Almost Two Months Later

When I last left off in my saga of bitching, I was suffering from terrible reflux and gas and abdominal pains.

Not much has changed.

Oh sure, I've had almost two months of being able to shove it to the side because of the holidays and of being back at work.  The cornucopia of anti-gas/acid medicines have even helped.  But even during the busy times, there was always a constant thread of "holy shit, why does that hurt/why is my side spasming/why does my back hurt?" running through my days.  I had been scheduled for an endoscopy on the 21st of December, but that had to be rescheduled to this month due to getting a cold.  That didn't make my anxiety any easier, especially now that my seasonal job is over, and I no longer have something to occupy my thoughts constantly.

As of right now, I'm feeling some pain, some gas, some burning.  I've had to stop all the meds in preparation for the endoscopy next week, because being on reducers would kind of defeat the point of the camera going down your throat.  My port site is twinging a bit, and this morning, the muscle that the port is attached to decided to have some very strong and slightly painful spasms.  Not fun.

I have my bouts of insomnia still, where I worry until the wee hours of the morning, going over the "what-ifs" again and again.  I wake up in a fog, get my kid to school, and then come home and sleep for a few hours, still unable to break the cycle of lethargy, always promising myself after I get up that I will not do that tomorrow, that I'll be productive, that I'll exercise more.  It never happens.

I've lost weight from this whole mess, and while that would usually delight me, I don't even care, because I know it wasn't lost in a healthy manner.

I'm scared of what the endoscopy could find, but even more scared that it won't find anything wrong.  Then what?  What is the solution if not lap band removal?  Because I have honestly never felt any sensations like this before the band.  I have never had my throat close up in such a manner that I could not eat, never felt the acid reflux and the burning in my stomach so much until this.  Yes, having it unfilled in November helped the choking sensation, but it didn't solve anything else, and kind of obviously points to the band as the culprit of all of these symptoms.

I'm just really tired of this.  I'm tired of waiting waiting waiting, especially when I know the end result, no matter what, will be removal of this piece of bullshit medical machinery.  I'm tired of feeling like an invalid, afraid to do anything wrong lest I make it worse.  The only consolation I have is that I'm not alone in this.  As of this blog post, the lap band failure group that I belong to is over 1100 members.  It's a horrible thing, especially because some of these patients have suffered far worse than I have, to the point where they were at death's door.  Yet it is comforting to know that they have survived and fought back and can give sound advice on how to get through this.

I'm not sure where I'm going with this.  I think I just needed to get it out.  There are a lot of heavy feelings that I'm carrying around, and writing usually releases them for a few hours.

So I'm going to go enjoy those hours while I can.