groovykg
Day 4: Part 2 : Feeling more human
Mar 03, 2013
Ok, I'm starting to feel more human now. I finally spoke with my surgeon about my pain, and she doubled my dosage of Roxicet, and that was sooo much better. And my lusting for food motivated me to explore some soup options. I am generally grossed out by "cream of canned soup" and I'd heard that some people were dumping with tomato soup, but then read a few stories of others who were ok with it. I tried to be happy with my chicken broth, which worked ok during pre-op, but 1 sip of that and UGH! It kind of tasted fishy to me. I tried another sip, and just couldn't do it, so I dumped it in the sink.
So my FIL drove me to the grocery store (Safeway/Vons), where I spent a good 10 minutes studying every kind of soup. I finally found Soup Man Tomato Bisque with only 7g of sugar, whereas Campbell's has something like 22g. So I brought home a little box of that, a Soup Man Lobster Bisque, and a can of Baked Potato Soup.
As soon as I got home, I opened the tomato bisque and discovered I had to strain it because there are chunks of tomato, carrots, and basil, so I can imagine it's actually a hearty soup in its intended form. But it was really good and really hit the spot for me. When I went back to it a few hours later, I decided to add of dollop of plain Greek yogurt to increase the protein, and that was ok. All in all, I'm feeling so much better.
I do need to buy a little soup strainer, because straining using my giant colander was a bit messy.
So I think the trick to this post-op liquid diet, which will last 2 weeks for me, is to try to find real food options instead of relying on protein shakes and vitamin water, though protein and water are the priority at this point. I'm also beginning to feel like I should make some kind of plan how I will get all of the supplements in, which the surgeon has directed to start during the puree stage (2 weeks away). I've started a little food journal so I can see how much protein I'm getting, and I think it will be pretty difficult during this early stage. I also need to figure out how to get my PPI in (taking Zegerid for the moment). That particular one is a capsule that you can open and sprinkle into yogurt or pudding, but really alters the flavor and makes it truly disgusting. Today I tried it in SF chocolate pudding, and found it to be somewhat tolerable if I just gulped the bite of pudding (using a baby spoon), and didn't try to taste it.
It occurred to me that maybe I should figure out a way to make a protein powder pudding that I can throw an Upcal-D into and maybe also the PPI. As long as I am wasting space with pudding, I may as well try to get some nutritional benefit. I'm pretty sure Eggface has a recipe, so I'm off to go investigate.
