Finally, after five months of throwing up daily, I have finally annoyed my doctor into action and he sent me for an upper GI, which I had yesterday. Thank you very much for sending me right downtown on the first day of the G20... I've always wanted to see every single piece of riot equipment the city owns. What do you call 20 cops on bicycles? A gaggle, flock, murder, cute as all hell? What?

He also took out 0.5cc of fluid from my band. I have mixed feelings about this. On the one hand, my puking 7-8 times a day as soon as I put any morsel of food into my stomach stopped, so yay! I cannot tell you how good it felt to eat something so simple as an apple slice, which I haven't been able to do ever with the band. It was like a foodgasm. I have been fruitless, with the exception of raspberries, for almost a year, and the same goes for raw veggies. Oh carrots how I've missed you. For months now, if it hasn't been stewed into a wretched pulp, I couldn't eat it. I think we can all grasp the irony of not being able to eat either fruits or vegetables with the band.

On the downside, we had already agreed before I got my unfill that being overfilled wasn't the root problem. What didn't make me puke on the first bite, I could eat 2 cups of easily. I have endured more soup than the average person should ever in my life. Seriously, I'm taking out shares in Campbell's. Some days I could even go so far as to eat a couple of huge skewers of chicken souvlaki or a half a tub of yogurt at one sitting (again, Yoplait, I'm taking out shares). On the days I could eat, it was smooth sailing for just about any food. Unfortunately, that was only about one day in six, which is crappy odds.

Now something is driving me to just keep eating. Today I ate nearly half a watermelon! In one sitting and I'm still not full! Granted, I still have 7-something cc in my 14cc band, but the restriction is gone, gone, gone. The doctor that did my upper GI said that things looked ok on the first pass but that he'd have to look into it more closely later, which is good because I was expecting a "Holy crap! Your band is down around your ankles!" after months and months of daily retching. So I'd like some of my restriction back please before I decimate the country's watermelon population.

I guess now the search is on for what is my problem if my band doesn't appear to have slipped. Whenever I get enough fill to have any sort of restriction, I immediately fall back into the daily puking problem. We've tried the trick of inching up the restriction by 0.1cc increments already in the hopes that maybe I just got one over zealous fill, but no, that does not seem to be the problem. I'm not getting that typical 'stuck' feeling of incredible pain radiating across the chest. I've had that before when I really was stuck. Nope, I eat my bite of food, chew it to a mushy pulp, and then it goes down and sits like a big ball of lead. No pain, just a growing nausea and pit in the stomach feeling that makes me want to know where is the closest loo. I keep hearing from other people that they have to go make themselves throw up in the bathroom. Not me. The mere sight of a sink usually does it like Pavlov, although I will admit to giving my sternum one or two good thumps occasionally like burping a baby to help things along.

So what is the problem? Gallbladder maybe? That would explain the weird stomach pains I've been getting in completely the wrong place to be band related. Over sensitive vagus nerve? Who knows? All I know is that this band thing doesn't seem to be working out for me as planned. The only tool it appears to be acting as is to make me a better bulimic. That makes my mother happy as she is an eating disorder on wheels, but I'm not too thrilled about it.