He's still workin' on me to make me what I ought to be.
It took Him just a week to make the moon and stars,
The sun and the earth and Jupiter and Mars.
How loving and patient He must be, He's still workin' on me.

There really ought to be a sign upon my heart,
"Don't judge her yet, there's an unfinished part."
But I'll be perfect just according to His plan
Fashioned by the Master's loving hands.

He's still workin' on me to make me what I ought to be.
It took Him just a week to make the moon and stars,
The sun and the earth and Jupiter and Mars.
How loving and patient He must be, He's still workin' on me.



In the mirror of His Word reflections that I see
Make me wonder why He never gave up on me.
He loves me as I am and helps me when I pray
Remember He's the Potter, I'm the clay.

He's still workin'on me to make me what I ought to be.
It took Him just a week to make the moon and stars,
The sun and the earth and Jupiter and Mars.
How loving and patient He must be, He's still workin' on me.



Wednesday, January 27, 2010

Fill 'er up

Today I had my first "fill" on the band around my stomach and this day couldn't have come fast enough as far as I was concerned. I mentioned several posts ago that when I first had the surgery, the band that was placed around my stomach didn't give very much restriction at all. My body needed time for everything to heal internally before anything else could be done. Today marked 7 weeks since my surgery. I hope that today I can help you to have a better understanding of what is involved with the lap band surgery and all that occurs after the surgery is complete. This is me being weighed in......

The nurse totalling up my weight loss since the surgery. I was kinda bummed that their scales showed that I've lost 26.5 pounds when my friendly scales at home say that I've lost 30. But I'm not gonna split hairs over a couple pounds. I'm just so happy that for the first time in a very long time, the numbers are going down instead of up!
Having my blood pressure checked. I've never had a problem with it, and in fact I always like to rub it in to my husband when I have mine checked because his is on the high end. Mine today was 116/64.

And what you've all been waiting for......This is what is inside of me now. On the left side is the band that is around my stomach and attached with stitches. On the right is the port that is directly to the right of my belly button just under the skin. In fact, you can feel it if you press on my stomach just barely. This port is where the saline is injected to do the fill, but I'll get to that later. The tube in the middle is what connects the two and how the saline gets from the port to the band.




A closeup of the band....



Ooh, now I'm gettin scared! This is everything laid out to do the procedure.....





Ok, now for a little bit of humor. My wonderful sister went with me to my appointment to be my photographer and we were sitting in the procedure room waiting and waiting and waiting..... for the surgeon. He was 1 hr. 15 min. late for my appointment, but who's counting, right? We were just talking and laughing when she looked down and saw my leopard print socks peeking out from under my now famous camouflage pants and she just had to take a picture of them! Just wait until you see what the bottom half of her legs looked like! You'll have to check out her blog...The Vintage Attic in a few days to find out just what it was!




Alright, back to business. This is the man who was responsible for my surgery. Anuj Prashar, DO. He's just too friendly for me to be mad at him for running so late. He is prepping my stomach for the injection of saline.







Almost ready.....






And here it is....OUCH! Well, it wasn't really that painful. It felt just like having your blood drawn. He injected 4 c.c.'s of saline into the port. Just to give me an idea of how much that was, he explained to me that from now on,I will only receive .5 c.c.'s of saline in future fills.










I really can't believe I'm actually showing my stomach to the whole world! Really, I think I'm going to regret this, but I promised in the beginning to share the good, the bad, and the ugly, so here's the ugly......











A closeup. Here you can see my largest scar directly above my belly button and above them, you can see 2 of the smaller scars. The other 2 are on the other side of my stomach.








Before I could leave, Dr. Prashar had to be sure that I could tolerate some water without getting sick. I had no problem.












Now, he saved the bad news for last. This is him explaining to me that I had to go back to a clear liquid diet for 48 hours. HUH? ARE YOU SERIOUS????? I didn't know that! Well, too late now! It's already done!
Oh yeah, and after the 48 hours are over, I am only allowed to have one bite of food every 5 minutes. It is very important to eat super slow because it takes awhile for your brain to get the signal from your stomach that it's full and I don't want to risk stretching my stomach. Yeah, it can happen. That's how people who've had weight loss surgery can sometimes gain weight back. If your not careful, just a little bit of overeating at a time can stretch the stomach out to where it can hold more food and then the surgery was a waste. Well, not totally, but I don't want that to happen to me, so I'm doing my best to follow all of the rules. Anyhow, Dr. Prashar explained to me that at first, I may be full on only 2 bites of food, so it is very important to eat very slowly. For some people, they can hold more. It's just trial and error until you find the right amount of restriction on your band. Everyone is different. I may only need 1 fill, I may need 3 or 4. It just takes alot of tweaking to find your "sweet spot".














And were done! This is me with the incredible and talented Dr. Prashar. But I'm not biased at all!~




If you or someone you know is interested in weight loss surgery, you can contact Dr. Prashar at
The Weight Loss Clinic
1110 Professional Court
Suite 201
Hagerstown, MD 21740
301-714-4044