The joys of having a "funnel"

When people have asked, "how are you feeling?" "how are things going?" I know they are being kind and curious, and sometimes I give long answers and sometimes very short. Today I have decided to give a long answer. Having a lapband is somewhat of a journey of discovery. Right now, there is very little difference between the way I was on December 16th and the way I am now, except of course, I weigh a few pounds less, but not because of the lapband, but because I am trying to be good until the lapband is "filled." When the lapband was first installed, I was really happy because I was not hungry. What I didn't realize is that feeling was temporary. The reason why I didn't feel hungry was because my stomach was swollen from the surgery and having a band tied around its neck. It was not happy. But a few weeks later, the swelling went down and all of a sudden I was hungry. What happened? Well, it is the story of the funnels. When one bottles peaches, there is a handy, dandy device called a funnel with a mouth almost as big as the bottle so that you can slip peaches or any fruit for that matter into the bottle without getting the mouth of the jar dirty. You need clean mouths so the lids will seal correctly, but I just wipe it clean and throw the peaches in and forget the funnel. But that funnel is pretty wide. I have another funnel that I sometimes use to fill ketchup bottles, but I discovered that using a funnel was very long and tedious. The funnel hole was so small, that it made more sense to just pour the ketchup in my large blue Tupperware pitcher and then pour it into the ketchup bottle and clean up any drips on the bottle afterwards. My stomach right now has a "peach" funnel. Almost anything can slip right through the funnel to the secondary stomach, which means that I would have to eat an awful lot of food for it to reach to my little stomach where the satiety sensors are. However, on February 2nd, Groundhog Day! I will get my first "fill." This is where they inject saline solution into the button on my right side and it goes through a small tube till it reaches my lapband where the inflatable tire gets filled. Now my funnel has the opening of maybe a small pencil and the food has to "drip" into the secondary stomach, but I will feel full and satisfied after only a few bites. So just imagine the ketchup going through a small funnel and that's what my little stomach will be doing after the fill. I can't drink water an hour before I eat or an hour after because they don't want to dilute the "ketchup." Makes perfect sense if you think about it. They want the "ketchup" to stay in your little pouch for two or three hours slowly leaking out so that you have a feeling of being full and no desire to eat. Last night I went to a meeting in the hopes of getting some good feedback, but by in large I felt I knew more and had come to a lot of the conclusions by myself. The moderator handed out a sheet for goal making and I thought, this is what I drove over at 5:30 in the evening to do. But I did get my questions answered and I'm happy, so we'll see how it goes.