5 more days until Purées

Just 5 more days of this hell, y’all. Purées includes beautiful things like hummus and even soft scrambled eggs. You have no idea how exciting that is. I’m having to force myself to eat right now bc I am so tired of protein supplements at this point I would rather just go hungry.

In other news as of Tuesday, in the 3 weeks since I started the Pre Op Diet I have lost:

 1" off my hips

 1.75" off my waist

1.25" off my thigh

2.5" off my upper stomach

.75" off my chest

1.5" off my arm

.75" off my calf

That upper stomach and arm loss is nothing short of amazing bc that is the two most stubborn fat spots on my body and I swear they never move, so that I’ve lost the most there is incredible and wonderful. 

I want to tell you my pain is better but I would be lying. My incisions are healing beautifully and starting to itch obnoxiously which is a good sign in terms of healing but annoying. 

I cannot overstate my gratitude for some of the sisters from my church. Today one came and not only took my big kids to school for me, she took my beautiful baby that I cannot lift to put in her crib to her house to play all day so I could just rest. And then a second sister came over while the kids were gone and did the dishes, vacuumed, picked up and did a whole load of laundry and even folded and put it away. The company was lovely and the help was simply amazing. I am so blessed and I feel so loved. 

But for real, y’all, gaze upon the gloriousness that awaits my tastebuds next week: 

One Week Post Op

I don’t have time for the full post I had wanted and planned for today. My Grandfather entered hospice this morning and the conflicting grief and relief (I have desperately hated watching him suffer) are frequently overwhelming. 

I’m still alive. My pain levels are still much higher than I anticipated but they are improving. Current plan Bc I’m almost out of pain meds (they refilled me.... with a very tiny refill....) is to only take them at night so I can get to sleep. 

Right now I desperately hate my diet. I hate alternative protein. I would kill to just eat meat and eggs like God intended. Hell I would delight in beans and legumes. I like beans and legumes. Hell if I could marinate and grill it I would eat tofu right now. I just want something that TASTES RIGHT. I’m so desperate on more than one occasion I’ve taken a tiny to small bite of something, chewed it to bits and then spit it out in the trash can just so I can have a taste of something that doesn’t suck. 

I have also reaffirmed my hatred of “sugar free” products. They taste weird to out and out bad. Once in a great while you can find something (Diet Coke being the glaring exception to this rule) that doesn’t suck but generally my policy is I would rather have a far smaller serving of real sugar and stick to dark chocolate (less sugar!) than have all I want of the fake sugar crap. I’m definitely losing tolerance for things that taste nasty and would rather just starve than eat that crap. But I have to heal so I’m making myself choke down the bare minimums. 

I can no longer join my family at meal times where there’s something I desperately want on the menu. I used to just sip broth or whatever but I can’t eat w them bc I can’t explain to my 5 year old why I’m crying over her pizza. 

This is temporary. This too shall pass. But damn and wow it’s passing like a kidney stone. 

In good news my incision sites are healing very well. They told me 3-5 holes and he did it in 3. My surgeon is an artist. The biggest incision he put perfectly inline with the lines in my belly button so when it heals you won’t even be able to see it. The nausea is gone. The heartburn is gone. And the abdominal pain is improving. Slowly but it is. 

And in better news - it’s working. I measured tonight. I’ll give the full thing tomorrow but usually it takes me months to lose inches. 3 weeks and I have one or more inches gone in every single location I measure. 

This hell sucks. But it’s temporary and unlike every other crash diet on the planet I actually have extremely good odds of this not coming back. Ever. So keep going. The only way out is through. 

Oh and the other fun bonus- for 10 more days I get to keep stabbing myself with one of these every night. It’s a blood thinner to keep me from clotting while I heal. You’d think they were being ultra cautious bc they’re dealing with fluffy people or something. 

Kinda fun- after I give the shot, I push the plunger one more time and this like extra layer to the barrel you couldn’t even tell was there pops out to cover the needle so it’s safe to throw away! Spiffy!

