The Big Fill

Starting weight: 328 lbs.
Current weight: 288 lbs.
Amount lost: 40 lbs.

Ah, so much to talk about. But first, my sincerest and most gracious and humble apologies to the global throng of 10, nay 20, loyal followers of this here bloggy thing. I haven't written since Thanksgiving, and I deserve nothing short of a good Singapore caning, followed by a week in the hot box with a case of Ex Lax and a dozen rolls of barbed-wire toilet paper. Truthfully, I just haven't felt like writing. And when a writer doesn't feel like writing, then nothing gets written. And that's all she wrote. Am I right?

Secondly, I'm happy to report that I'm 40 pounds down and feel great. I'm walking 2 miles a day, eating healthy, and with the exception of The Christmas Day Dinner Roll Debacle (which I'll explain in excruciating detail shortly), I've been relatively incident free.

Finally, I went in Dec. 16 for The Big Fill. This is where the Band de Lap takes center stage and shakes its moneymaker. I've included handy dandy visual aids below for reference, but for those of you unlearned in the ways of the bariatric underbelly, here's a the short 4-1-1:

The Lap Band sits around the top of the stomach, just as it meets the esophagus. The inner side of the band is inflatable, like a bicycle inner tube. A tube runs from the band to a port, which is inserted under the skin and muscle and attached to the lower part of the ribcage.

With me so far? Good.

When you get a "fill," a needle is inserted through the skin and into the port, and saline is injected, filling the band's inner tube and squeezing the stomach opening, thus restricting the amount of food that can pass through the stomach at one time.

The tighter the band, the less food it takes to get full, the less food you eat, the more weight you lose. Get it?

And now, handy dandy visual aid No. 1:

Now I know what you are thinking. "Boy, there's a tornado in your belly. Get in the tub pronto and cover up with a mattress!" And yes, that was my initial reaction, too. But while there is often torrents of wind of F5 proportions swirling around in my lower intestines, the dark parts you see above is the yummy shooter of barium that Dr. Fill (heeeee) gave me in order for my insides to show up on the fluoroscope (that's a fancy word for X-ray!).

Here is handy dandy visual aid No. 2:

This is one of those medical model representations you see in the doctor's office. You know the ones that you start playing with but then it falls apart in your hand the exact moment the doctor walks in? Well this one gives you a good idea of what it looks like in my insides, except that my insides are covered with thick layers of vodka and bacon. Mmmmm. Bacon martini.

Anyhow, back to Dr. Fill. After finding the port with a sonogram (insert pregnancy joke here), the actual procedure was fairly painless; just the short prick (heee) of a needle.

The Band 'O Lap holds 10 CCs of saline. My first fill was 3 CCs. The idea is to eventually find that "sweet spot" where you can eat the foods you want and maintain once you reach your goal weight. So I imagine I will have another fill or two before it's all over.

At first I hadn't felt any difference. Like before, as long as you take small bites, eat slowly and chew well, then all remains well in Lap Band Land. However, as the Band get tighter, your margin for error shrinks.

Enter Christmas Day dinner. Like any good Texan, we blew off cooking dinner in favor of ordering takeout from Sonny Bryan's BBQ. And if you've ever eaten at Sonny Bryan's, you know about their dinner rolls. YUUUUMMMMMY! Well, the meal went well. Small portions, small bites, yadda, yadda, yadda. I even ate a dinner roll. So far, so good. But when you continue to sit and talk around a table of food, you tend (at least I do anyway) to nibble. And I nibbled on a second dinner roll.

Not. Very. Smart.

Regardless of whether I chewed well or slow or swallowed it whole, bunches of white flour bread in your belly is a no-no. White bread expands and clumps together into a big wad of WOE, and when your newly sectioned off stomach is the size of a thumb, well, you do the math. And when that newly sectioned off stomach the size of a thumb has an opening the size of a dime for food to pass through, well, do more math.

I quickly broke out in a cold sweat and had to get up and walk around with my hands on my head doing that twisty, turny torso dance that I do so well. For the next 15 minutes, I swallowed, gagged, squirmed and squiggled. Now I'm not going to compare this to childbirth. I am smart enough, having grabbed a leg during the birth of our oldest, to know that the pain involved here is not even a fraction of what you ladies go through.

But I will say this. I now have a new appreciation for the idea of something the size of a watermelon slowly and painfully pushing its way through a hole the size of a peach. It was not a pleasant experience to say the least. Much like the Pecan Pie Incident, consider it lesson learned.

