Working the Lap Band

I went back to my doctor to get another fill in my lap band on Monday. I have decided that I am really going to try and work this lap band... before it inevitably needs to be removed!

Fill details
Pre fill level: 6.1 mls
Fill given: 0.3 mls
Current fill level: 6.4 mls
Band capacity:10 mls

I was reading the Australian lap band forum recently, Banding Together, and got inspiration from everyone talking about how little they can eat and how long they stay full. I realised I have never really pushed myself to get the lap band full enough to have that satiety. I was always too scared of the limitations it would put on me socially and also fearing embarrassing stuck moments at work. So maybe if I keep getting fill put in my lap band I will get to that sweet spot that lap banders always talk about.

There is just no point having a lap band if I am never going to feel full so I just have to accept that eating out is going to be difficult and embarrassing situations may happen. Even when I have my lap band quite empty I still have trouble eating out because I get nervous and the band closes up.

I know there are plenty of people out there who have the lap band and have been able to reach the 'green zone' where they can eat healthy foods and feel satisfied and rarely get stuck. Those of us that have not ever reached that point end up feeling like a failure. I have had the lap band for 4 and half years and during thate time I have fallen into one of two categories:

1. The band does not have enough fill in it to help me feel full. I can eat chicken, salad, red meat, rice and bread and McDonalds...
 
2. The band is too tight and the only foods that will go down comfortably are chips and ice cream and there is no chance of eating a normal healthy meal

Apparently there is a magic third category:
 
3. The band has the right amount of fill so that I can eat half a cup of normal food and feel satisfied for at least 3-4 hours

I am determined to try and get myself into this elusive category!

This is now the most fill I have ever had in my lap band. Right now the band still feels very tight and eating is quite difficult, but I find that fills can take a couple of weeks to settle into place, so I will wait and see how it goes. I am mourning food a little bit, thinking of all the restaurants I want to eat at and all the fun summer time adventures that are sucky with the band. I guess I just need to learn how to have fun without it revolving around food. Ha ha!!!

Very Sticky Situation

I have had a lap band for about 4 and a half years now and yet I can still surprise myself by how poorly I can manage it. After getting a fill last week it has been a bit tighter than I am used to, but I haven’t had any issues yet… that is until yesterday when I managed to have the grossest moment I have ever had with the band. I don’t blame you if you want to stop reading now.

I have read on a few blogs that people keep little bags with them in the car in case they have a bad ‘stuck’ moment while driving. I didn’t think this applied to me because I am an anxious driver and don’t normally eat and drive anyway. I really should have been more prepared!!!

Yesterday afternoon I was leaving my mum’s to drive the 90 minutes back to Melbourne to go home. I decided to eat a slice of cheese to tide me over because I hadn’t eaten all day. I could feel that it was sitting a little funny, but it felt like it was going to slide down ok so I got in the car and took off. As I was driving it got worse and worse and then it started hurting more than I have ever experienced with the band.

I was growing increasingly panicked because I just didn’t know what to do. I was driving in extremely strong winds (Melbourne and Geelong readers will know what I am talking about!) and it was pouring rain so I was already total white knuckled on the steering wheel and freaking out about the driving conditions. I knew I needed to pull over, but I just didn’t feel confident in pulling off the freeway and then trying to get back on in heavy traffic with poor visibility. So I just kept driving and hoping that the cheese would go down the band.

I was out of luck. Over the course of the next  45 minutes I PB’ed* on myself in the car 5 times. People that have a lap band will understand just how revolting that is. My only saving grace was that the day before I had accidentally smashed a glass jar of salad dressing all over the floor and while I was cleaning it up I used all of the paper towel. So when I had gone to the supermarket for my mum I picked up more paper towel to take home with me and it was in the backseat of my car. Thank the lord!

It was one of the worst (in terms of volume and pain) PB experiences I have ever had. I know you probably don’t want to hear about it, but it was so outrageously bad that I just have to talk about it. After I got home I had to clean the car and then strip off and have a shower… I was a slimy mess. I will never get into the driver’s seat again if anything is even remotely sitting in my band!

