What Happened at My Band Adjustment Appointment OR Where Can I Buy Myself Some Tiny Purple Panties?

OK, finally.

I've carved out some time to tell you all bout my adjustment or Lap-Band "fill" appointment on Thursday morning.  

If you can please invent a 30-hour day I'll be your bestie.  OK?

Before we get down to it, let's talk about stairs.  

My surgeon's office is located on the third floor.  

Yep, I used to ALWAYS avoid stairs. No matter where I was, the elevator was my friend. 

If I did take the stairs, I'd get hot and red-faced. I'd get all sweaty. I'd get all huffy puffy and out of breath.  That was no fun.

When I was going through the pre-op process, I made myself a promise that once I had surgery, I would never take that elevator at my surgeon's office.  Ever.  

Well, I've kept up that promise to myself.  Even when I was six days post-op and my tummy felt like I'd just ton 40 gajillion sit-ups, I slowly took those stairs. One by one.

Made it to the top and I'm not sweaty mess.
Onwards to the waiting room.

I LOVE how my surgeon's office is very accommodating to all sized patients.  Check out their chairs in the waiting room.  They get it.  They get the concept of how tiny, unsteady, plastic chairs with arms can be scary to some patients. Yay for sturdy, wide, wood chairs.

I checked in with the front desk and they gave me their standard questionnaire.

How would you answer these questions?

They haven't changed these questions.  Ever.

At least no new questions or changes in almost three years.

I could answer these questions in my sleep.

One of these days, they should secretly insert a surprise question like "What is the square root of pi?" or "If you were a color, what color would you be?"

Here are my answers:

Does your surgeon make you answer a questionnaire before a fill?

I got called back to the exam room and there were all the lovely tools that make a Lap-Band fill possible all laid out all pretty on the counter:

Oh, look what's on the wall. Some reading fun while I wait.  It's an old-school Lap-Band poster.

I want to get some tiny purple panties.

After discussing with my Nurse Practitioner my recent labs (all looked great!) and my recent hunger issues, she asked me how much fill I wanted.  Yep, that's how she rolls.  She trusts me to know my body, my band, and judge where my hunger is at.

I replied with, "0.2 ccs."

She the reminded me that may be too much and would take me up to 7.8 ccs in my 10 cc band and that was way too much fill when we tried 7.8 ccs last September.  But I told her that I would like to give it a try.  So she put in the .2 ccs.  I drank some water, it went down ok, and off I went back to work.

As I drove back to work, I was drinking my water and noticed that I could really feel it slowly moving through my band.  Hmm..  I started to doubt myself and my decision of the .2 ccs.

But I pushed on.  I started on 24 hour liquids (my surgeon's rule after a fill).

That evening when swallowing my tiny pills/meds, they got stuck and came back up.  I've never been stuck on real food.  Just pills.  This was the third time I've ever been stuck and PB'd.

The next morning, I took one of my high blood pressure pills and it went down ok.  Maybe everything was calming down?

My morning yogurt went down very slowly too.  8 oz took about 25 minutes to eat.  This got me thinking that maybe this is what a properly adjusted band is supposed to feel like?

I had Taco Bell for lunch and it went down slowly too, but nothing got stuck.

So my question to you is:

How often do you get stuck, PB, and why do you think that it happens to you?  I wanna know.