Infection healed, Port back, happy and healthy again :-)

Hi @all,

Did you miss me? ;-) I surly missed you guys :-)
I am truly sorry for not blogging in such a long time. Unfortunately I was/am so busy with work that blogging was just not possible. At any rate... I am back :-) and I am happy to be back :-)

Here are the news:
Due to an infection I had my port removed on 11/20/2009 and I am happy to say that my infection has healed and I no longer have any problems or pain. It took a little while to get an appointment at Cedars Sinai to get my port back. From what I have learned December is a very busy month and I only got my port back on January 15th 2010. It felt like I was waiting for forever to get a surgery date. This was the best surgery out of all 3, everything went very well and even though they had to put me under general anesthesia I did not get sick, had no gas pain and no other pain at all *knockonwood*

When I got the port back I lost all my restriction :-( This was very bad and I have done some very bad things. Nor sure if I should tell you a little food porn but the worst thing was when I ate an entire Costco bag (those bags are HUGE, meant for 5 families or so) of potato chips on a weekend.

Am I bad or what? :-D But I am glad it happened, not the infection of course, but my mega-5-families-super-sized-bag-of-potato-chips-experience because I came to realize that I am sick, sick when it comes to food and that I have no will power to say "no" or to stop eating when I actually should not be eating. Lap-band surgery was the best thing I have ever done for myself.

I did not gain any weight though because other than a couple of moments of weakness I did okay, even without restriction. However, I was stuck at 246 for many weeks. Once I lost my "sweet spot"it got more and more difficult. "You only know what you had when you lose it" is soo true!

On February 2nd I got my first fill since I got the port back and the restriction only lasted a couple of days. On Tuesday, February 23rd I went for another fill and I am feeling GREAT! My restriction is right there where it was before I got the infection and I am very motivated again. I hope it stays there if not I will get another fill. At this point I have no more time to waste ;-)

When it comes to my weight loss:
9/11-09   Starting Weight 295
11/20/09 Port Removal Surgery Weight 259 (lost 36 pounds)
1/15/10   Port-back Surgery Weight 246 (lost 49 pounds)
Today:    240 pounds (total loss of 55 pounds)

Yes, the infection was a little set-back for me. I had to work much harder to still lose weight because the restriction I had (without the port) was not sweet-spot-restriction but I am still happy that I continued to lose weight and most of all did not gain any.

I am also glad that this all lays behind me. I tried to avoid thinking about it too much and that was probably also a reason why I avoided lapbandtalk and blogger.

Hopefully by tomorrow I can say FINALLY good-bye to the 240s and my goal for March is to say my final good-byes to the 230s.

I am happy, healthy and I loooooooooove my lap-band :-)

Now that the infection and recovery from it lays behind me... I would still do it again! Even with the infection and all... the lap-band is sooooo worth it.

I hope all of you are doing great and I can't wait to read your blogs and let them inspire me.

Thanks for all your support and last but not least I would like to wish everyone a Happy 2010 ;-)

I want my port back :-(

I have not posted for a while because I have been extremely busy with work and all the Holiday stuff. During the last couple of weeks my Christmas packages from friends and family in Europe arrived and they were all stuffed to the brim with cookies, marzipan and gingerbread (and books and DVDs and gifts for Christmas). Very bad! This is really the stuff that gets to me because it is not just candy... it's what childhood memories taste like. I have been hiding it all around the house and so far have been doing good.

Unfortunately I do not have much of a restriction left and have to rely on willpower. All those European Christmas Goodies around the house do not make it any easier. I normally do not buy those foods because if I do not have them at home I do not eat them nor crave them.

Yesterday we had friends over and had a wonderful BBQ... after Dinner I served a lot of the European Goodies with Tea and I am glad that everyone really liked it and ate a lot :-)

I have no idea when my port will be put back... this year? next year? It seems to be difficult for my surgeon's office to get an appointment from the hospital. We actually planned on flying to NYC next week to spend the holidays with my in-laws and I have no idea if I should cancel the flights or not. Nobody can give me any answers which frustrates me even more. I really need a fill soon and I am getting more and more frustrated with all of this. This is the wrong time of the year to be without a restriction and it saddens me that the entire infection-issue has somewhat killed my motivation...

Last week I said good-bye to the 250 and the scale displayed 249 (46 pounds lost), which made me very happy... however it wasn't a final good bye because today the scale showed 251 again :-(

I WANT MY PORT BACK!!! I WANT A FILL!!! AND I WANT MY MOTIVATION BACK!!! HELP!!!