Less like restriction, more like stranglehold

I had my fourth fill last Wednesday, and now have 7.5ml in my 10ml band. Margaret, who weighed me (still snail's pace, though steady), and asked me how I was getting on, thought I should only have half a ml this time - and I thought oh no, this is all so slow... So when the surgeon gave me the choice of a half or one ml, I jumped at the chance. Was I sure? You betcha. My bowlfull of cornflakes when I got home was sublime: I felt full and satisfied though I hadn't eaten much that day. I imagined triumphant post in blog - it's working!

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Thursday managed sandwich at lunch and salad in the evening (one morsel at a time and couldn't eat the tomato skins - took ages) without feeling too bad, though I went to bed hungry. Friday morning at work my boss offered me a Ryvita, one of the new ones with berries in them that taste ever so slighty sweet. Divine... I ate it slowly, then washed it down with a small cup of coffee... and for the rest of the day I felt awful. I had to rush to the loo three times, where I also tried jumping up and down, without success. Thought I was fine at lunchtime and managed two bites of a sandwich made from soft brown bread and tuna mayonnaise, but I was uncomfortable all afternoon with the same running up and down. (Doesn't being sick make your face go awful and blotchy, not to mention all puffy? It made me feel all the more self-conscious.)

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"Surprise!" says John - "I've got us some fillet steak for dinner". Lovely, my fave. "You've got to chew it properly" says John "I'm going to count your chews". Talk about invasion of privacy. I'm watching the news and he's watching me, going "...five, six... eighteen, nineteen, come on, you've got to get to 25 at least". Three hours and many trips to the loo later I had to admit that all I was going to keep down was water. I remembered Tracey's posts of a couple of months ago, and her despair of being able to keep herself fed at all, and wondered if Margaret had been right, and I should have stuck to half a ml. I didn't even dare give myself any insulin before going to bed.

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Today we visited a friend in Tewkesbury, and we lounged in her conservatory as she gave us raw vegetable sticks and dips for lunch, with cheeses and some sliced ham, and it was as if nothing had happened. No problem at all, though I was glad it all took a couple of hours. Home-again-home-again, hot cross buns as a treat. Oh dear - I had one half with butter on it, and for the next hour - i.e. four or five times - I was going backwards and forwards to the loo. It would have been better to have just sat there and eaten it... So - still blotchy and puffy. Sight for sore eyes... I don't think.

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All this discomfort is miserable, but I suppose it's going to be the only way to find out what I can eat and what I can't. The band is now clearly working with a vengeance, and most of the weight loss recorded in the last entry on my snail's chart is the result of the last three days performance. My fear (as Dawn says in a recent post) is that this learning process should have to be learned in front of guests, or in a restaurant.

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I'll blog more often from now on - the long silences were due to my unsuccessful struggle to overcome the devastating effect of the burglary. I can't write cheerful if I don't feel it, and outpourings of misery make for a boring blog. However, as with most things, you get used to anything if you wait long enough.

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Thank you, thank you for the very kind remarks left in the comments.

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-oOo-