 

Post Op: Day 4

Today it feels like I’m finally making some progress. I only had to take my anti nausea meds first thing this morning and then I didn’t touch them again for the rest of the day which is amazing. I am still incredibly dependent on my pain meds. But I spent like 10 consecutive hours sitting up on the sofa, obviously interspersed with walking around and eating or what have you. But yesterday sitting up for 2 straight hours was brutal, and I had to go lie down afterwards. I’m not saying it felt good or was super fun today but I did it. And I folded 4 baskets of laundry (that were brought to me) while I was at it so I almost felt like a productive and contributing citizen once again.

We will see how I feel tomorrow about everything I did today. I’ve had to be very dedicated to my pain meds. The “every 4-6 hours” has been like “oh thank god just 10 more mins and I can have more”. It’s just Tylenol 3 but it’s my friend.

I also made some progress on increasing my caloric intake up closer to what it’s supposed to be. This afternoons experiment involved adding some of the Unjury Unflavored Protein Powder to some tomato soup to see if I could sneak some extra protein in there..... the results were.... mixed.

1. Unflavored does not mean flavorless, it’s odd and hard to describe but my original plan was add 1 scoop of protein (worth like 20g) to my 4oz serving of tomato soup. That’s where we ran into problem:

2. That is one big butt scoop! Like wowza that’s a lot of powder! Geez! I don’t have small hands people.

It was like almost 50/50 soup and powder and the powder initially lumped up and wouldn’t mix smooth no matter how much I whisked it (and yes I checked the temperature was well below the 140 mark the instructions are emphatic I must stay below), and with that off flavor I was not sure I was going to manage to get that down. But I added another 1/4 cup of soup and then went to town w the seasonings making my classic Campbell’s tomato into a tomato basil bisque type experience. It mostly hid the flavor in the end. I at least managed to eat it. 

You might be able to hide a whole scoop in the entire can of condensed plus can of milk maybe but if I try that again I’ll defin cut the powder way, way back and go from there. 

Post Op: Day 3

I feel like I was beautifully prepared for the sleeve portion of my surgery and completely unprepared for the hernia repair. Also the first couple days I had this lovely little On-Q pain ball thing - basically it’s full of local anesthetic and had a couple little catheters going into my guts numbing things continously for the first couple days post op. Well my lovely ball ran dry and the catheters had to be removed (amazingly that part didn’t hurt at all) but now I definitely have more deep gut pain than I did before. So yay it worked, boo it’s all gone. Lol

My nausea is less today for which I’m grateful. Let me introduce you to the bane of my existence at the moment:

You see that wee little medicine cup there? 30ml or approx 1 oz. I drink one of those every 15 mins when I’m awake to stay hydrated. I really miss just being able to chug my ice water with a straw, thankyouverymuch. But nope. That’s it. And I’m not allowed to drink water like 30 mins before or after a meal. So when I tried some protein powder “chicken soup” mix thing today, I couldn’t rinse that taste out of my mouth between spoonfuls. Ugh. When I ate all I could stand (about 3 out of 8 oz) I actually went and rinsed my mouth out with water and spat in the sink just for some relief. 

It’s going to be an interesting couple weeks working my way up to the recommended intake for this stage of the diet. I’ll heal faster and better with more protein in my diet which is about my only motivation right now. Never thought I’d want to keep just sipping water but I’m kinda scared of food right now. I hate the sipping but the pain is such that I’m scared to do anything more than sip bc it will hurt. Badly. 

Tho I almost cried tonight when the rest of my family had pizza and I made the mistake of coming out of my room just in time to get hit with the smell and see that amazing melted cheese and it was only the promise that one bite would send me back to the hospital right now that kept me from “just a taste”. 

This cute little goober likes to sneak away from Papa and Grandma and come visit Mommy in her bed. I mostly curl into the fetal position to protect my tummy from her climbing but she’s learned she can climb my head and shoulders without too much protest (I couldn’t lift to get her off of my right now if I wanted to) so tonight she wrapped herself around my head and sang for a bit: 

Post Op - 2 Days Later

Note: I’m still on drugs so there’s little to no proof reading atm. Sorry. 

