Today is Day 6 of my 14 Day Pre Op Liquid Diet. 6 days in the Hamburger Hallucinations seem to have stopped which is nice but I still miss eating.
What does this liquid diet look like?
Right now I can have water, tea, clear broth, sugar free jello and protein shakes. Basically the goal is zero carbs, zero fat but some protein and lots of vitamins to protect my muscles and organs. I could have a variety of non soda sugar free drinks but I find most of those NASTY and I don't drink coffee so thats my list. I can add lemon or lime to my water or if I want to I can infuse fruit if I get ambitious. So far I've been too lazy and afraid I'll be tempted to eat the fruit out of the infused water like I usually do.
The Game Plan
Right now, we do this liquid diet for another 8 days. On January 8th I will have surgery. The plan is a Sleeve Gastrectomy. I will have absolutely nothing by mouth the day of surgery. Surgery is Day 0. Day 1 & 2 after that I can have clear liquids. Water, broth, and sugar free jello. Then I get to do another 14 days of the high protein liquid diet. Basically the exact same thing I'm doing now. For 14 more days. *deep breath*. LOL Its so weird to not eat, y'all.
THEN after 14 days I get to upgrade..... to purees. Think non-chunky baby food (no smoothies). Ooooh ahhh. My blender is gonna get a heckuva work out, y'all. THEN after 2 weeks of that, I get to upgrade all the way to Mushy Chunks for another 2 weeks (its sad that that sounds completely amazing. I see my new InstaPot getting one heckuva workout). And THEN and only then can I maybe just maybe take a teeny tiny bite of REAL FOOD a solid 2 months after starting this lovely adventure. Mind you I'll only be eating roughly 1/4 cup of food at a time post op. The little pouch that is all that is left of my stomach is going to be a whole 150mL (approx 5 oz).
Today's Shake:
Also I feel compelled to document my .... adventures trying to find drinkable (in my opinion) protein shakes (only certain ones are approved by my doc). Here's todays candidate. I got it for free in a bag of samples from my doc. Its .... interesting. I'm glad I didn't pay money for it. If you're in to SUPER CONCENTRATED sugar free kool-aid fruit punch with a nice strong artificial sweetener "dry your mouth out and make you pucker face" aftertaste then I highly recommend it. Personally I'm gonna have to be REALLY, really tired of the milky kinda shakes before I drink one of these again. *shudder*
