Noah's (F) Ark (ing Hell!)

OK so I'm loving my band at the moment. My really ultra tight fill has worn off to a very manageable normal kind of situation and has seen my weight drop to 92.6 and I am feeling much more in control and looking even better. I understand now how being too tight pushes you toward sloppy fatty foods to get satisfied and being filled in the right region encourages proper meals and satisfaction. However, I still seem to be size 17 although maybe I'll go and check out some smaller jeans as my usual 18's are literally falling off me and my builders crack is showing all over the shop. So, for the record, for this fickle moment in time I am officially loving my band and am seeing a bright future for me.

I am going to book in to see the doctor next week just to keep my fill options open cause I REALLY dont ever want to go back to one of those endless weight gaining bingeing periods - they are really horrible and completely unnecessary. Any of you out there who are being told to wait a whole month between fills - find another doctor (if its not working for you) cause that did my head in and now with fortnightly fills (or really whenever I want and a doctor who trusts that I am grown up enough to know what I need next) I am alive again!

I love Peter. Packing has slowed down. I'm starting to have anxiety/emotional issues over the packing and leaving situation, time is closing in on me - everyone is still being so nice to me I love everyone and dont want to leave. How the hell are we all going to get down to Melbourne? Its turing into freaking Noah's Ark - we are transporting three children, my nephew, my sister, 2 birds, eight gold fish, one axelotl, 27 baby sea snails and one puppy dog. Fracken hell! 700kms and 47 pitt stops.

See, now I'm starting to freak out gotta stop here. No amount of food is going to help this and I still have no viable alternative coping mechanisms. (except for blogging)

My "Other" Man

There's a new man in my life. I'm in love. And to all of those doggie lovers out there (you know who I'm farking talking about) I am a convert. I've always liked the idea of dogs but never wanted to deal with the poo and wee etc I dont mind other peoples dogs, I freak out and run and scream if theres a dog on the loose out on the street (no matter what the size or disposition) and now I know its all worth it. He's just so cute and lovely and such a sweet good little doggie I just cant help myself. He soothes my soul. He keeps me so busy wiping up poo and pee that I dont have time to eat (The Pet Lovers Guide to Weightloss). He has added some issues to my life but he takes alot of them away also and I am really quite used to him now (two days later). It is only early days but I just feel we were meant to be.

You see, we've been thinking about getting a dog for quite some time now and thought it might be a good settling technique for the kids when we move to Melbourne and it would have been a smart idea to wait until that time however..... we were in a shopping centre on Saturday and we always like to look in the pet shops and of course I knew that the first puppies we saw we were going to get and thats just what happened. We've been looking at toy poodles - they dont drop hair, they're small, easy to handle, they're smart, they need lots of smothering love (bring it on kids), the do small poos and wees and they're just so cute even when full grown. So when we saw this little guy it was love at first sight. He was also born on the 11th and I've been having a weird freaky relationship with 11's lately and he's all black with one white paw so of course he looks like Michael Jackson and he died just 2 days before so of course it was all too serendipitous and I just couldnt resist.

Now before you all freak and think we rushed into - yes you're probably right but to counter act that we're very responsible pet owners and we will evolve to make it work should it all turn pear shaped (We have kept Damien, afterall). We had intended to go to some sort of shelter to "rescue" a lil sad doggie but it just didnt spin that way and now we have this little ball of fluff. And no he doesnt have some frou frou name like Fluffy or Widget or Muffy his name is Peter. Yes, Peter. Not MJ (Michael Jackson was his name in the shop) Brett, Shane, Warren, Craig or any other plain as an arrowroot biscuit anglo name but Peter. Named by the girls and it's stuck. He his slightly homosexual in his prancing show doggie ways but man I just cannot express how terribly cute he is and what a smart lovely good little guy he is. We have established a bed time routine and he sleeps in the laundry with the love song request radio station on. He whinges for a little bit and then we dont hear a peep from him all night. Didnt expect that! On the first night I woke up in a cold sweat at 4.30am with the full knowledge that he was dead because he hadnt whinged all night like everyone said he would. (Oh God I'm turing into one of those people who talk about their dogs. But I swear this is different. He's just so cute and lovely.) He wasnt dead just very very good but I still think he's going to die and I therefore only let him out of my sight to sleep (My love has limits).

