Free Floating Port

So I went in for my long awaited fill today. The nurse practitioner could not get my port. She left the room and consulted with my surgeon who fit me in an hour later (ohh I do love getting through the schedulers at the front desk and getting an appointment on the fly). I went up to the xray room and the surgeon met me there. He poked and prodded and took pictures and had me roll on my side for more pictures. In the end he decided that my port was disconnected from the muscle it was once anchored to. To give my surgeon credit he tried really hard he went through 4 needles that ultimately corkscrewed by the time he gave up and went to a new one. I did not get a fill and he gave me the choice-Either try to keep on going with my current fill level and diet on my own (eeeeeek)or start the process of scheduling tests and surgery to fix the port.

I feel like I have come too far to give up on this band at this point. I am, of course, going to start taking better control of my eating (whether hungry or not) and improve my almost nonexistent exercise regime. I also decided to start the process towards getting the port fixed.

Fill Tomorrow -Happy Dance-Happy Dance

Tomorrow is my long awaited fill. I have been really up and down in tightness this last week. First there was the cookie incident-I further pushed the testing by trying to eat a tortilla (to my peril!). I have now settled down to a solid 259 but have been as low as 257. I hope this fill does the trick to get things moving again. I am good until lunchtime but then after lunch the hunger gets worse and worse until at night I turn into a ravenous mad-woman. I do wish the band was a bit more regular but Ill take tight during the day in order to get some sense of fullness in the evening.

I took a few days off for Spring break and went shopping (kitchen stuff, shoes for me, kids clothes). We also went to a family fun center one day and play miniature golf, and some really dumb games that were solely invented to rob you of tokens. I liked the golf but can you tell the token thing was not fun. In all we spent 20 dollars on tokens and in return my 7 year old got to spend a huge amount of tickets (i did get a jackpot on one game) for 5 small candies, a mini Micky Mouse figure and two rubber bracelets. This process took less than an hour.

On the job front my husband has been offered a six month contract to help out a project with his current employer (big company-new department). With this contract he can apparently still keep looking for a permanent job. So the problem is now put off until November.

It Pays to be Pushy-

So I was grouching about my poor lot in life with my oldest daughter and she said-well why don't you call to see if you can get a cancellation...Well duhhhhhhhh why didn't i think of that!!

I called and got a fill appointment next Tuesday!!! wooohoooo Now it is with the nurse practitioner but they were even willing to put me into an appointment with the doctor two weeks from now so that we could go up to xray. I am going to give the nurse practitioner a try and then if that fails try for another appointment with the doctor. I wish they would just train someone to do fills and make it easier on us poor slobs.

Ever since my conference I have been ruminating about doing a study of life after lapand. I think that there is a lot to learn about how people live with this thing. I think a lot of people (myself included) could save ourselves a lot of grief if we knew what the common patterns of behavior were when you get a lapband. If we knew this stuff perhaps we could and the medical profession could provide us with better support-ie education so that we dont have to get so frustrated along the way. yada yada soap box soap box :) Ill put a copy on here if I ever actually do it...

Today I was sooo open...ok now you say..How open were you? ....I was so open I downed a box of girlscout cookies in minutes....aaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh yep not only did i do it but i admitted it for all to see. Lemon chalet creams..tasty but oh my goodness am I gong to pay for this sin. I neeeeed a fill.

Inching Down the Scale

So San Francisco was great!! The weather was warm and sunny and the conference I attended was, as usual, inspiring. I have vowed to keep this blog on focus and not wander all over my work and home life (only allowing tidbits in) so I will not go into great detail here but it was a conference for people who use classic grounded theory research methods (sounds boring but really it is fun and interesting in a nerdy way!).

So I got inspired, got some sun and tadahhhhhh ate like a good bandster should. Lots of water, a protein bar for breakfast, bowl of soup or chili for lunch and good meat and veg dinner (chicken one night and salmon the next)and I walked for my meals :)

I hit an all time weightloss low and promptly my band opened up and so now I'm home with all of the temptations that being at home brings and starving!! I am hungry all day. I have already regained the 1 pound but not gone back up above 260.

I made an appointment for a fill but as is usual the doctor has gone on walk about and will not be available until the end of April!!! I told them that was unacceptable and made an appt with a nurse pract. The problem is that I have had trouble in hitting my port and if she cannot do it without xray help I will still have to wait until the end of April.

arghhgghghgh Looks like I am going to be hanging at this weight for a while.

So Frustrating

After two very tight days (and a mishap with a burrito) I am wide open again. I am stuck going up and down from 259 to 261 then tighten up and go back down to 259 again. I cannot figure out if i need a fill or just need to get a grip. I am off to SanFrancisco next week for a conference and am going to do my best to behave myself and walk everyday. Perhaps this will kick something in the rear and get the weight loss moving again. If not I guess it is time to make another appointment and get in for a fill.

On a good note my clothes are feeling Great! I have two little black dresses that i bought the last time i lost weight. One of these dresses was too tight but the jacket it came with fit wonderfully. The second dress fit wonderfully but the jacket was bad. I bought both dresses and put the tight dress and bad jacket in the closet (they were about 15 dollars each so super cheap). Anyway I pulled both out of my closet last weekend and viola not only did the big one fit again but i could actually comfortably get into both. All my jeans fit with a saggy backside and I had to get new bras because my boobs were floating in my last ragged worn out big bra.

