Day 3 Post Op-Trying to Stay Hydrated, Sleeping a Lot

Jun 10, 2012

It's a big day for me--today is the day that I left the hotel I stayed in after I got out of the hospital.  I managed to stay awake almost the entire ride home (1 hour).  This is also the first night I'll spend in my own home after being sleeved.

I've been happily surprised at the lack of excruciating pain so far (and I think I'm probably through the worst phase).  I do have to take the narcotic elixir the surgeon prescribed, but only every seven hours or so instead of every 4-6.  I'd like to get off those meds as soon as I can, because they make me feel sleepy (which I probably do need, actually).

Anyway, I sat my lucid self up in the bed to type this out.  I'm going to try to keep a record of the problems, triumphs, and surprises along the way because this is really going to be the journey of a life time.

Some people are really into tattoos, and piercings (I am, but I'm not a fanatic, having two of the former and 10 of the latter respectively).  I think that WLS can be seen as a kind of extreme body modification (though not as frivolous as mere cosmetic changes, obviously) so it can also be a fun process of self expression and self discovery as well as something we do for our health!

I'm surprised at my energy levels when I'm awake.  At this stage, I am "eating" practically nothing even though I'm on the full liquid diet.  I should be exhausted with a banging headache and a pissy mood, but I'm not.

This morning I had liquefied oatmeal porridge with a drizzle of mango juice for flavor, and I ate about 8 teaspoons.  That was enough because I had no desire to "push it" with my sleeve.  Prior to that, everything I "ate" was ice chips, water, and one kids cup of apple juice.

My husband had the great idea of sucking on little pieces of watermelon to get a little extra fluids and vitamins.  I take a little piece of seedless watermelon, and put it on my tongue and mash it against the roof of my mouth, swallow the juices, then I spit out the pulp.  This is IMMENSELY satisfying because it takes awhile for each "bite", and I can have actual texture in my mouth!

He has the best ideas sometimes!

I'm still spending most of the day sleeping or drinking water, but I'm finding it pretty hard to keep hydrated.  I estimate that by now I've only had about 20oz of water today.  It isn't the fact that I don't like water--I enjoy water quite a lot, especially calorie free vitamin water, and that sort of thing.  I just have a hard time fighting the urge to burp it back up.  Maybe this problem will be somewhat reduced when the swelling from surgery goes down a bit and I have a slightly larger pouch.  I'm still testing the limits of what I can get away with in terms of the size of sips and quantity of liquid I can consume.

Any advice would be super!

BONUS: I haven't had heartburn AT ALL since I had surgery!  Before, I would have it constantly, even on an empty stomach.  This procedure was worth having even if it were just to help with my GERD!

I've been able to be surprisingly physically active since surgery too, which is fantastic!  I have to take a lot of breaks, but I find myself already able to do about 60% of what I did every day pre-op (minus the lifting).  The nurses told me that they'd not often seen someone so eager to get up and around after surgery, and that was part of the reason my surgery was pretty much outpatient.

On the way home from the hotel, my husband stopped briefly at the library to drop some music and dvd's back, and I went into the baby store next door and did some shopping!  I got my husband a beautiful blue silk handkerchief with a regal french cross on it there as a thank you gift (not sure what it was doing at a baby store, but ok...)  And I picked up a couple of preemie "dollar" dresses for my cat (who really likes to dress up).

Another great sleeve day!

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