I guess I just need to get this off my chest you see, we've had a sensational little pet like Peter before and I recognise the same soulful loveliness in Peter that I saw in the last pet and the last pet didnt last. It was a sweet little baby budgie called Chippie and lets just say for now that 3 year olds can love baby budgies a little too much. I nursed the tiny injured baby budgie for 3 days before he was sadly found dead. And I obviously havent recovered. If I even hear a sound in the same pitch as that of a desperate baby budgies screech for help I lose bowel control. Every whimper Peter lets out leaves me convinced he has met his end in some horrendous rabbit trap and my husband isnt here so I'll have to deal with it all alone. I am starting to calm down and realise that he has the innate animal instinct to survive and that combined with my overbearing need to protect him has seen him through his first 2 days here in the pet house from hell (Damien is now almost 5 so things look a little brighter for Peter) but I swear I still think he's going to die. He has the essence of a life that is only going to be short. Please everyone tell me I'm wrong and mental. I need some sleep. But then again, I think I have lost weight.....

Living your own Eulogy

I'm back and I've missed you all like crazy and thank god it doesnt matter where I live, blogger friends are always there in this crazy e global situation. You see, an issue which transcends weight, lap bands, food and being size 17 is turning my "real" world upside down and has left me completely unable to find words adequate enough to truly express.

This is probably a big ol nothing to those of you who globe trot the planet all over the shop but for little ol me, I have lived, quite literally, in the same place all my life (aside from maybe six months) and here we are all up and leaving and moving almost 800kms away to Melbourne. I attribute my major upset to many different issues my main issue is leaving my friends and family and going to a place where I know one person (barely, online friend) I live in an area here where there is always someone to have a coffee with, drop in on or be dropped in on. I (happily and voluntarily) live next door to my parents for God's sake just to give you some idea of the magnitude of this. I have baby sitting on tap via many different sources for all hours of the day and night. I have just started my own business and was building up a nice little client base. And lets not even mention the spiritual importance of land and tribe to an indigenous person. I am feeling every root of my existence tearing and shredding painfully away from its base.

So why do it I hear you ask? Or are the reasons not to do it actually the reasons I should be doing it? I am a big sook lets face it. I get homesick driving out the driveway. I depend on people and I depend on people depending on me. I also have an adventurous independent streak that dies a little death every day here in suburbia. My husband also has a very lovely job in Melbourne that gives us the opportunity to live near the beach in a very nice suburb and experience a completely different life to that which we live here. Will we fit into that life? Well that remains to be seen but I also have this very conflicting and very nice and right feeling about all of this. Its like the universe has pulled out all the stops and is just placing it in our laps and I cannot ignore the feeling that something big and great is going to come of all of this cause otherwise, lets face it, there is too much at stake but these feelings and this rightness just cannot be ignored. So off we are going. And in a very short space of time too. I have tried to dig my heels in, I have tried to hate Melbourne, the house we are going to, the suburb, I have stalled, I have passively aggressively chucked a little silent tantrum and yet still, the path just gets smoother. I'm on a current and I dont have to pull not even one little stroke to get me there. Unless you count leaving my life blood (the people around me). I guess "they" are making up for the emotional pain by making the physical situation a little easier to deal with.

And now to make matters worse I feel like I'm at my own funeral. EVERYONE is being so incredibly nice and lovely and accomodating. It doesnt matter what I ask everyone jumps to it cause I'll be gone in 3 weeks so this is one of the "last times" so no matter how inconvenient something is, it happens no questions asked, before the sentence is even out of my mouth. I've committed suicide and I'm getting to listen to my own eulogies. Its really very lovely.

And lets remember I'm an hour and $70 on a plane away. I'm not in deepest darkest Africa but sometimes it feels like it.

And as for the band. Well f^&*) me if I'm not the biggest self sabotager on the planet. Part of it is the need to eat whatever I can without it getting stuck so I go for sloppy fatty foods. Everything else (other than a proper meal eaten slowly and carefully) gets horribly stuck so all this packing means I go for the quickest easiest options = pies, a constant supply of potato chips, chocolate, anything lubed up with cream or mayo. So I am just as fat as ever. Havent lost a gram. Should be going for another fill but really cant face throwing up constantly while packing and being picky about what I eat. I know I should stick to opti or something but really, I need some comfort. I know wrong wrong wrong. I'm looking forward to getting to the other end and getting in control again and getting back to morning walks (along a beach, be still my beating heart!). But until then I'm taking each day as it comes. How did I know that even at maximum effectiveness, this band was not going to change me? I know it will make the diet road easier but I really would have liked it to make more of difference than this. I am just holding on to the 10kgs I've lost that I wouldnt have lost without it. Even that's better than nothing.

