I got my letter in the mail yesterday with my appointment for my first fill. It isn’t for about two weeks, but on Tuesday the 31st I will go in for it. I’m excited, because although I am eating less than I did pre-surgery, I still am able to eat far more than the 4 oz. I’m supposed to eat post-fill. As a result, the weight loss is stagnant which is okay according to Dr. C. (keep your fingers crossed with me that it stays stagnant and doesn't creep up!)
For those of you not quite clear on the whole fill process, during the surgery they implanted a port (see the little round disc above) on my stomach muscle under my right rib. The doctor will insert saline through a needle into the port which will travel through the tube, and then into the band (the larger circle at the bottom of the picture that looks like it has bubble wrap inside). That will cause those individual "pillows" to inflate with saline, and as a result the opening will get smaller causing me more restriction with my eating.
They do the first fill in the hospital under fluoroscopy to make sure that they can see everything as it is happening, and will gauge my fill-level during the process. From what I understand, they don’t put in a whole lot of saline the first time – maybe 2 or 3 cc's into a 10 cc band. I think from reading other posts and all the material I was sent home with that they want you to live with your fill for a bit to see if it is
- Too tight (i.e. can’t swallow much of anything)
- Tight enough (can eat 4 oz. and be full for about 4 hours at a time) or
- Not tight enough (I'm still able to eat larger portions without chewing to a mush consistency).
I'll keep you posted on the process! On a COMPLETELY different side note, big congrats and a shout out to Becky and John on their engagement. Yay!
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