Second Adjustment and Sexy Costume Hotness

I got dressed up this weekend to go to a few parties on Saturday night. I slipped into a long black skirt, a black corset, a shoulder length blunt cut black wig, and had my makeup looking fierce; and I have to say, for the first time in a while...I didn't feel like the F. A. T. girl in the room. It was tremendous.

It's not like a girl wants to be ogled. No one likes feeling like they're being felt up by someone's eyes, but honestly, some of the attention felt pretty good. It's like when you're walking down the street, and you notice the construction men looking, or even just the random guy who turns his head. When you're f.a.t., you know they're not looking at you, and you know why. If you see a guy look, you turn your head too to see who it is they're really looking at, expecting to see some gorgeous, lithe woman walking near to you, and there usually is. So on Saturday, that attention felt pretty damn nice.

Friday afternoon brought me fill #2, and I was toting the xanax long before my 3:30 appointment rolled around. I was the last patient of the day. My doc had the office staff squeeze me in after I lost restriction quickly following the first fill and gained a couple of pounds back. On my way to the office, strolling down 5th Ave., about 30 feet away from the door I saw a couple walking in my direction. A large-framed woman and her larger-framed husband (?). She had the tell-tale folder of the bariatric center I go to, and an arm full of papers and pamphlets. Clearly pre-op, but which one of them? Or both? I smiled when I saw them, thinking of my first few steps after my consultation appointment, the excitement, and trepidation, and had a sudden urge to reach out to them. I wanted to grab both their arms and tell them what a God-send this surgery is...that they were making the best decision of their lives, not to be scared, and there were so many of us going through exactly what they were feeling. But I kept walking until I got to the door of my doc's office and sat on the chair waiting for my name to be called.

The room was full, which meant a long wait ahead of me, but somehow at this doc's office I don't mind so much. About an hour in, I got invited into the back and did my usual- hopped out of the pants and shoes, got on the scale and winced- hoping for good things. I had gained 5 pounds since my last fill, but lost two before the appointment, which meant I had a total 3 pound increase over the low weight I had been in right after my first fill. You see, my doc (rightfully so) won't adjust you when you're losing more than 2 lbs per week, so when I went in after my first fill for a second, I was initally turned away.

OK- back from tangent. I was introduced to (a very youthful) med student who was learning about a bariatric practice and had seen a patient who was thinking about surgery, a pre-op, and now me, the post-op guinea pig. He was very nice, and prodded me with some questions about post-surgery loss while my doc was out of the room. My doc came back and showed him how to locate the port. It's funny the difference between a confident doc and a nervous med student. He barely touched me. I had to reassure him it was ok to push...I think I even might have told him he wasn't pushing hard enough to find it in my Xanax induced haze.

I closed my eyes and got my jabs of lidocaine, which seemed to go quicker this time, and then the big needle was brought over. Doc found it immediately this time and filled me with a total of 7.5 cc's. Some from before, and some new. It was quick, and SO MUCH easier than the first terror-filled half-over of pain and huff-puffing.

I felt the new restriction almost immediately, the slowness with which anything I was eating or drinking went down; and yes, there are definitely foods I avoid now that I could eat with no problem pre-adjustment. I was happy with my surgery before...100% glad I did it, but now, with what feels like proper restriction, I'm ecstatic with the portions I'm feeling satisfied with and seeing the scale drop little by little.

I put on my winter coat for the first time in a long time this week. It feels 2 sizes too big!

Torture Tactics for the Creatively-Minded

Perhaps there are those out there whose fills (sorry, adjustments) go smooth and perfect with just a little stick and you're out the door five minutes later. In fact, I know you evil bitches are out there because I see your posts all over the usual message board websites telling would-be bandsters "nothing to worry", and "quick and painless." You're probably the same wenches who were up mall-walking the day after surgery. This is my version of a 'fair'* testament that not everyone has trauma from their surgery or fill.

Such was not to be for my first fill experience.

If, before it is shutdown by government mandate, Gitmo is looking for new and unusual torture practices to try out on the politically criminal, they might consult a bariatric center or two.

