Band Trauma

I had a delicious enchilada concoction I put together last night for dinner. It was soft, it was moist but it had some left-0ver roast beef in it. Apparently my band has developed an even more serious aversion to all thing beef than I realized. I ate my meal with no problems but it sat in my pouch for hours and hours. I went to bed and was still burping through dinner from 6pm. I had a cup of tea hoping that it would help to finish cleaning things out but apparently I was wrong.

This morning I took my nice cup of tea to work with me sipping away. around about 9:20am I had to excuse myself from a meeting and return a bit of said tea. My response to this event was WTF? its tea for goodness sake. I racked my brain for some offending food that might have passed my lips this morning..did I pop a nut in my mouth while making Graces lunch? nope a goldfish perhaps? no again. Just the tea went down and just the tea was returned. I have never thrown up a simple liquid before (except in the surgeons office testing a fill).

I worried but stayed calm. After our morning meetings were done a few of us went off to chipotle for lunch (well the others had lunch). I had a bottle of peach orange juice (hoping that this liquid would stay down). I nursed the drink until 3pm (yes three hours) and got it down but it was not comfortable at all. At 3 I called the surgeons office and got an appointment with my favorite nurse at 3:30 (There was a bit of a nail biting moment when they hinted that I would have to wait until tomorrow).

Maggie gave me a bit of a hard time about needing and unfill. After our discussion she thought that the enchilada might have irritated my band (just a bit of an understatement). She took out the .2 cc's i got put in last week.

The details are interesting...

so we were talking away and I did the stream of consciousness blather i sometimes do about what all of the reasons might have been and all of my fears about what I did to my poor band. While talking we covered a lot of ideas but a couple of important ones are: I told her that I was concerned that my pouch doesn't protest as much as it used to and just lets stuff sit in it instead of gagging and pbing the food back. She agreed that yes my pouch might have become used to the food being there and more tolerant. She also had me drink a cup of water with no fluid in my band (holy shmoly...i gulped it down and it was FINE...Felt pretty nifty after so long a time of being a sipper).

-just a note here-I would never give up my fill. I enjoyed reliving my old gulpy habits for a moment and I talked about getting a burger when I felt really open a few days ago but being a size 10 and having the energy that I do...it is worth every missed burger and every lost gulp that I will ever have.-Ok back to the story

She then asked me what the heck a pb meant (made me feel a tad stupid for even using it really). I said productive burp and then proceeded to describe to her the difference between being stuck and throwing up and throwing up after eating too much. I told her the term productive burp and compared it to a baby urping up too much milk. She then said..is that what all of those online banders call it? (in a slightly mocking tone)...Ok I might be sensitive to it (and don't get me wrong I still like her) but...she needs to do some research about actually living with this darn hung of plastic in our bodies.

I really don't think she (or any of the surgeons for that matter) are doing studies about living with a band. They just do their quantitative blinded crap and are muddling around in the dark as far as the actual details of the experience.

It is highly annoying really..

but...the un-fill provided relief. I can drink again and had a few goldfish and a cashew on my way to work and on my way home. Things are A-OK my inner chest area (I am assume stomach) feel a little sore.

Tina