2011 - banded, banding, bands--verb--To assemble or unite in a group

[oldiebutgoodie2 11]

What you are living is exactly what I am looking forward to and expecting! My present wonderful relationships won't change (they love me fat or thin), but things like painting my toenails! Wearing heals again! Feeling better about myself and liking clothes again! Fitting better in the plane seats and not having people almost groan when they see they will be sitting by me! Very cool! Thank you so much for sharing your experience and your wonderful, inspiring after-goal experience!

[shadst8 8]

Don't have time to fully catch up, but thanks for the chuckle Melody and HB. I so can attest to my "girls" hanging. I told my Zumba instructor who sells Zumba exercise clothing that I am at the point I can probably breast feed my own self, so I need support!

[elcee 3,343]

What a thought. Good job your not a guy as I can imagine that would be their idea of heaven!

Sitting drinking a cup of green tea then need to leave for the hospital. Will report back once I get home - I do not have a laptop or internet on my phone so I will be offline for a couple of days.

[Humming Bird 275]

Elcee, You are in my thoughts. I hope your recovery is a breeze.

My hysterectomy took 3 different surgeries over a 10 year span because I was so young (25) they wanted to do it piece by piece. I just wish they would have taken it all out during the first surgery.

That is what your are having done correct? Oh gezz..... I better read back a few. I can't keep track of myself, so it's tough to not get everyone else mixed up........

[Humming Bird 275]

ok.... I'm not losing my mind .... hysterectomy it is........ thinking of you

[Cocoabean 430]

Elcee, thinking of you!! You are allowed to stress at the moment!

[ElfiePoo 109]

Trying not to think about my op tomorrow. Stupid really as logically I know it will all be fine but I'm still stressing!

Ah right...I saw your FB post about it all going well. Now just relax and take care of yourself!

.

[ElfiePoo 109]

Muhahahaha! Yes, let it rain! It took me 4 hours yesterday (and that was with a riding mower!) to mow our lawn (had to pick up lots of tree debris from the winter storms), but it is done! I've been stressing for the last two weeks because the lawn seriously needed to be mowed but it rained just enough to keep it from being dry enough. I knew one more day of rain and I'd be mowing hay by the time it dried out. Which means raking 1-1/4 acres...which I think is ridiculous but that's the township ruling. We had to fight them on that as it is.

We live in an area where all the road frontage has been deemed rural residential and every house sold must be sold with a minimum of 2 acres. According to rural residential zoning, we have to mow our 2 acre 'lawns' as if we lived in the city with postage stamp lawns. Asinine since we live in the country and the property behind ours is all field and forest, and the property to one side of us is all field and same across the street (because it's rural agriculatural - no houses). Anyway, we found this out when we decided to let part of our property go 'back to nature' after our psychotic new neighbor complained to us that we were blowing grass on his lawn when we mowed ours. No, I'm not kidding. He was blowing a gasket because we were blowing 1" pieces of grass onto his manicured lawn. I so seriously wanted to plant oak trees along that property line but it would take too many years before I'd have the fun of watching him have to rake oak leaves in the fall. Yeah...I know...not nice, but this is the neighbor from hell.

Anyway, my husband found the loop hole in the law. It say that our lawns may not be longer than an average of 1'. Oopsie. So my darling husband calculated how much lawn we had, subtracted the house and outbuildings and discovered how much lawn we could let grow back to nature and still meet the 1' rule. Next thing we know, we're getting threatening letters from the township. My husband responded with his interpretation of their zoning law and said according to his calculations, as long as we mowed out 'x' amount of acreage, the rest could grow to 8' high before we were breaking zoning regulations. They sent it to their lawyers...who agreed with us. Talk about the 'letter of the law'.

I'm normally a very nice person, but the 12' wide strip of field between our properties and the section across the back makes me smile every morning...because I know it torques my neighbor (he comes out and glares at it every day). I'll probably go to hell.

Ok...time to be productive. Have a good one!

.

[Humming Bird 275]

Well my fill day is here! I'll make the long drive to get .1 or .2 , but I really do think I need it. Of course I get on the scale this morning and am up another pound on the day I have to get on the dreaded Dr.'s scale.

[Derby 2]

Thinking of you today Elcee!!

[Humming Bird 275]

When I was at the doc's 11 months ago I had 5.3cc

Today he wanted to remove my Fluid to check the amount .... He took out 4.6cc

He gave me a .6cc fill making it 5.2cc total which brings me back very close to my original sweet spot of 5.3cc

I asked if he thought I sprung a leak. He said no .... it's been 11 months. I guess we'll see. I know I can feel that my restriction is back.

Where did the fluid go? It's a closed system?

[ElfiePoo 109]

When I was at the doc's 11 months ago I had 5.3cc

Today he wanted to remove my Fluid to check the amount .... He took out 4.6cc

Where did the fluid go? It's a closed system?

When they took my fill out in preparation for removing the band, they said it's impossible to get all the fluid out...so perhaps the difference was still in the band?

.

[Cocoabean 430]

Melody, you always crack me up! Give your hubby a hug for me for doing that math! I love it!!! Strange laws there eh? Oh, I have the day off for the Harry Potter Opening Day! Just thought I'd share!

Elcee, glad it is all said and done! Rest up and feel better.

HB, guess that explains the hunger. My surgeon once said that it appears that some of the Fluid might somehow disperse through the silicone. Osmosis maybe? And what Melody said, they cannot withdraw ALL the fluid out. But he said that is why we will generally need a tweaking once a year or so.