On the stressful bad news front-my husband was laid off two weeks ago. They did it in such a caring and sympathetic way. They gave him two major awards on ugly wooden plaques and then promptly announced-oh by the way you will be out of work at the end of the month. My husband is pretty positive (or in tina speak-Pollyanna!) about the whole thing. He has had lots of interest by other departments who say they would employ him but no one has produced a contract yet. needless to say I am carefully calculating how many services i can cut from our budget and how far my income will stretch (not very far!!). I am also carefully figuring out how quickly we can sell the house if he actually does stop getting a paycheck. The way his company works is that he is let go by his current group at the end of the month. His job is then to sit at his desk and try to find another one for two months. If he has not found a job in that time they will send him packing with a months severance pay. I figure our worst case scenario is we have 3.5 months of pay left.

I am feeling like i can finally do pictures-my kids say my chin is definitely saggy (nice weight loss side effect? no bony chin for me..I am going to get a turkey waddle! and a stomach one to boot!

Feeling Better

My attitude has improved today. Daylight savings perhaps?? The weather is still crap (it snowed today). I got some thank-you emails from the students in class who were not attitude-challenged. I drove to my University for the first face to face meeting in a couple of months. I actually completed one job application and graded a few things....yada yada yada

somehow this helped me feel better.

Food-wise I made and canceled a doctors appointment for a fill today. Although I did not have a needle near my port I am much tighter tonight. I'm not sure what the deal is but I was tight in the morning and had a piece of cheese for breakfast. Ordered fish and chips for lunch (ate one fish and 3 chips) and saved the rest. Tonight I attempted and failed to eat the second fish. I hurled it down my brand new garbage disposal and have been full ever since. ahh i love my band :) maybe this will help me get some distance away from that 260 mark.

Crappy Day and My Crutch is Gone

Today I probably had the worst day teaching since i left the K-12 classroom. In fact it might be worse because at least when I was teaching those hard headed students in middle school there were fairly good reasons why they were rude, would act out, would walk out of the classroom. These kids you see had been through three teachers in three months. Many were in and out of foster homes and jail and had spend a lifetime in the low class where they were treated like they were stupid and incapable.

In contrast today I taught a math methods class to 28 budding teacher educators. This group is in a special program where they take all of their coursework in one year. I try to be an understanding teacher but the behavior of a few of these students today was just as bad as their much younger counterparts. Only with far less reason to do so.

I have seen this happen before (although never been the brunt of it) Student teachers get through a portion of their classroom or on-site experience and in their path to autonomy seem to become derisive of all other instruction but their own. I cannot figure out if this is the result of fatigue, a requirement for independence or what? When I discussed this issue with my older daughter after I came home moaning about my horrible day she said --hunh sounds like what happens when we leave home (we have discussed how we fought more in their transition from living at home to being independent).

Regardless of the reasons why, some members of my class today really pissed me off and further deepened my growing feelings of depression. I don't know if this depression is the result of Winter, of my job, of the chaos that is this house, of my own feelings of crapiness or what. I do know that I came home from work in a severely depressed state.

In the past I have dealt with bad days and bad feelings by bellying up to a nice bowl of ice cream, a big old piece of chocolate cake or even a bit of chocolate candy. Well the band severely hampers this strategy. and I have to say it made me feel even more depressed :( What am I supposed to do to feel better? drugs? counseling? shopping therapy?..My friend switched to exercise. I cannot say I'm ready for that at this point but maybe it is the healthiest answer.

Restrictions Back Baby!

Always in the past it has taken a week (exactly) for my restriction to kick in. I cannot figure this out! The doctor put the fluid in..ok sure it might sit in the tubing or something by why after a week and in this case a week and 2 days, does restriction finally show up. Yesterday my restriction came back. I already called and made an appointment with the surgeon to give me more but I guess now I am going to have to cancel that appointment.

Additionally the great news is tadahhhhhh drum roll please.....I cracked 260 this morning-259.8 Now that is just a crack and I want to widen this gap for comfort. I still have no idea how to celebrate this major breakthrough. At this point I'm thinking bra because my poor boobs are shrinking. They are starting to float in my very cool but too big Oprah bra.

Fill Last Monday?

I had my fill last Monday. It was good for two days then pretty much nothing. I tested with an English muffin and cheese toast today and did barf (so at least there is something)...but more than two cups of dinner last night attests to the fact that I'm not there yet...again. After my last fill I was rolling around from 262-267 and then back down again. This fill is keeping me between 263 and 261 but damn it I'm not past the darned 260 blockade.

I said to myself that I would start exercising (have I ever said how much i hate it!!) at 260..Well my daughter keeps saying I am just trying to avoid the exercise. I broke down and exercised this weekend. I walked to the nearby grocery store (about 1 mile) and did some aerobics yesterday. My daughter is trying to talk me into doing belly dancing with her to a show that plays on fit TV. I did take a belly dancing class once and it was fun-I'm not sure if TV belly dancing will measure up. Then of course there is the fact that it is exercise!

My kitchen is so great! we have kept it clean (always an impossible task in this house). We have cooked dinner every night for three weeks and even eaten leftovers. My DH has cooked twice, oldest daughter once. We took the weekend off but still have the baseboards to put on and tiling on the walls. After we finish these two things we can move onto the floors-I have a garage full of bamboo to put down.