* PB: Productive Burp- When something you eat can't go down the lap band and it comes back up (with slime and foam). It’s gross.

Lap Band Fill Time

I am still trying to lose weight after my massive gain this year. I can't say that I am having much success... but I am trying! I know that I will never give up so I have full some confidence I will get back to where I feel comfortable. The problem is that I am not feeling very patient at the moment. I want to go to sleep and wake up 20 kilos lighter in the morning. I feel too overwhelmed by life right now to worry about what I eat... but it is now or never. I certainly don't want to step on the scales in 6 months time and have gained another 20 kilos!

One of the main reasons I am struggling right now is because of the back pain I am having. When you gain 20 kilos in a few months and most of it goes on your chest and back, you are lumped with quite severe back pain. Ah, I am so frustrated at myself for getting into this position. There are only so many neurofens I can take every day... ultimately the only thing that is going to help is losing some weight.

So last week I made an appointment to see a lap band doctor at a local clinic (not my surgeon's office because they are too hard to get to during business hours). The doctor was lovely and didn't make me feel like shit, so that was nice. He gave me 0.3 mls, which takes me to 6.1 mls in my 10 ml band-- which is the most I have ever had in my lap band (I think).

Prior to getting this fill I was able to eat anything and everything. I could eat a whole pizza, a Big Mac, a Whopper burger... and not feel satisfied at all! I had been reluctant to get a fill though because I struggled to ever get food down when I eat out. Then I realised that I have got stuck on food almost every single time I have eaten out in the past 12 months... so why bother worrying about that anyway. I just have to accept that I can't eat out for now. Losing weight is more important than my social life (which is pretty non-existent right now anyway).

I really hope this latest fill in my lap band helps me get some of this weight gain off. So far I have found that I am pretty tight, but it still takes a lot of food for me to feel satisfied. So I guess I need to keep trying and see if I can get my lap band to a place where it can give me a bit of a helping hand help when I need it most.

While I am talking lap bands, I found out today that a good friend of mine's lap band has eroded. I find it scary how many people I know who have had their lap bands flip, erode, or leak. Aside from the difficulties in using the band correctly, the complications with the band mean that if I was choosing weight loss surgery today, I would not choose the lap band. I guess I should try and get mine to work while it still can!

Sticky Situation 3

One of the worst things about having a lap band is that fact that food (and even drinks sometimes) can get stuck. Once the food is stuck in the band and won't go down, it only has one way to get out-- it needs to come back up. Depending on how tight your lap band is, this can happen daily... or not at all. My band is not very tight and pretty much the only time this happens to me is when I am out because I get anxious and the band tightens up and food just will not go down. 

So I am normally very careful when I eat in public, but occasionally I am not careful enough and mistakes happen. I recently made one of those mistakes... with very embarrassing consequences.

I went to the footy on Sunday because AJ is a massive Tigers supporter and we were excited to see them play in their first final in 12 years. So were the other 95,000 other people at the stadium. The game didn't start until 3.20 pm and I hadn't had a chance to eat anything all day because I had rushed from my mum's house back to Melbourne and then caught a train to the MCG in time for the game. I was starving and there were not a lot of band-friendly food choices to make.

I am obviously an idiot and I decided to get myself a meat pie and a cider because it's the footy and that is what you do! Then disaster struck and I felt the pie get stuck in my band. I let it sit for a while and hoped it would go down. Then I stood up at the back of the seats bay for a while trying to jiggle it down. Then I took a tinsy tiny sip of cider because sometimes that can lubricate it down the band. Nope, nothing would work.

Next thing I get a familiar feeling that means that food is coming out of the band RIGHT NOW. I raced to the toilets and was faced with a large queue (did I mention there were 95,000 people there?). It was too late... it already came up. I didn't even have time to get to the sinks or the bin and so I vomited in my own mouth. Everyone in the queue saw me do it and they all collectively jumped away from me. I just stood there, completely panic stricken for what felt like 5 minutes, but was probably 5 seconds. Then a lovely girl grabbed me and pushed me to the front and shoved me in the next available cubical.

