Wow.. has it really been that long since I have written here... DOH..

Yeah, some of it I was "busy", but to be completely honest, I was hiding.. I had plateaued and didn't want to post that fact.. Well, there, I've gone and done it..

Okay, so what's been up... Well, I'm feeling good. -0- discomfort now, scars look great. (I need to post some pics). Got my first fill even, but I'll talk about that in a sec..

Let's talk about my plateau.. Well, it has been 100% my fault. Of course the swelling has gone and I've been able to get more down.. BUT, I also am still cheating by not stopping water with my meal. I knew this was going to be the hardest part, and it is. I have at least been good about avoiding liquid calories, for the most part.. I have had a glass of wine, or two.. and a beer or two, but those are special occasions and I try to allocate those empty calories by cutting back at other times on things. I have to just keep working on the complete chewing and limiting liquid at meal time..

This can and will work, I'm just still cheating a bit..

Okay, one more not so pleasant thing to talk more about.. PBs... Still having a few of them, but like I posted before, they are 100% self induced and they don't bother me. I am still learning what works and doesn't. Again, if you follow the directions (not my strength) you should not have these issues. But if you do, it's not the end of the world.

Okay, on to the good stuff.. The scale is moving again (in the correct direction) and I am seeing some better fit in clothes. I was right at the upper edge of my pants being too tight, but now I'm almost ready to go down a size. Five more lbs should get me over that hump. I would like to bust 270 by mid-April.

Ah, my fill.. lol.. man o man.. So check this out, Amy, my wife, gets the royal treatment when she goes in for fills.. Staff fawns over her, Dr. Clark is as nice as ever. (I know all this because a fill for her was my pre-op final exam, so we were there at the same time..) She gets the topical, then the local lidocain, then careful application of the bic pen sized needle for the fill. I was in awe and couldn't look away.. kind of like a bad car wreck.. Anyway, so this is her life.. All giggles and smiles..

So I go for my first check up and first fill on Friday, March 23rd. Staff is nice, but pretty matter of fact.. of course this is the general surgery office and not the bariatric office he goes to on Monday, so they don't know me, but I digress. I go back, weigh in (I do NOT like their scale.. evil vile thing), and then wait for Dr Clark. He shows, is great as usual, but it's pretty routine stuff... I lay back on the table thinking, oh yeah, piece of cake, I know what's coming. I feel the swabbing.. cool.. next should be the tiny lidocain needle for a little topical action.. Doc grabs a nice roll of fat over the port and says "okay, little stick here"... now I'm not new to this game.. right here I know... "uh oh, something's not right", and then WHAM... he pops me directly with the bic pen looking needle.. This isn't at all the peaches and cream I was expecting.. this in fact hurts.. I try to "man up" as we say and just inquire "uh, is that the lidocain or the fill?"..

Doc's like, "oh, that hurts? usually in the scar it is numb so I just went for the fill"... of course he says this while at the same time groping around trying to find the center of the port where the needle actually does some good. "No doc, I feel it, and it isn't pleasant!" He apologizes and opts for the lidocain now, but I'm already amped up on adrenaline and none to cool. In pretty short order I'm now numbed up well enough he can continue to rooting around in my fat roll / scar tissue without my whinning. He opts to put in my first full CC of fill, which is a very odd feeling. It doesn't "hurt", but you can certainly tell something is going on deep in your gut.

I get up and drink some water for him to make sure I can swallow okay. After some more chit chat and a reminder to back down to liquids for day or two to make sure I can tolerate things, I'm off. An interesting experience, certainly not up to Amy's high standards, but hey, she's a lot better looking and arguably nicer... such is my life..

I hope I can do a better job of keeping up here, and if anyone has any questions or suggestions, feel free to PM me. I'm pretty much an open book.

Good luck all!

Mike