Well I'm glad you're all there. That no matter where I am, blog land is still where its always been. I really love you all for that. I need that consistency, its really very comforting. Thank you.

To band or not to band?

So, Damien has finally worked through his wobbly but I'm still trying to work out this restriction thing. It hurts like hell when food gets stuck BUT I still want to eat, I can eat quite a bit providing I am careful and the food is "just right" in its consistency. I rarely feel full in the stomach and quite often feel full in the lower guts area which pulls on the port and the scars and is very uncomfortable for quite some time and yet the band never told me to stop I just stopped because the food ran out. Everyone is saying I've lost weight but the scales are just the same, its all just too confusing. I am booked in for another fill tomorrow and I dont know whether to get a whole or a half or not at all. The stuck thing is rubbish but of course only happens when I eat the wrong things (like chips) or the food isnt greased up enough. I'm not snacking as much but I do really want to eat. I'm not following ALL of the rules and now I'm just thinking that this band, working or not, will never help me - I am beyond the law. I know if I cared enough to prepare foods and proper meals for myself, to eat protein, stay away from the carbs and sit down and eat "mindfully" (still havent gotten over the psychologist at the meeting) then its all good but I'm sorry, thats just too many rules and too far beyond my comprehension level.

I feel like Homer Simpson in that episode where Bart makes an electro shock cookie deterrent. Homer keeps going for the cookies, he gets shocked, he squeals, he stops, he goes for another cookie, he gets shocked, he squeals, he stops, he goes for another cookie etc etc and he never learns. He's dumber than a hampster and so am I. I eat, I get stuck, I squeal, I unstick, I stop eating, I eat again, I get stuck, I squeal, I unstick, I stop eating, I eat again blah blah blah. I'm pretty sure a gold fish learns and retains information better than that.

So, I've never been here before - where the band is kind of working but I'm not. I sometimes think if I got more fill I'd be on liquids, that there isnt much more this band can do or maybe I'm wrong. I have heard successful banders say that they can only eat very little and very carefully and I dont think I'm quite there yet - almost, but not quite - there is still a little too much random scoffing going on to be a "successful" bander yet. I would like to feel full again. I've only had that once in the past fortnight. I cannot drink while eating any more so thats great, didnt really have to practice that one, the ability to drink is kind of taken away altogether with the right fill so its all good there, no more will power necessary just the threat of atrocious pain and strange automatic purging.

And strangely enough, I'm not really missing stuffing my face. I think I'll have that fill tomorrow just to see what its like to be over filled. I've always enjoyed new experiences (good or bad). And you never know, it just might do the trick! I thought, back in February when I got this done, I'd be wearing my fabulous winter boots (must post a pic) by June but its not so. I guess I am primarily to blame. I am so not on a diet with assistance from a band. I am trying to live a normal life without being interrupted by a band. Perhaps now its time to see what its like to be dominated by a band - I wonder who'll win? Will I lose weight or end up in hospital?

I actually am starting to think (God knows I shouldnt do that) that if it all went haywire tomorrow I think I'd ask for it to come out and not put another in. I really think I am above and beyond this kind of help. And I'm not saying this in a boo frigetty hoo kinda way. Its not poor me I am totally not sad or depressed about it, it just is what it is and I really dont think I want it hanging around in there any longer like a ticking time bomb just waiting for me to really eff it up. I really dont think it can stop me, I will always eat chocolate or sloppy greasy foods in order to fill up, while there is a way around, I will take it. I dont ever think about the money involved or the pain - I think more about the threat of future monies and pain. The money is already gone but the continued expense bothers me. Our private health insurance has always been paid by my husbands work and now he has left that job we must pay it and only because of the band. If it wasnt for the band we wouldnt need the insurance. We are all healthy and blessed with good sight, teeth etc etc and feel pretty comfortable with Medicare but the band requires insurance. Bummer. This is actually starting to sound like a good idea. I've never really felt comfortable with something in me stopping me from being a super consumer in the face of the global food crisis and famine, poverty etc etc. Here I am a big fat white westerner consuming til it hurts and causes me massive health problems. It seems as pointless as if I had liposuction. What a universal farce. Constricting your stomach cause you cant stop yourself from eating and then STILL eating. I'm turning into someone I'd hate on A Current Affair. And hating myself makes it even worse. Oh god I'm starting to disappear up my own arse....