Acid-Reflux, My Undying Love for Mr. Lapband and Flirting with Mr. Sleeve

On Tuesday I had an un-fill because I couldn't take the acid reflux any longer. I am now far from sweet-spot restriction but this is so much better than dealing with the acid reflux and sleepless nights. What a relief. So far I have not tested how much I can actually eat because I am so accustomed to my small portions that it doesn't really matter right now! This may change soon but for the time being I am okay. I can handle it. There is no more reflux and I have not gotten stuck neither *yeah* I only ate healthy and nutritious foods *yeah* and slept 12 hours last night ;-) This was soooo needed, feeling 20 years younger today!

I also want to make sure that you all know that I really, really love my band. Without it I wouldn't even be anywhere near the weight I am at today. I am just tired of my not so pleasant side effects and in a way it feels like a never-ending story for me. Remember, I first had the infection and two more surgeries to remove the port and then to put the port back. After that Mr. Lapband worked really, really well for me. It was worth all the struggles. I am proud of what I have accomplished and I would not change a thing. There are no regrets of any kind.  I would do it again in a heart beat. I just wish everything would still be working the same way it worked for the first 1.5 years and would continue to work that way.

When I made the decision to get a lap-band in 2009 I was at a very different point. I was morbidly obese, weighing 295 lbs. and had a BMI of 46.2. My fears were mainly surgery related and of course I had strong fears of possible failures and not losing the weight. Fears of complications were secondary. I couldn't even imagine to ever weigh under 200 lbs. let alone picturing myself getting old with a lap-band inside of me.

Things have changed since then... Not only has my weight dropped to 169 lbs (BMI of 26.5) I have gained so much because of the weight loss. I feel as if someone has given me the gift of life for a second time. I have learned to love the new me very, very much. I have found new loves and passions, new hobbies and most importantly new dreams and goals for my future. I am very thankful and most of all grateful for experiencing this. This has been a wonderful journey for me.

And with everything that has been going on lately, the sudden fluctuation in restriction, the nasty reflux and not being able to have some kind of sweet-spot restriction (or at least stable restriction) and the sad outlook to may never find that restriction again has prompted my last post... because it totally sucks!

It feels like someone has given me all those beautiful and wonderful feelings of well-being and happiness and then punishes me with the worst acid-reflux to ruin the moment. And believe me all of this has negatively impacted my life. There are lots of things that I don't do no more, especially when it comes to socializing that involves eating.

My surgeon suggested the sleeve and really took the time to explain everything to me... and yes, I am okay with it (after some soul-searching)... but emotionally (and physically) I am still stuck with Mr. Lapband because I truly love him and it's not going to be easy to break-up with him and to fall in love with Mr. Sleeve. Luckily it won't happen tomorrow as I still have to go through all the red-tape of getting insurance approval filing for a divorce and by the time I will meet Mr. Sleeve I will be emotionally ready to fall in love once again and hopefully making it work for a lifetime! I hope the remaining 20% of stomach will still give enough room for some butterflies to live there <3 They will be needed.

So the next step will be getting an upper gi endoscopy done hiring a private eye to find out what Mr. Lapband is actually doing down there behind my back. Can't wait to find out and will definitely blog all the juicy details ;-)

Thank you for reading, listening and supporting me. I am so happy to be back to blogging :-)

Love and Hugs,

S.

Needed a small un-fill yesterday....

When I got the fill 7 weeks ago I was extremely tight, stayed on liquids for a week or 10 days and it loosened up by itself to what I consider to be my sweet spot.

Just before the weekend it got tight again... and on Monday it got so tight that I could not even drink a shake, could not eat dinner but was able to eat a small sample size of Pretzel M&Ms (maybe 7 M&Ms in it) at midnight. I do not even know why I ate them because they were so not worth it... While shopping I was donating $20 for abused/battered women and the lady was giving away those free mini-size M&Ms, which I declined to take but she was so pushy that I eventually took it. Anyway, I woke up 3 times that night and had bad acid reflux and woke up because I had blue/green colored liquid in my mouth (from the M&Ms that I ate several hours earlier). Then in the morning even my hot coffee would not go down sitting in my pouch for about an hour.

At first I didn't want to go for an unfill, but my husband really convinced me and now I am sooo glad that I did. Feeling sooooo much better. :-)

I can tell that I still have restriction because I just had a very liquidish pureed split pea soup (have to stay on liquids for at least 3 days) and I know that it is still in my pouch. Hopefully it will be just perfect by the time I can have real food again. And I really like to eat real food. I make much better food choices, that truly satisfy me instead of resorting to slider foods because nothing else goes down.

Last weekend we had a friend staying with us, that I have not seen since around Christmas... he was really shocked to see me and later asked my husband privately if I was sick or something because I've lost so much weight. Once he knew that I am fine he couldn't stop talking about how much weight I have lost, which was really funny, because it felt genuine. He brought some Pakistani Food (that was so extremely delicious btw) and I found the perfect excuse to explain my new eating habits. "It's all about portion control... I am eating very small portions but eat them so slowly that I can get real satisfaction out of it". I did really well... I don't think that anything looked weird or raised any questions or suspicions, even though I chewed what felt like a 100 times ;-)

I do not mind talking about the band with strangers and tell overweight people how great the lapband is and how it saved my life ... but under no circumstances do I want this to be known within my inner circles. 

I am not blogging a lot lately because I do not even know what to blog about... on the weight loss front all is going well. On Friday I was 98 pounds down and I am anticipating Friday to (hopefully) celebrate my 100 lb loss.

It still feels weird. I know I have lost a lot of weight and there are moments when I feel "small" and when I look in the mirror I see MY face that I have not seen in a long time. I am a true 14 bottoms and wear XL tops, which is great because I can shop in all the "regular' stores... but I also have a lot of fat days...

In 2 weeks I will be flying to Europe... really looking forward to see my parents, brothers, grandmas and my very best friends, to be spoiled in "Hotel Mama" and do all the European things that I can't do here.

I am sure I will blog before I leave and if not I will definitely post some pictures from my little vacation.

Hope all are doing well and losing weight.... can't wait to read your blogs and follow up with all of you.