It helps that I can come here and whine a little and let some of it out. I know that once I feel better - I'll feel better about everything. And I know of a couple things that will make me feel better - so I just gotta work at making them happen.. Thanks for the support - it really helps!

Yay! That's awesome! You can do this and it sounds like you are! You should be proud of yourself. You keep getting faced with choices and you are choosing the wiser and harder of the two! Good for you!

I think the cold that was beating me up on Monday is finally receding. Now there's a recession to appreciate! I don't think I realized quite how badly I felt on Monday. But I think I felt so badly that I was quite grumpy and my perspective is...ummm...not so positive...when I'm grumpy. My mom used to hate me grumpy. I think my husband doesn't know what to do with me grumpy... I don't either for that matter. But it happens. And sometimes I can figure out what's causing it and can then put myself in check. And other times it's just this thing that gets to badger me all day. And Monday was one such day. Didn't feel bad enough to know I felt bad. But didn't feel good enough to feel good, either. (For the record, I'm not grumpy today, I'm stressed. There's a difference, although it's a fine line...) By Tuesday I was done. I slept ALL day yesterday. Alarm went off and I thought to myself - there's just no way. I think this next thing speaks volumes - when I said to my hubby - I'm staying home - he normally says "are you sure?" and yesterday he just said "ok". So I went back to sleep. I woke up at 12:30 and was back asleep by 1. I woke up again at 1:30 and had to run an errand. I was back in bed by 2:30 and slept until 7 last night. And finally I was asleep by 9 for the night. I feel human today! And to make it even better - the scale dropped this morning, too! Didn't take any dayquil today and won't take any nyquil tonight. Not saying I've beat this cold - but it sure is receding! It's been odd this winter. Normally I have one cold when school starts in the fall and one cold when school starts in January. This year - I've had a constant cold since November with a bout of gastroenteritis for good (HA) measure. I'm so sick of being sick. I think that'd make even the happiest of people grumpy. I'm normally pretty happy, too! So the scale dropped this morning. Not enough to make me say "ok, I'm good for the next weigh-in" but it was enough that I can now say to myself "ok, if I do this and this, then I'll be good for the next weigh-in". I have two weeks to make something happen - something meaning a pound or two. Seems do-able. I do think my body has plateau-ed. It has done all it's going to do from just changing what I eat and how I think about it. Now don't take that as me saying "I've got the eating part all figured out" - cause I certainly don't. I'm on an unweightloss program and with this, I have had a bit of, "well, I'm not banded yet, and I can't lose too much weight here, so I'll eat a little more of this, or a serving of that, or..." In other words, I apply the rules only insofar as I can afford to. I don't have the impression that I can just lose the weight and so I'm constantly doing and undoing my progress. And I hate that. But that's neither here nor there. What I do know is that even with this doing and undoing, my body has been responding in manner X. And this month my body is responding in manner Y. Which leads me to believe I've plateaued. So I have to change gears a bit. I feel like I have two options. I can stop the doing and undoing and just do. Or I can continue with the doing and undoing and add in light exercise. For my mental health - I want my endorphines back - I am opting for the light exercise option. I wish someone could get out there crystal ball and tell me that this stress I am feelingis worth it. Will this even happen? I am not the sort that gets colds and flus and gastroenteritis' so easily. I used to work offshore and I went out on my vessel one time with 24 other people. 24 other people shared bronchitis, gastroenteritis, colds and more and I got NOTHING. We were out there for five weeks and these bugs kept getting passed back and forth and all around the crew. I got nothing! I was happy as a clam and not stressed and enjoying life. I got home to a sick fiance (had bronchitis) and still got nothing. Stress matters. And the stress of this gosh-darned-stupid-as-all-get-out "unweightloss" program is killing me! Add to this the economy and this feeling that it's just a matter of time before I lose my job...and I'm stressed. Downright, nothing else to call it, S T R E S S E D! So tell me. This one thing that I am truly adding to myself (cause I'm causing all my stress, but as much as I'm causing it, external factors are also at play) but this one thing - it's all me. I could say I'm not doing it, I'm not stressing about it, I'm done - but then I could just be fat forever. So tell me. WILL THIS STRESS BE WORTH IT? If I get banded, yes. It's worth it. BUT WILL I GET BANDED? ugh. and sigh. and ugh again. I want to NOT HAVE A COLD. For the rest of this year. Not just this season. Not next season, either. I want the economy to turn around. I want job security. Can't we all just get along? I just want this phase to be over. Over dangit, over!