I tried to stay in the cubical for as long as possible so that by the time I came out no one from the queue would still be in there. Of course I timed it perfectly so that the lovely girl who helped me was standing at the sinks when I came out. I thanked her, she told me I toilet paper stuck to my shoe, and I just wanted the world to swallow me up.

After that incident... and the performance by the Tigers, I was in need of many more ciders to ease the pain. Luckily I managed to find the vomiting incident more and more funny by the end of the night... but not any less disgusting!

Sugar Detox

This week I have tentatively moved back to my apartment and gone back to work full time because my mum has got some strength back now that she has finished chemo. Unfortunately her health could go downhill any day so I am trying to make the most of her good days and get some work done and enjoy being home. The routine of normal life will be a huge help in regaining my health and fitness. I am just a mess when I am out of routine. Who knew that grocery shopping, cooking meals, going to work and being at home could feel so amazing!

It seems that the rude shock I got from the scales last week has given me the push I needed to try and get my health back on track. I am no longer in denial that my weight 'isn't that bad' and ready to do the work to lose the weight. I am really trying not to be too hard on myself for the massive gain over the past 6 months year... but that is much easier said than done!

While I was looking after my mum for the past few months I managed to get myself seriously addicted to sugar again. My mum had no appetite at all during chemo so I had the house full of high calorie treats to try and entice her to eat something... instead she lost 20 kilos and I gained 20 kilos!Almost ever single evening I would binge eat on sugars because I felt like I deserved it or even needed it because I was so stressed out or had a bad day or I was lonely or whatever excuse I came up with that day.

I knew I needed to have a bit of a sugar detox so I have completely eliminated sugar from my diet so my body can stop the intense cravings. My body is in serious hurt from this withdrawal and just wants to sleep and my legs feel like concrete. Does this exhaustion wear off eventually? I feel like a zombie right now... a very bitchy zombie who wants to eat chocolate!

I can't type anymore... too tired from lack of suagr...

Owning Up

Yesterday I decided that it was time I faced up to the scales and the damage I have done to my body over the past few months. I am not a big fan of the scales and I would prefer to live without them, but I realised that I was actually just hiding from them right now. I needed to see the number so I could do something about it before I weighed 130 kilos again.

It was worse than I could even imagine... I have gained about 20 kilos this year.

94.5 kilos (208 lbs).*

I actually don't have the words to say much more about that. All I can say is that I am ashamed and devastated that I let this happen after losing the weight and having body lift surgery.

The only other thing I have to say about this is that I will lose this weight, starting this minute, today.

Here are some photos I just took in case anyone is interested in seeing how weight gain after a body lift looks. You can see that most of the weight is on my thighs, arms, back and chest... I still have a nice flat tummy... for whatever it's worth.

 

* Edited to say 208 lbs, not 298 lbs... that for alerting me to my typo!!!

Get Fit Attempt #1079

I have been a bit of a misery guts lately, luckily my latest get fit attempt has given me a good laugh.

A bit over a month ago I saw a flyer posted advertising a cheap 6 week membership for C*rves gym in the little town I am currently living in while I look after my mum. I have never had a desire to join C*rves, but I thought it might be a good way for me to get some exercise in while I am here. I normally find that when I am exercising it helps keep me positive and have a better focus on eating healthy.

So I made an appointment to go in for a consultation to get started. From the second I walked inside the 'gym' I felt like I had been transported back in time. I almost turned around and walked out the door when I saw the equipment. It was so old that I wasn't even sure it was safe. Generally I find that one of the only fun things about the gym is the cool space age equipment. So that was strike one.

I met the extremely enthusiastic and sweet owner who was going to get me started. I let her know that I had a long and troubled history with dieting and exercise and I didn't want to diet or be weighed. I could see she was immediately thrown when I said I didn't want to be weighed because I don't think she knew where else to focus our consultation. I also said I wasn't there to focus on losing weight and I just wanted to exercise for health and fitness. Unfortunately the consultant seemed to have a set spiel and didn't seem to be able deviate from her script.

