So I made a couple of forums posts that explained what happened to me, so I won't rehash it. Suffice it to say that frustration both psychological and financial made me give up on my band for the past 6 months, but on Wednesday, I got my first fill since August of last year. It brought me up to 9 cc in my 11cc band, which still scares me a bit, but this is what's happened so far...

I spent Wednesday and Thursday on liquids, progressing to a thick puréed black bean soup last night for dinner. Today I'm going a stage further having the rest of the black bean soup for lunch without the purée-ing. It's still extremely soft and barely more textured than a purée, but I wanted the practice of chewing something slowly and thoroughly to get me back in practice. Plus, it's easier for me to remember to wait between bites when there's actually something to bite onto, even if it's a mushy black bean. Getting back into the habits necessary to live with the band is big for me, since I haven't used them in months.

The weirdest thing happened during lunch, though. Eating slowly and chewing bites, I ate 1/2 a cup of soup with sour cream on top and stopped. I'm trying to listen HARD to the band, and after 1/2 a cup, it told me I was satisfied. How weird is that? I don't know if I'll be hungry again in an hour, but if I am, I still have the leftovers (every last calorie allowed and accounted for) to eat to make the hunger go away. I don't know if I've actually ached restriction and am trying to remember that I won't know for potentially a week or two after the fill. But I also know that I have a follow up appointment in 12 days and a new doctor who is more than willing to do whatever it takes to get my fill right and get me to the sweet spot I'm still searching for. So, you know what? It's all good. I'm good, and I'll only get better.