Dinner rolls. Bad.

So I've made it through the Holiday Foodfest Triangle of Death, but not without some internal bumps and bruises. However, I've emerged thinner and smarter and begin the New Year wearing clothes that haven't seen the light of day in years. So yea for me!

I'm starting to see some true benefits of weight loss; things that you take for granted, and I'm re-learning that life is so much better without loads of lard weighing you down.

In the next few posts I'll talk about that. I've been pretty wide open about my experience with this so far, but this will be more out there than ever. So prepare yourselves accordingly.

Peace, love and BBQ!

The Pecan Pie Incident

Starting weight: 328 lbs
Current weight: 299
Amount lost: 29 ... uh, oops.

After four days of turkey and dressing ad nauseam, I came away from Part 2 of the three-headed holiday gluttony monster a mere three pounds heavier than I was entering. Now considering the fact that the only exercise I got on the four-day weekend was climbing up a one-rung step ladder to put up my Christmas lights, that's a moral victory if ever there was one.

Now wait a minute, my not-as-rotund-as-you-used-to-be friend, aren't you supposed to be LOSING weight with this Lap Band doodamahickey?

Why yes, yes I am. But I didn't. I'll own that.

I actually did very well at our Thanksgiving feast, loading up my plate with little portions of everything. I took small bites, chewed well and ate slowly, just like the Lap Band Instruction Manual says. But I was stung by something much more venomous than the big bad turkey day meal itself.

Leftovers.

You can prepare yourself for the big bird. It's not hard to psyche yourself up, gird up your loins and limit your intake for an hour or so as you sit surrounded by cranberries and corn casserole. In and out. One and done. That wasn't so bad, right?

But leftovers linger. Like a wet, hacking, snotty cough. Like the smell of burnt popcorn. Like a Pancho's buffet gas attack. Leftovers never go away. Hell, I think I threw away some sort of cheesy green bean dish from last Thanksgiving while cleaning out the fridge to make room for this year's leftovers.

In the end, there were more leftovers in my belly than in the fridge. Not that I gorged. I grazed all weekend. Moo. Sweet potatoes here. Pea salad there. Turkey omelets everywhere. Moooooo. So that three pounds is on me ... literally. But I can live with that, because out of it comes a very valuable, yet painful lesson learned.

We ate early on Thursday, as per family tradition, so we'd have plenty of time to clear the table and load up on Rolaids and Prilosec prior to Cowboys-Raiders kickoff. And as you know, Thanksgiving afternoon in front of the TV watching football is PRIME grazing time. So as the game was winding down, I wandered into the kitchen and snatched up a relatively small piece of pecan pie.

Maybe it was the familiar and comforting taste of room temperature gooey sweetness, or maybe I was in a hurry to get back to the game, or maybe I was racked with guilt for eating something I shouldn't and reverted to pre-Lap Band scarf mode so no one would catch me. Whatever the reason, I neither took small bites nor chewed well, and as best I can tell, yonder relatively small piece of pecan pie got relatively wedged into my relatively small stomach opening.

I didn't realize it at first, since it was just a feeling of fullness. Time to stop eating, I thought. The painful part came later after I stupidly drank a glass of water, which only served to drive the pecan pie wedge in tighter.

Now was it kicked in the crotch painful? No. But it was a might uncomfortable and stomach crampy as it radiated angrily into my lower back. I felt like I was getting gut punched by Sugar Ray Leonard and kidney punched by Marvelous Marvin Hagler all at the same time.

Laying down made it worse, so I got back up, recalling the advice of a fellow Lap Bander, and walked around with my hands on my head, doing this sort of twisty turny torso dance in hopes of dislodging the pecan pie blockage so it could move on through.

I finally landed all squirreled up on the couch in a semi-reclined position with hands on head. I looked funny as hell, but at least I didn't hurt. It all passed a while later, and the pain thankful subsided.

So let's recap: small bites, chew well, eat slowly, and when they say don't drink liquids while you are eating ... they mean it. And next Thanksgiving? Pecan Pie Smoothies. Lesson learned.

Peace, love and gooey sweetness.

Who's Bringing the Gummy Worms?

Starting weight as of 10/14: 328 lbs.
Current weight as of 11/22: 296 lbs.
Amount Lost: 32 lbs.

It's fitting that only a few weeks past the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall that I, myself, have taken a sledgehammer to my own physical, mental and emotional Iron Curtain.