So I sat through all her helpful tips on walking 10,000 steps per day, drinking 8 glasses of water, eating less than 1200 calories and keeping a food diary. Then she made me choose a size I would like to be and measured me to tell me how many centimetres I needed to lose to achieve this size. Of course she also tried to sell me their diet plan that would really help me lose weight. I am not sure what part of 'I am not here to lose weight' that she did not understand. Strike two.

So I got past all of that and just wanted to get on with working out. For those that don't know, the concept is that you work out at a high intensity for 30 seconds at each station and the workout is complete in 30 minutes. I actually don't mind the idea of this because it takes away the pressure to do a crazy long workout. Also, I hate exercise, so getting it done in half an hour is awesome for me.

The workout space is very small and cosy and the staff like to get right up in your business to encourage you while you are working out. They are asking you if you have had your 8 glasses of water today, standing beside you at every machine encouraging you to 'push out' and the final straw for me was when they introduced me to the other girls so we could chat while we worked out. This whole scenario is my worst nightmare. I can't handle anything more than a smile and a 'hello' as I am walking in the door of a gym. Call me unsocial, but I do not want people hovering over me while I workout and I especially don't want to chit chat with strangers. Strike three.

I lasted 4 sessions before I just couldn't bring myself to go back. So it's back to the drawing board...

One Step Forward...

Warning:

It's been a month exactly since I last wrote on this blog. Right now I can't say that anything much to do with weight loss has been going on in my life. My whole life has pretty much revolved around taking care of my mum while she battles lung cancer. It has been a lot more difficult than we anticipated because when she started chemo and radiotherapy a few weeks back it pretty much almost killed her. Less than a week after she started she had a heart attack and also got an infection and stopped breathing because the treatment was just too much for her. Luckily the ambulance arrived in time to get her breathing and she has been released from hospital and is doing a bit better now. There is not much more to say about that right now except that it is heartbreaking to watch a loved one be so sick, scared and in pain.

Everyday is scheduled with chemo, radiotherapy, blood tests,  psychologists, cardiology etc etc etc... this carer stuff is literally a full time job. Then I am still also working my full time job at night after mum goes to bed. I am working from home and basically just trying to keep my head above water so I don't get fired. I feel massively guilty all the time because I really don't think I am doing anything terribly well right now.

I made a very big mistake about 6 weeks ago when I decided I should go off my anti-anxiety pills (cymbalta). I have had a very tough time with them since I started them about 12 months ago, but it just never seemed like the right time to go off them. I was either busy at work, or had surgery or Christmas or holidays or a lot happening... there was always an excuse. Then when I found out about my mum's illness and that I had to look after her I knew I had to get off the pills so I could focus.

The side effects I had from the cymbalta meant that I could barely look after myself, let alone another person. I had terrible night terrors and sweats every night that haunted me through out the day. I had such bad insomnia that I literally fell asleep at work every single day for the last 12 months. I am not joking at all. Anyone who knows me in real life has had me fall asleep on them at some point over the last 12 months.

Me asleep at work, as taken by a colleague

It is awful to feel so out of control, but also so scared to stop taking the medication because they had given me peace of mind from my anxiety. For once in my life I didn't feel like the world was going to end, that everyone I love was going to die in a car accident, that my flat was going to burn down, that I was going to be fired because I am bad at my job, that everyone hated me and wished I was dead, that I was a horrible person and made people miserable. It was a hard choice to make, but I needed control of my life back, even if that meant going back to living with so much fear and anxiety.

It turns out that getting off the tablets was even worse than I had read about. I went through a horrible withdrawal and I am only now starting to feel like my old self. There is no doubt that getting off those tablets was harder than having weight loss surgery and a body life surgery combined. Firstly, the physical side effects: brain zaps, light/noise/pain sensitivity and the fact that withdrawal is mostly likely the cause of my falling down the stairs and spraining my ankle and getting the flu. I was also slammed with emotional side effects that really knocked my socks off. I became paranoid, angry, impatient, angry, mean... and even more angry.

I am normally a ridiculously patient and calm person. I can honestly say I have never raised my voice at anyone. I am definitely not a saint, but being angry and impatient are not in the (very long) list of flaws that I have. Unfortunately over the last month I have behaved extremely badly and I have felt powerless to stop myself...

