First Fill

[Vera 7]

Just wanted to let you know how my fill went. It took me 2 hours to get to Mills Peninsula Hospital, First I saw Dr Foster, she didn't feel I was ready for a fill, she has her patients wait 2 mos. and from what I described (that 2 wks ago I had severe chest pains after eating 4 bites of mac and cheese, which I shouldn't be eating in the first place) but that shows restriction. Also my port seem to be alittle tilted down. I wanted to go ahead and try to get a fill for allot of reasons so she wrote the orders for the fill.

Dr. Lee who preformed the procedure was very professional and funny, He claimed he's filled band from all over the world. Once a lady who had her band procedure done in France came in with her own container of Fluid for her fill, he said what's in there Chardonnay? He's done other Dr.Sanchez patients and that Dr Sanchez does good work. So while laying on a table a large "live" x-ray machine is placed about 10 inches over me. Immediately I see my port no problem getting to it. He says with massive weight loss the ports sometimes flip, very common, mine is flat. Then he numbed the area and placed a 4 inch needle about 1/2 inch into the port, alittle pressure but no pain. Then he placed 5 cc into the band, I choked the pain in my chest was unbearable, that's the esophagus he explained and my band was completely closed off. He let 1 cc out and had me drink some barium, I almost vomited. He let another cc out as we were looking at the screen we could see the barium but it was not getting thru and I was still choked up. Drank some-more barium which was hard to do and took out another cc. Finally saw a trickle pass about the same size of the needle, I said let alittle out to be on the safe side. I got a total of 1.75 cc and we were done. A half hour total for the whole procedure. Dr. Lee explained that my band holds 11 cc when not around a stomach but that everyone's different and my total is 5 cc. his last words "chew your food well".

I was amazed that its such a small amount. Do I feel different? no. I'm back on fluids but ate 3 small bites of chicken last night and I did feel it about 5 minutes later, kind-of full feeling. I'm scared to eat knowing the opening is smaller then a pencil but I feel great. I'll see with time. Vera:cool: