Back from TJ - Got a Fill - Lost a Pound

[OSuzanna]

Here I sit, slurping up my Campbell's Tomato soup on the second of three days of liquids following my first fill by the very charming Dr. Acosta. The good Dr. asked how I was doing and I told him I was doing pretty good and then he spent the next 10 minutes talking about "the rules". Then he asked me to pull up my shirt and unbutton my pants (oh my!) and swabbed my stomach with some brown stuff. Oh wait, back up a minute... he told me to look at the monitor and explained what everything was, pouch and band. I then asked him, "what are those dark lines on either side of the pouch" - he said, "those are the wires from your bra" and then I said, "oh".

Anyway, I knew the needle was coming, so I just kept staring at the monitor. Meanwhile, my lovely sister who accompanied me on this trip, was on her cell phone yakking away to our other sister and here she was supposed to be my support to lean on and cry on! All of the sudden she says, "Oh my God, look at that needle! Annette (she says to the other sister on the phone) you should see the sucker - it's huge!". Well, that was real comforting for me.

Next thing I know, the needle goes in "ouch" bit of a poke; he wraps some gauze around the needle and tells me to sit up. I sit up and see this huge needle sticking out of my stomach and I look at my sister and she says, "sit still, I want to take a picture - Oh my God, I can't believe how big it is!". Then Dr. Acosta has me take a sip of Barium and shows us how we can see the liquid go through the small pouch and past the band. He then pushes the plunger of the "weapon" so about a third of the liquid goes in and then has me take another sip, we all turn and watch the monitor and then he plunges some more and tells me to take another sip and we all turn and watch the monitor and then we do the whole thing one more time and then I guess he's happy because he says, "okay, that's it" and pulls out the needle - plop, out it comes. He showed me the syringe at what was left in it and told me he put in about a total of 2.2 cc.

I may be wrong, but I thought they gave you a shot before putting in the fill needle to sort of numb the area. That didn't happen - is that the norm, do they not give you a numbing shot first? All in all, it was pretty easy, no real pain - just the poke. We walked out and ran into a gal who had gotten banded the same day I did and she was there for her first fill, so that was kind of neat. And then............... we went shopping!

Well, tomorrow is going to be a great day, I get to try real food and it's our 36th wedding anniversary. If we go out to dinner, I hope I don't have any problems, but I will remember to CHEW, CHEW, CHEW, CHEW, CHEW......

Oh, and I lost a pound between the morning of the fill and weighing myself this morning - yippee!!!

[fat2nrml]

Congrats on a great fill!! Wow, he gave you a REALLY GREAT first fill!!! I have 2 fills and have 2.6.

The OCC doesn't give numb shots before the fill, they do such a good job that you don't need it!

You'd feel a stick from the numb shot anyways,.... so you just get the one stick. They are good though, aren't they??!!

Congrats again, I hope this is a good one for you!