I punched a traffic light when I missed my tram, I picked up my lovely laptop and smashed it on the table when it wouldn't connect to the internet, I gave a kid the evil eye twice for kicking the back of my seat, I snapped at the lady serving me in Myer, I hung up on a Citibank call centre person on two separate occasions, I made a rude gesture at someone who pushed in front of me on the train. Plus I have been generally short-tempered, mean, snippy and awful to be around.

I think I am 75% better now, all the physical side effects stopped after about 3 weeks, but some of the emotional side effects are lingering. This may be because my body has to learn to cope and be happy without the help of anti-anxiety/depression tablets. It might also be because I am under a lot of stress while I am caring for my mum, missing home and trying to keep up with work.

I am really glad I am off the medication now. I just wish I had done it 6 months ago when it became clear that they were not good for me. I am sleeping through the night without nightmares, the revolting sweats have stopped and the fogginess is gone. I love feeling back in control of my mind again and like I can get through the day without letting anyone down. I am more than a little ashamed that I have been so focussed on myself at a time when all my focus should be on helping my mum.

Things can only get better from here.
xxoo

Take Me Back

I am pretty sure I have not been whingey and depressing enough lately, so I thought I better check in to let you all know that the day after I fell down my stairs and painfully tore ligaments in my ankle, I came down with bronchitis and the flu. This will happen when you brag to your friends and colleagues that you haven't had so much as a cold in over 3 years. I deserved that.

So I am supposed to be working hard before I take 6 weeks off work to look after my mum, but instead I have been confined to bed all week because every single inch of my body hurts. Even my hair hurts... who knew that was possible. Also my communication has to be done via a whiteboard because I can't get enough oxygen in my lungs to speak. Which is lucky for anyone around me because my extreme grumpiness is less likely to transmit via whiteboard.

I used to be jealous of my colleagues who would take a week off work every year for the flu... turns out it isn't as much fun as I imagined. There is no laying on the couch watching movies in my flannelette pyjamas and eating a box of chocolates... instead I am just sitting here trying to breath and dripping in sweat from a fever while I try and swallow tablets almost as big as my finger. I normally gag on anything bigger than a tic tac....

On the bright side, there may be some much needed weight loss side effects, seeing as I have barely eaten all week. Unfortunately the 4 litres of juice I am drinking each day probably has about 17,000 calories in it. Oh well, let's face it, I have never been one of those people who lose weight when they are sick. I must be the only person who gained 5 kilos the week I had all 4 wisdom teeth out. I have a strong commitment to ice cream!

So right now, all I want in the entire world is to be drinking cocktails from buckets and shotting alcohol that burns as it goes down my chest on a hot night in crazy Bangkok. Transport me now please? I definitely have to start planning another holiday soon!

Be Kind Rewind

Last week I was waiting for a tram after work and holding onto my phone in my hand, not doing anything with it, just holding it so I would hear it if it rang (because I obviously seem to believe I am super important and can't miss a single call). It suddenly dawned on me how amazing it was that with the push of a button I could hear my mum's voice on the end of the phone line within seconds. I then realised that it may not be long before I won't be able to do that ever again. I won't ever be able to pick up the phone and hear my mum's voice and it was a realisation that left me breathless with sadness.

I am trying so hard to appreciate every moment I have left with my mum. I know that I am very lucky to get the chance to do this because so many people have their loved ones torn away suddenly. I am trying to be present and take everything in, but I have to say that sometimes it is just so emotionally overwhelming to have to think this way. I wish I could just have one day where I could relax and be happy with my mum without having to constantly play "this could be the last time ......" in my head over and over again.

What is even worse than that is when I start to think about all the things that we will never do together again. My mum is not well enough to do a lot of things anymore and so I know it means we won't ever go shopping together again or decide to try the latest fad diet and then laugh at how awful it was. She won't be able to whip me up a dress on her sewing machine or spend hours making a special recipe she thought I would enjoy.

Don't get me started on the things that we never got to do together because that is more than I can bear to think about.

I just want to rewind time, or at least pause, I don't want to go forward anymore.