After much wailing and gnashing of teeth, I can proudly tell Mr. Gobachev that I have torn down the 300-pound wall, metaphorically speaking. I've lost 32 pounds and currently weigh 296 lbs., which means I'm below 300 lbs. for the first time since, well, I truly can't tell you. It's been that long.

All it took was a bottle of Turbo-lax and a spoonful of intestinal parasites (I kid!).

But not only am I seeing the results on my already well-worn bathroom scale, I'm getting into shirts that I haven't been able to wear in years. And when I miss a workout because of a conflict, I really miss it. I'm starting to crave that feeling of satisfied exhaustion you get from working up a good sweat. I've had that feeling before, but now it's different. Previously I'd only get it from a morning visit to the porcelain throne after a long night at Fogo de Chao, if you know what I mean!

And all of this comes at the perfect time of the year. For me, the holidays, though festive and and full of awesomeness because I get a bunch of free stuff, have always been a time of great consternation and struggle.

I'd enter into the Halloween-Thanksgiving-Christmas triumvirate with the greatest of intentions, vowing to limit the sweets and eat sensibly. But then I'd exit hurriedly through the back door amidst a flurry of Almond Joy wrappers and giblet gravy, only to be found sometime before New Year's Eve in a back alley, slumped against a wall in a tryptophan haze while clinging desperately to a gnawed-clean ham bone and muttering something about The Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown.

But this year I've looked forward to the Holiday Troika more than any other time in my life, or at least since I was a little cheat.

Reason being is that My Friend Lap Band has kindly taken all my consternation and struggle, given it the middle finger and unceremoniously sent it on its merry frickin' way. All that worry and hollow self-promise about eating right has vanished. And just like that, it was gone. Keyser Soze gone.

With My Little Lap Band in place, and a with my heat-seeking, laser-guided, thermonuclear, infrared night-time-vision-goggle focus zeroed in on eating right, overeating is simply not an option.

• Like the NCAA ever instituting a BCS playoff system
• Like Rosanne Barr ever singing the national anthem before a baseball game again
• Like me getting all giddy about going to see New Moon
• Not ... going ... to ... happen

And if it's not an option, then I just don't have to worry my pretty little head about it. Plain and simple.

Now, I did help myself to a few of the gummy worms in my girls' candy cache. But that was during my soft food phase. And gummy worms are ... soft. And I will have my share of turkey and dressing with all the trimmings. But in small bites and proper portions. And for the first time in recent memory, I will push myself away from the table, full but not miserable, satisfied but not stuffed, and happily say, "I've had enough."

Overeating will not be on the menu this holiday season. Because I've had enough.

It's either that, or I puke all over myself. And I'm saving that for the Christmas Party. Anyone for a chocolate-peppermint martini?

Peace, love and turkey legs

Bacon Good, Patience Bad

Starting weight as of 10/14: 328 lbs.
Current weight as of 11/12: 300 lbs.
Amount Lost: 28 lbs.

Just over three weeks ago, The Good Doctor shaved my belly, waved his magic laproscopic wand and left his calling card in my gut, in the form of a plastic C-clamp with the words "The Good Doctor Was Here" inscribed on it, gently wrapped around the upper part of my stomach.

Today, I stand, er, sit, on the precipice of a milestone that I haven't seen since little Suri Cruise was hatched in a Scientology petri dish. I'm a scant two pounds, technically three, away from being below 300 lbs.

Now that, kittens (BvBB!), may not seem like that big of a deal, but to someone who was mortified to reach the 250 mark, was horribly embarrassed to hit 275, was in denial at hitting 300 and was utterly humiliated and in angry disbelief at passing 325, trust me, it's a BIG ... FREAKING ... DEAL.

But for now I'm in a holding pattern at 28, and to be quite honest, I've been a little frustrated by the fact that I've been circling the tower for just over a week with no additional drop in weight.

Not that I expect it all to fall off in big chunks. I mean, 28 lbs. in 29 days is nothing to jiggle your man boobs at. Extra Large Oprah from a few years ago would sell Stedman for a handful of bacon bits if she could drop weight at that kind of rate.

But for those of you who have never experienced weight loss on a grander scale, and we're not talking 'oh gosh, this dress is too tight, I need to lose 5 lbs. let me barf up my dinner weight loss,' losing weight is like being addicted to crack, heroine, meth and my personal favorite, liquid hydrocodone, all at the same time.

Once you experience it, you have this insatiable, carnal nagging; an intense clawing, gnawing, painful desire for more, more, more, MORE. You can't get enough, and it can't happen fast enough. A least that's how I currently feel. Daddy needs a fix and needs it bad.

