I had my very first fill today, and of course when they brought the needle out, I was scared out of my mind. I have had an amnio before, so I figured it couldn’t be worse than that. Anyway, I went to see Dr. Mark Pleatman here in Michigan.
He numbed me up first, then used an ultrasound machine to go over my stomach to find the port. He found it easily to start with. After he stabbed me with the needle (which was painless, thankfully!) I could feel him poking and prodding forever. I could feel the needle’s resistence inside of me. It was a nightmarish feeling for me. I felt like I was a turkey being injected with a needle! After the first 7 or 8 minutes he pulled needle ..1 out. He said, “Let’s give us a breather for a couple minutes”. He went over me with an ultrasound again. Then needle ..2 goes in. This time he was a tad more rough with it, and another 10 minutes goes by of poking around. By this point he’s talking about having me go to the hospital and do it under flouro for like hundreds of more dollars. I was thinking to myself, no way buddy, for your $250 you better do it right, and right here. Before needle ..3 goes in, he numbs me up again. After a couple more minutes FINALLY he got into the center of the port. He kept saying it’s there, but the needle isn’t going into the center for some reason.
By this point my back was hurting from laying on top of a pillow, and my hands were shaky. Even after all this I was still in a calm relaxed state. He tried to tell me that the reason he was having difficulties is the international version of the LapBand has a smaller port. He said it was a low profile port. I’m not sure if that’s true or not though.
Anyhow, I have 1cc in me, and I can feel it!