So, I've been eating like a mad woman this week. Dang. Week before I could hardly get anything down, this week, I swear I need a fill. Go figure. BUT, I am not grazing or obsessing about food between meals. My clothes fit fine. So I suppose all is right with the world. If I give a fill serious contemplation I know it will tighten up "tighter than a crab's buttocks." To quote "The Scorpion King."

[Humming Bird 275]

Now I have to get used to chewing and eating slower again. Hello restriction. I'm sitting here drinking a roadside lemonaid Protein Drink and find myself needing to take a little break between drinks. I'm sure by tomorrow I'll be back to the way I've spent most of my banded life. I'm going to stay far away from the stuff that gives me trouble when I'm tight. I have not thrown up in a very very long time and want to avoid that nasty situation.

[elcee 3,343]

Thanks for all your kind wishes. I got home yesterday and as far as I know everything went well. I was incredibly impressed by my gynae, my anaesthetist and the provided pain relief. I generally feel very nauseous after anaesthesia and this time felt none at all. The first time I felt even mildly sick was Sunday evening just before Dinner!

I was the first person to be operated on Friday morning and apparently my op took a long time. The Dr found severe endometriosis as suspected and adhesions from previous caesars. I had been told way back in my 20s that I had what is called a unicornuate uterus and the gynae confirmed this. What was interesting was that the Dr could not find my left ovary. Now at various times I have been told I have or do not have one. E.g 2 internal ultrasounds could not find one but I then later went for a test where i got a letter confirming this ovary had been found! prior to the surgery it was suspected that I may have a cyst on the left ovary but when i was opened up there wasn't one! Confused - yes me too!

I had the usual drips, catheters(yuck ) etc after surgery and also had a painbuster device that was delivering local anaesthetic directly to the op site. This must have been doing wonders as I had little or know pain apart from some mild backache and a lot of that could have been due to lying in bed.O2 was taken off Fri night which made it a bit easier to sleep and drip/catheter removed Sat.I was pleasantly surprised by a number of people visiting on Sat.Sun (Mothers Day) the family came in and brought me a present. My daughter had already given me her present as she was so excited. It is a photoshoot at one of those studios where they do your hair and makeup and then charge an arm and a leg for the prints! I am excited but also wondering what on earth we are going to wear that will look half decent. We went and got hubby and son decent jeans a couple of weeks ago and that in itself was a major mission!

My biggest gripe about the hospital was their apparent lack of understanding about band related eating. I went in with Fluid still in my band and expected that i would be given suitable food. On admission they asked about diet so I told them I had a band and they said oh that is just the DUST??? diet and gave me what looked like a normal diet sheet. I picked what I thought would be the most suitable and easiest to eat items. E.g porridge, quiche, veggie lasagna etc. Fri night after the op they brought me Soup, sandwich and jelly and ice-cream. I thought it was a bit weird but was in no fit state to query it so I ate the jelly and ice-cream. Sat Breakfast I was given juice - when I queried this I was told I was only on fluids but then the nurse fetched me some porridge. lunch soup, sandwich and jelly and ice-cream again. When I queried this I was told that I was on a light diet and this is the light diet. HELLO - since when has a sandwich being light for a banded person? Yes I can eat them sometimes but I struggle and they are not the easiest option. I certainly wouldn't be able to eat one with soup and jelly etc. after complaining I was brought quiche - if that is what you can call it! So I ate soup and the inside of a small quiche. Sat night I got - wait for it - yes you've guessed - ANOTHER SANDWICH. Their solution this time was to swap it for a chicken potpie. I did manage a few mouthfuls of chicken but not many. Sunday I got my requested breakfast - yogurt and a slice of toast but at lunch it was back to the dreaded soup/sandwich. By this time I was ready to throw it at someone. I ate the soup , jelly and then they offered me roast pork. HUH. After I have already had soup and jelly I don't think so.

The problem was that with only liquid in obviously that was all that was coming out. I was unconcerned but the nurses were getting worried. Sat night they gave me Metamucil to no effect. The easy solution would have been to design a light diet for someone with a band not adopt the one size fits all approach. Sunday night I got told I had to take a laxative. I wasn't happy but it is a bit hard to fight in hospital. At about 7pm they gave me some gross tasting stuff called lactulose. I got the most agonising cramps ever and felt like I was dying. The only good thing was because I was suffering so did they. I kept ringing the bell. I tried walking, heat packs, they gave me more meds nothing helped. At changeover one of the poor nurses that had only just come in bore the brunt of my anger as I just let fly. It wasn't her fault but hopefully the message got across. At 12pm when I was still pacing the corridors in agony she phoned down to emergency and got me a sleeping pill. That was a Godsend - I woke up at 6.30am, still in a little pain but not as much. The stupid thing is that them giving me the stuff did not have the desired affect - if they had listened to me in the first place they would have understood.

Dr came around yesterday and agreed that I could go home. YAY. Apparently that is faster than usual for an abdominal hysterectomy but she was pleased with me and the way i was moving etc. Hospital does have its advantages (the bell, having your drugs brought to you etc) but it doesn't measure up to being at home and being able to sit/lie where you want, eat what you want etc. My only challenge now is to remember to take it easy and to learn to ignore all the dirt that i can see. 2 of my friends are coming to visit this afternoon so I am looking forward to that.

Sorry if I have bored you all to death.