My Slipped Band Saga

  Hi Everyone,

 First off, thanks to everyone for wishing me well since I've been home.

I've been resting and drinking lots of water and am starting to feel somewhat better. Not entirely up to par, I just took some pics and I seriously look like I got hit by a bus.

 Everything started to decline Friday morning. I had the day off from work. A friend was having a big garage sale with some of her neighbors and so I went to that as soon as I took my son to school. (found some good things too, including a Kathy Van Zeeland purse  ).

I came home and decided to fix myself scrambled eggs for breakfast. Usually I just take a yogurt to work, but decided to go all out and be "domestic" with the eggs. This was about 9:30. I had about 3 small bites and then proceeded to feel very stuck. I was chiding myself for eating so early, usually, I have the yogurt around 10:00. I pb'd it up, but still felt that there was something stuck. I had a hair appt at 2:30 p.m. and didn't want to miss it (priorities, huh? lol), so I laid down in the hopes that I would feel better.  I did go to the hair appt, but told the stylist right away that I might have to run out to my car to be sick. I've been going to her for over 10 years, so she was totally cool with it. I did end up going out and throwing up in the car once; managed to hold off until all the hair wraps were in and I was going to the dryer. I felt pretty good after that pb session, so thought I was on the mend.

Later in the evening though, I started feeling bad again, and couldn't make myself Pb. I took myself to the ER at 6:00. Was seen at 6:45, and threw up at 7:00 waiting for the on-call surgeon to come. He arrived and was going to take fluid from my band, but I was feeling pretty good, so he decided to hold off. I was okay until about 11:00 and was feeling again like there was something stuck that I needed to come out. I must've wretched at least a dozen times during the night and barely got any sleep. During the course of the weekend, I had at least 7 hot bathes, anything to feel better.

Saturday I was back in the ER at 11:00 a.m. The oncall doc came back in and removed over 3 ccs of fluid from the band (at this point I had 4.1/4th in. They sent me home again. Again, I was okay for awhile, but not able to keep anything down. I tried sleeping off and on all night and around 2 in the morning, decided to take small sips of water every half hour. Unfortunately, each time I would do this, I would pb it back up. At this point, I was way beyond anything left in my stomach, this extremely brown bile was all that was coming up. And then Sunday I had excrutiating back pain. Also, pain in the rib cage and chest area. I called the doc once again and he told me to come into the ER again for a CAT scan.  That is when they discovered that it appeared that.  the band had indeed slipped and I needed to have surgery then to have it fixed.  If it could be fixed, at that point, there was the possibility that it might not be salvagable and might have to be removed. Seriously, at that point, I could not have cared less what they did with it.

The oncall surgeon doesn't do lapbands and of course, Dr. Schneider, the one that did mine was out of town. They called in another one that mine worked in tandem with on my first surgery.

It all happened so fast, I really didn't have time to get nervous. I remember being wheeled into the OR, being put into the other bed, throwing up once more, and then them putting the mask on my face. Next thing I knew it was 4:00 and I was waking up.

Recovery went well. Bandsters, I have never known such happiness as when they let me have ice when I got into my hospital room. By this point, I had not had any liquids for over 55 hours and was miserable! (my weight had actually dropped from 199.8 on Friday morning to 192.4 Sunday morning, just due to lack of water.)

 They brought me a liquid meal for supper. I spied a container ( (4 oz) of grape juice and sucked that down way faster than I probably should have. Told the nurse if she could get me some more of those, I would love her forever. LOL. She did come back with 4 more though.

I didn't have any complications after the surgery and even managed to get some decent sleep throughout the night. (though they did wake me up to ask me if I wanted to brush my teeth. NOOOOOOOO!).

Monday morning the doc came in and explained what happened. They think that during one of my vomiting episodes, that I opened a stitch, which caused the band to gradually slip down. (if you remember, I'd been having some increased episodes of pbing and they were getting worse Plus, the fact that I am NOT a "barfer" and when I do, it consumes my whole body). Doc said that the band slipped to the point where there was WAY more stomach above the band and it was so tight around the lower part that nothing was able to get through. (Though I hadn't yet reached the point of my spit not staying down).

In addition to being quite dehydrated, my potassium levels were pretty low. I had to have two doses of liquid potassium. (AWFUL stuff). 

I went home Monday night at 6:00. I'm off work until next Monday. Doing well, just really tired. Monday night I was in bed by 8:45. (so missed voting for Pam on DWTS...darn!)

 It was all I could do this morning to take my son to school and come back and fall into bed for 2.5 hours.

Yesterday, I went to see my regular surgeon and he said "I go out and have fun and look what happens!" He had sent me to the lab prior to the appt to check my posstasium and it was still a little low. I'm a clear liquid diet again for a week. So far, not a problem, I have ZERO appetite. I went to Walgreen's and stocked up on orange and apple juice, as well as popsicles and italian ices.

 I have another appointment on June 1st and we will start over with the fills again at that time. Dr.. Schneider said we don't want me to go backwards with the weight loss, but also (and I agree) that I need some time to heal.

I am presently at 197.0 and hoping that I will maintain that for the next 4 weeks.

Here's a few pics.... my poor arm...just wanted to show it some love after the abuse it took all weekend.

And here is my belly AGAIN. Looks kinda familiar, huh? 5 more incisions made. You can see they worked around the port site. It hadn't even had a chance to heal up yet....and starting over again. No bikini for me this summer. Not that that was going to happen anyway..not with those old stretch marks. :-)

I know this is long-winded...just wanted to get it all down. I'm hopeful that this was an isolated incident and not an indicator of the future.

Thanks again for asking about me and reading. Love you guys!