I requested lidocaine, which my very kind, very humble, very amiable surgeon (I love him and his practice, NOT the procedure) happily complied with. A few stingy pokes and I thought the worst was over. Ohhhh silly, naive little girl. "Now," he tells me, "I'm just going to look for it first," and proceeds to ask me to act as if I am doing a very hard crunch and hold it. Am I the only one in the room who finds it a tad ironic that I'm being asked to do something that if I could do it reasonably well I wouldn't have needed the surgery in the first place? Hahaha...I laugh in the face of ubsurd obstacles.

I put my hands behind my head like my old personal trainer taught me and proceed to push upward. Then the poking, jabbing, and otherwise painfully prodding fingers re-ignite every sensitivity in my port site that had slowly dissipated over the course of seven weeks and I feel as if I've got a hammer being swung at internal bruises. OMG it hurts. Then I'm huffing, and puffing, and sweat is pouring off my face. He tells me to relax (meanwhile my "happy place" has turned into the portal to hell's fiery pits and I want nothing more than to get off the table) when he walks over to pick up the real needle, the fill needle. And I shit you not, this thing was a good 3 inches long. It has to be, after all, to get through all the fat in front of the port...buy my GOD I wish I hadn't seen it.

I'm closing my eyes again, looking for happy place #2 (an x-rated area I can't quite share here) and focusing on keeping my half-assed sit up in place, jutting my tummy out as much as I can...POKE, JAB, STICK. I open my eyes and I have a Pulp Fiction moment...you know...where Uma Thurman wakes up from her overdose to see a plunger sticking out of her chest? Yeah, I had that, but in my stomach.

Then there's more burning, more poking, and just when I think he's got it, he's telling me to relax and pulling the needle out, waiting to try again.

This went on for a good 30 minutes. Huff, puff, sweat, poke...until finally, one INTENSE sting later the needle was in the port and I was getting filled with saline, 2 cc's worth. I sit here now with a very throbby, very bruised, very tender port site...filled to 2cc's, thinking about two weeks from now when I get to do it again. Really? Again? Gee!

I repeat my manta...this will all be worth it, this will all be worth it, this will all be worth it. The scale (which I think was really intended for cattle) was down 3 more pounds from my last weight. Maybe I should listen to myself.

Wading Through Grandma's Silver

Saturday afternoon I found myself on my knees in the house I knew as my grandmother's, not the dingy bachelor pad it had become since 2000 when she passed. Opening dusty china cabinets that obviously hadn't been opened in several, several years the dust permeated everything. In the drawers of one of the chests were old credit cards with my grandmother's name on them, prayer cards from funerals going back to 1970's- one of my grandmother's 13 siblings, costume jewelry, string, and even some old 45's for the antique record player- one was Mrs. Robinson. I got a chuckle out of that.

This was sadder somehow, pillaging what I wanted from the house I used to run around in as a child at Christmastime, than picking out the steel casket, than choosing the burial plot in St. Patrick's cemetary, even sadder than staring up at my father's body laid out pristinely in his golfing attire, as if during a nap.

I left the house with several boxes of old photos (several of little me- see there), my grandmother's silver, some figurines from my parents trip to Spain before I was born, and a sweater from my Dad's closet- something that smelled like him.

The call came last Wednesday, walking up 42nd street on my way home from work, a decidedly poor place to find out anyone has passed into the next. It hit me so much harder than I expected. Though if I should have learned anything from my mother's passing it's that even when it's expected, you can never anticipate how you will feel. God that sounds hokey, like from an ABC afterschool special.

Since that day, when I haven't managed to distract myself with work, or who will be eliminated next from Dancing with the Stars, I've found myself haunted by images from childhood, like a mini-recorder in my brain playing over and over again. Laying in bed at night, the idea of both my parents being dead (when I'm not even 30) seems ubsurd. I picture myself at 6, 7, and 8 driving my father's lawnmower around the 4 acres of land on the property, avoiding trees and the lone pole in the middle of the yard; at 9 riding in the back of one of my mom's old beat up station wagons heading down to the beach for the day.

The loneliness, now that they are both gone...is profound, and I find myself feeling much like I did after Mom died, wondering when things will feel ok again. My cousin asked me before we left the house, which will go on the market any day now, whether I wanted one more walk through alone. No, I didn't. I didn't look behind me when we pulled down the driveway, or when we left the cemetary.

Sometimes, looking back is too hard.