This morning, I managed to get in to see the doctor for my partial unfill.
For those of you who are unfamiliar with the experience of fills and unfills, basically what happens is you lay on a table and the doctor (or nurse or med tech) feels for your port and then pokes a disturbingly large needle through your skin and through the membrane on the top of the port so that fluid can be added or subtracted from your band. The actual poking doesn't physically hurt all that much - it just feels like a bit of a pinch. However, at least in my experience, the mental pain of knowing you're being jabbed in the gut with a huge needle is excruciating. I've never actually been able to watch the process.
After the fluid has been added, you're raised up into a semi-sitting position (with the needle still poking out of your stomach) and you're given a dixie cup of water to drink. If it goes down well, things are considered to be OK. However, if the water gets "stuck", the general response is to take out a little bit of fluid from the band and to try again. Some doctors pull out the needle before giving patients the water, but as disturbing as it is to sit up with a needle poking out of my stomach, I'd rather do it that way than have to be jabbed a second time if it turns out that the doc added a bit too much fluid.
Today, the doctor had a little more trouble getting the needle into the port than he has in the past. He had to do a little digging around (again, more mentally painful than physically painful), but finally he got it in and pulled out 6.75ccs of fluid - exactly what should have been in the band. I asked him to put back 5ccs, resulting in a reduction of 1.75ccs. It seemed pointless to do the water test as I'd had fluid removed rather than added, but we did it anyhow and the water went down just fine.
He suggested I return if I needed another unfill as the pregnancy progressed or after delivering the baby for a fill whenever I felt ready to do so. I asked what the general recommendation was for how long to wait if one is breastfeeding. He shrugged and said he didn't really have a recommendation as his sample size of pregnant bandsters had been so small.
On my way in to work, I finished my morning protein shake and noticed that it went down a lot smoother than it had been going down on the way to the hospital.
At lunch, I was able to eat without any discomfort.
As I write this, I'm working on my dinner and it, too, is going down fine. In fact, I feel like I could eat a lot more than what I've dished out for myself, but I won't.
It's such a relief to be able to eat again!
I'm a bit worried about how being unrestricted will affect my eating and weight gain, but I hope that if I focus on making good choices and maintaining portion control, things won't get out of hand. My target is to limit my gain to 15 lb gain over the next 23 weeks.
On that note, I'm off for my brisk after-dinner walk!
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