So before I panicked (dude, haven't you already?), I took my neck out of the noose and called my doctor, as well as one of my good friends who was banded last year, for some sage advice.

What did they tell me? Patience, young grasshoppa. Patience. Something that is in very short supply around here and seems to be on back order with no ship date in site. Patience. Try telling that to your friendly neighborhood crackhead when he's looking to score some rock.

But, I have since taken sufficient deep breaths, along with a couple deep bong hits (kidding!!!) and calmed myself, realizing that my first week back on solid foods might have something to do with it (again, burying the lead here).

Especially since the first bite of solid foods last week consisted of two words. BA ... CON! Remember what I said in my previous entry about the first bite of soft foods? Take that, turn it up to 11 and set it on fire. That's how good that little piece of pork heaven was.

But after that initial bit of bacon, it's all been by the book. I've eaten right, watched my portions and worked out every day, which means I've worked out more in the past two weeks than I have in the past two years. And I keep reminding myself that this isn't a 100-yard dash I'm running here, it's a marathon.

At least now, thanks to 28 fewer pounds, I can run 100 yards without having to stop halfway for oxygen and medical attention.

Peace, love and BA ... CON! And remember, DON'T PANIC!

Scrambled Eggs and Studio 54

Starting Weight as of 10/14: 328 lbs.

Current Weight as of 10/29: 305 lbs.

Amount Lost: 23 lbs.

So it's been two weeks of liquids, a week on The Band and my ass is 23 pounds lighter. But that's like kicking a couple rocks off of Mount Everest. It's still freakin' huge! Nonetheless, I'm on my way. And to be completely honest, so far it really hasn't been that bad. The pain was dispensed in short order by my good friend Liquid Hydrocodone, who unfortunately is no longer with us. Hell, that's been the hardest thing to handle. I swear I sat and stared at the empty bottle for 20 minutes. I liked it when things were all tingly and a nice shade of cerulean blue.

The soreness has been minimal, but the swelling is still there. And not in a good way. My belly, which is now minus the 14 staples across 5 incisions, is still as tight and bloated as it would be after a happy, pre-Band night at the Super Jumbo Bumbo Chinese Buffet.

But Dr. Follow Up says that will go away in due time. Remember, he said, with every incision on the outside, there's the same size incision on the inside that still has to heal. And that can take a while, especially when you have skin like you do that is as thick and blubbery as a humpback whale's. Maybe he didn't really say that last part.

The good news is, and I think I'm burying the lead here, I'm eating SOFT FOODS! After my visit with Dr. Follow Up the other day, I high-tailed my big tail up to Cafe Brazil and dined on the world-famous culinary pairing of two soft scrambled eggs with salsa and a cup of cream of jalapeno soup.

Think about the best meal you ever had. Add to that the most earth-shaking, teeth-rattling, breath-taking, knee-knocking, toe-curling orgasm you every had. Add to that what it felt like for the 1987-88 Newman Smith Trojans to beat J.J. Pearce on Homecoming (We sucked! It was our first district win other than R.L. Turner in I don't know how many years). Multiply all that by 42 and that only begins to get slightly close to how good those eggs tasted. I mean, they were Eddie Murphy Best Cracker I Every Ate good. The waitress stopped by three times to ask if I was done I was savoring those eggs so long. There truly was a party in my mouth. And we're talking circa-1978, Studio 54, cocaine on the dance floor and sex in the balconies type party here.

Now all the eggs, cottage cheese, fruit smoothies and yogurt I've dined on since then haven't quite set off the same amount of oral fireworks as that initial plate of huevos, but that's OK. It's nice to finally be eating real food again, even if it is soft.

Next week it's on to solid foods. Somewhere out there is an unsuspecting yet very lucky chicken fajita nacho that will soon be attending the next great Mouth Party. And he better bring some hot and slutty friends.

Peace, love and scrambled eggs!

No pain, no gain. Who cares about gain?

Starting weight before liquid diet: 328 lbs.
Weight before today's surgery: 317 lbs.
Weight lifted off my shoulders: Immeasurable

I had the strangest dream last night. I dreamed I was abducted by aliens and they stuck probes in me and implanted a device that gave me unparalleled superpowers. Behold I am ....

LAP BAND MAN!

Maybe my last dose of pain meds was a bit on the heavy side.

So it's done. I officially have a foreign object locked in around my gullet. Let the small bites and endless mastication begin. And that's mastication. Not that other word.