Hey y’all! Sorry I haven’t posted sooner/more. I’m okay just kinda got my butt kicked. Apparently most people with the sleeve are home the next day and need very little pain meds. But I also had a hiatus hernia repair done while they were in there. What’s that you say? Well we found it when we did the pre op scope to see if there were any surprises. Ya know how your esophagus passes through your diaphragm (that big muscle that moves up and down to make you breathe)? It’s supposed to be a pretty small passage way. Well apparently having babies really did make me puke my guts up bc mine was “really, just extremely large” and they were emphatic that it had to be surgically fixed and soon even if I decided against the sleeve I would still have to have surgery to fix that. And if you google a sleeve is supposed to take just 90 mins to perform but a hiatus hernia repair is more like 2-3 hours and apparently most people stay in the hospital more like 3 days after that one. 

So Bc of the hernia repair I’ve had significantly more pain than I was anticipating. It’s not like my poor diaphragm ever gets a break from the constant labor of making me breathe so it hasn’t been super pleased with me. And it frequently hurts to swallow like down in my chest where the hernia repair is, it’s like no I do not want to stretch and allow this sip of water through. I’m still mad at you. 

Nausea isn’t too terrible today. Had to work pretty dang hard that first day to keep from puking and tearing up my freshly repaired hernia. But I tell you the threat of having to have this fixed, again has worked wonders for my ability to breathe through the nausea. 

So I’m home where sleeping through the night with out being woken every other hour to check vitals and draw blood or whatever the hell they want to do me now all night long is just lovely. My biggest problem is my adorable 21 month old who doesn’t understand why I’m not picking her up or why I won’t let her bounce, climb or sit on my belly. Good news is she decided to love me and find me acceptable anyways. 

I’m hoping that if I continue to be good and play nice my body will forgive me soon. Right now it’s been clear liquids yesterday and today. I’m drinking from a little 30ml medicine up. Supposed to drink one of those every 15 mins when I’m awake. And it takes some doing to keep all that down so I’m not quite sure how I’m supposed to manage thick liquids starting tomorrow. Think I’m going to have to work my way up to it for sure.  

Pre Op Liquid Diet: Day 14

I did it. 14 days of protein shakes and no real food. I survived. I kicked it’s butt. Mostly. I am incredibly grateful that that part is over. LOL

Tomorrow is The Day!!! I’m almost all prepped and ready. Maybe I’ll be able to sleep tonight but the odds aren’t great. Lol Either way I’ll definitely sleep tomorrow! The drugs’ll make sure of that. If I can, I’ll post. If I’m too drugged, I won’t!

See ya on the flip side, y’all!

If you wanna know what exhausted, hopeful determination looks like, this is it:

Pre Op Liquid Diet: Day 13

I’m at the point in my pre op prep where my quality of life is being significantly impaired. And it’s not just that I had to stare down my entire family eating delicious hot, fresh garlic bread (the rest of the big Sunday dinner looked great too but I woulda killed for that garlic bread tonight), it’s not the 5 millionth shake (which btw do not contain nearly enough fiber). No, right now its the fact I’m not allowed to have Advil or Melatonin the week before surgery and there is definitely a reason why I take those pills.

One of the “upsides” to rapidly regaining weight after having my 2nd kid (I’m the only pregnant woman I know who has to work to not lose weight the entire pregnancy) due to extenuating circumstances is that it makes the ways it impacts your life really obvious. And the first and biggest thing that being extra fluffy does is make everything hurt. Your back, hips, knees and ankles are Not Happy. And I usually buy their forgiveness on the bad days with Advil so that I can sleep. I cannot do this right now. Bc NSAIDs increase bleeding during surgery. And not having them stinks. A lot. And bc melatonin is on the list of natural supplements that you have to stop pre op as well bc they can interact with drugs in the OR, I can’t even try just knocking myself out and sleeping through the pain. Which is to say I want a medal for getting me and 3 kids to church this morning on about 2.5 hours of sleep.

Whine whine moan whine carry on. Yes I would like cheese to go with my whine and okay I’m done.

JUST ONE MORE DAY, Y’ALL!!! One more!! We can do one!

I’m not excited about the pain of surgery but I am so excited to finally get this done. It almost doesn’t feel real that the day is almost really here but I’m amazingly ecstatic about it! Lol