When we were driving back from California a couple of weeks ago, I called up to schedule an appointment to have my lap band filled. They set up an appointment for last Wednesday, which was pretty cool. We made it home, got settled back in to our routine, and off I went to the clinic last week.
When I got to my appointment on Wednesday, I had a bit of a wait, nothing too bad. They got me back there, and my weight hasn’t really changed that much (15 pounds lost since my last appointment). I talked to the Physicians’ Assistant for a bit about diet and exercise routines, then she got me ready for my fill.
I guess I should try and explain how this works with a band fill. Here to help is a handy little diagram, taken from the Orange County Register Newspaper (copyright, all rights reserved, etc.):
So how this goes is that the doctor (or the Phys. Asst.) takes a syringe filled with 1-2cc (or less, depending on your surgeon and how he does stuff) of saline solution and inserts it under your skin into the port. The saline then flows through the tubing and into the band, thereby inflating it and restricting your food intake. Depending on the patient and band, you will eventually hit what is known as the “sweet spot”, where you’re neither hungry all the time nor feeling so full you cannot eat at all. Some people have to have a lot of inflation and some people have to only have a little bit. It varies. Now here is where things went wrong for me.
The Phys. Asst. poked and prodded until she found the port, then inserted the needle into the port. It seemed to go normally until she tried to withdraw the fluid to see if it was flowing right (this is a normal thing for them to do). Nothing was coming back out. She did it several times with no results. I did crunches, exhaled, everything. It wasn’t taking. So she had the receptionist schedule me for a fluoroscopy. This is where they inject barium into the port to make sure that everything is still intact. That was today. Now for the bad news.
I went to the Radiology Dept. at the hospital this morning. After a minor clusterfuck of lost orders, I went back with the nurse, who got me set up. The doctor came in and explained what was going to happen. He also said that he did xrays first to ensure that the band and everything was still in place. Good thing he did. When he pulled up the first xray, he showed me what was wrong. The tubing was disconnected from the port. The band and the port were still in place, and the tubing is still connected to the band, but it’s not connected to the port. I just groaned. That’s really all I could do. Then he showed me where the end of the tubing was brushing, and a lot of mysterious aches and pains were explained, along with my supposed “cysts” that they discovered while I was in the ER in California (explanation of this in my next post). Oy.
Yes. The tubing is rubbing against my lower abdomen and my pubic bone, causing all sorts of fun discomfort. My surgery is scheduled for Friday. As far as I’ve been told, the surgery is minor and is done on an outpatient basis. I should go home the same day. The only thing that annoys me is that it is happening on the day I’m supposed to leave for a weekend in Michigan to hang with my friend and his family. I’ve already cancelled my train tickets, and I’m hoping that I can leave on Saturday and come home Monday. I guess I’ll find out if that’s possible whenever the clinic calls me back with more details.
Damn.
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