As far as I can tell, things went about as ducky as could be. In at 5:30 a.m., out by noon. I've gone to dry cleaners and photomats that didn't work that fast.

And I'm feeling just fine, thank you for asking. **PAUSE: It's time for my next dose of pain meds. So if things get a little psychedelic after this, you'll know why. Ah, all better now. Everything's a pretty shade of blue. **

The routine for the next few days is quite strict. I have to drink 1 ounce of something (water, juice, soup, bloody mary, you know, all the standard liquids) every 15 minutes, except when sleeping of course. I was never quite able to master the eat while you sleep technique, so unfortunately I can't apply that to liquids. This is to make sure that I stay hydrated and get all my nutrients. It's also to make sure that I spend a good part of my day in the bathroom.

As for medication, I'm wearing, quite literally, a medicine ball around my neck in a junior-sized fanny pack. This is delivering pain meds directly to the incision sites so I won't be screaming in pain like a little sissy baby.

On top of that, I have a rather large bottle of possibly the greatest invention known to mankind ever: liquid hydrocodone. G-O-L-D! And for anyone of you who has every been on pain meds for any length of time, you know that while I will be spending half my day in the bathroom, it won't be for No. 2. Sorry, TMI.

And if I'm not hooked up to enough stuff already, I have to wear these circulation socks for the next week when I sleep. These contraptions strap to my feet and and periodically inflate/deflate to help with circulation in my legs so I won't throw a clot. Well with your bad knee, Ed, you shouldn't throw anybody. It's true.

So I'm home and feel good. Glad it's over and starting to healing. But now it's time to go. I have to go take a dose so something or other.

Peace, love and pain meds.

Give me a P! Give Me Another P! And another, and another, and another ...

Current Weight: 325 (scale was actually way off yesterday, in a good way for once)
Current Wait: 6 days

Liquid Diet (LD) Day 1 is in the books. That sloshing sound you hear is not the ocean, toilet or washing machine. That's me. I drank so much orange juice yesterday that I now have a MEDIUM PULP sticker affixed to the side of my head.

There is a path worn from the ballroom to the bathroom on the second floor of the Crowne Plaza in Addison. If restrooms gave out frequent flyer miles, I'd be Platinum three times over. I can describe in intricate and exacting detail the pattern and coloring of the granite wall, and truthfully tell you that there is a small chunk missing from said granite wall just above and slightly to the left of the plumbing fixture at the third urinal from the left.

I think you get the point. I visited the facilities 10 times in an 8 hour period. While I'm sure that's not any sort of record, I've known pregnant women who could hold their water better than I could yesterday.

And props to Steve Crescenzo for putting up with my girly bladder. Not only was his Creative Communications seminar amazing, Steve's irreverent style and Chi-Town delivery made for a quite an entertaining day. I was inspired, energized and a tad bit turned on (was that out loud?). Check out his fine work at http://www.corporatehallucinations.com/. This dude's got mad skills. And I'm not just saying that because I hope that someday he will mention my blog while plying his fine craft across North America. No really. I'm not.

So as expected, the day was filled with free food at every turn. Pastries and fruit in the morning. Italian buffet for lunch. Caramel popcorn and movie candy in the afternoon.

At lunch I wandered down to the hotel restaurant to see what kind of soup was on the menu. Texas Chili or Beef and Barley. So naturally I took the third option, a second helping of Protein drink. But then I told the catering manager about my situation, and he graciously brought me a piping hot and incredibly tasty cup of beef and barley soup, minus all the chunky beef and barley parts. Thank you Mr. Catering Manager Man. You made my day.

To be honest, LD Day 1 was not as hard as I thought it would be. Don't get me wrong, it was (literally) no picnic either. What I quickly learned is how much you can take food for granted. Eating is so ingrained in your life that you just don't realize how automatic and instinctual it is.

As I was taking my girls to school yesterday, The Oldest handed me her apple while she climbed in and buckled up. Without thinking I took a bite, then not-so casually spit it out on the lawn. After school The Youngest gave me her half-eaten package of peanut butter crackers, and I eagerly fished one out, then not-so-eagerly put it right back. Even as I was fixing their dinner, I had to fight the urge to lick the spoon.

It's like the old saying goes, give a Fat Man a burger, and he'll ask you for another. Take the Fat Man's burger away, and he'll curl up in the fetal position on the floor and cry for his Mommy.

I think that's how it goes. I'll figure it out later. Right now I gotta pee.