ElizaM
Day 6 post op
Jul 29, 2014
Sometimes I can't believe I actually did it. The hospital stay already seems so far away. I remember holding my surgeon's hand while they tried to place the second IV after the first one was a bust. I remember weeping quietly in the OR room. I remember talking to the nurse in the recovery room about how much we wanted to have babies. I remember my nurse cheering me on after the awful swallow test. I remember almost everything except the name of the last nurse I saw. And that's slaying me because I would really like to write them all a card.
I am not having good days and bad days as much as good hours and bad hours. I had a bunch of bad hours last night. Yesterday, I napped in the afternoon and couldn't fall asleep until 11, then I woke up at 2am. I eventually broke down and took half a dose of my pain meds, which both made me woozy and allowed me to sleep propped onto my side. I'd been trying to go without the pain meds on my surgeon's advice (he called the other day which was a total surprise, I figured an NP would call). We'll see how today goes.
I am walking quite a lot. Yesterday I got in 90 minutes of walking over 5 walks! I can't do more than 20 minutes at a go, but I am getting faster because I'm covering more ground. I also sometimes just walk around inside to burp after drinking my shakes.
I am already feeling a little exhausted from talking about the surgery and recovery, reading up on what to expect, researching what to eat at the next phase. I am looking forward to a time when this no longer takes center stage in my life. I suspect that will come with time. My head is buzzing right now, trying to absorb everything that happened.
So, aside from fatigue which comes and goes, if I didn't have to consume anything I would be a REALLY happy camper. Water, that's no problem. Protein shakes? That's another matter altogether.
I've been trying to narrow down what is causing the problem. Milk is definitely contributing, so milk is out. Also, I THOUGHT all of my protein powders were whey protein isolate but they're NOT! Syntrax Matrix Peanut Butter Cookie (my fave!) is not straight up whey protein isolate. There are other whey protein blends. Coincidentally or not, that's the one powder giving me the worst and most painful gas and bloating.
But really, they all give me some level of discomfort and I don't look forward to eating. It's just something I have to do right now. I hope that gets better because I would like to enjoy eating again.
Another thing I need to work on is managing my calories in a more sensible way. Partly because eating (drinking, really) has been so unpleasant, I charge through my shakes by about 2pm. But when my husband is home, making dinner, I get weird stomach pains (not really willing to call it hunger, but it does feel like that) and also really long to eat something. So I am going to try to space them out more and save a protein shake for dinner. I don't really seem to care about eating except at dinner time. Yesterday I wanted a bite of his dinner so bad. Ugh.
Anyway, I am really glad I had this surgery at a young age. I think my activity level and weight loss prior to surgery was also a huge asset. I can't believe I'm not even a week out.
