A Jurl and Her Meat (No, Really, Meat)

Today I'm back on solid food for the first time in six weeks! Here's a run down on my lap-band experience and how it works:

Two weeks before surgery liquid only- protein shakes, V8, broth- no caffeine, no sugar, no carbonated drinks. I found afterwards that some doctors only require this diet for one day before surgery and I was like, what the hay! But then I was really glad that I was not giving up food for the first time while recovering from surgery. Ugh, that would have sucked.

Two weeks after surgery liquid only again.

Two weeks after that I graduated to mush food like mashed potatoes and refried beans.

But today I can have a piece of chicken, thank you Jesus!

So far I have to say I'm pretty pleased with the lap-band. I've lost 23 pounds since first starting the liquid diet and I don't feel remotely deprived.

Here's how the band works:

They put this plastic band around the top of your stomach then sew your stomach down over it, sort of. A thin tube runs from the band to the interior stomach wall (that sounds official doesn't it?) where it is sewn in, this is your port where saline will be periodically injected to tighten the band. As you lose weight your stomach shrinks causing the band to loosen, thus the saline injections, or fills as they are called by the medical people. Oh, and you can't see the port of feel it.

I have my first fill next week so my stomach will shrink even further, reducing how much I can eat in a setting.

I eat three small meals a day, no snacking, and I eat low calorie food. That's pretty much it. You can certainly cheat the band if you eat several times a day, or eat high calorie food such as ice cream.

The band stays in as long as you want and you periodically get fills until you reach your goal weight. Seems simple enough and so far it is.

Also the Cymbalta I started a few weeks ago has made huge improvements in my mental health, but more on that another time.

The only lap-band side-effect I've experienced is thunderous gas. Sam actually turned to me with a look of sheer terror on her face after I released the Cracken and said, "Whoa! Mom!" Oh, well, it's a small price for me to pay and I don't care what price it exacts from my family.

Getting Back On Track, Jurls

Well, I hope everyone had a lovely Thanksgiving with oven fires and family fights to a minimum. As always we had lots of people, lots of food, and my Mother worried over her dressing, complaining it was "too wet." We finally got to eat when my Momma Jurl decided the dressing was as dry as it was going to get and, after two hours of dressing-disaster 2008, she pronounced delicious on her first bite.

That's how it always goes with Momma Jurl anytime she cooks. She will fret and fret over it, doubt it's edibleness, proclaim it's not worth a lick, caution everyone that dips a spoon into it, then when she finally eats some herself pronounces it hmmm, hmmm, good.

It drives me bonkers. Even if her baked beans tasted like baked turd no one would go hungry because we have 35 other dishes to choose from! This year we had a ham, a turkey, brisket, and sausage! Can you tell we're meat eaters (sorry to my vegan friends)? But, we balance all that protein with side dish after side dish of carbs. I don't think we had one green item....but, we did have corn...swimming in cream cheese and butter.

My one-eyed cousin, let's call him Cousin Pirate, brought a bunch of old pictures for us to look through which was fun because I got to mock his parade of bad shirts through the decades and it reminded me what a doll I was when I was a little girl. Sam's like a little mini-me, God help her.

Speaking of Sam, she was a little loving Thanksgiving angel. She hugged everybody and played super sweet with her little cousin, she was just an all around doll. Then thirty minutes ago she threw her tights in my face and yelled, "I'm gonna poot on you, Poot Toot!!" These moments keep me grounded, without them my life would be too perfect. At least that's what I tell myself.

I hope you all had a wonderful holiday and had lots to be thankful for. I'm thankful that I think I'm back in the swing of bloggin, bloggin, bloggin.