Tag: food

Change of Plans

We are not going into the city today. There has been a change of plans.

It’s okay, we’ll find something else to do for Harry today.

I went to see my mother today. It went okay. Actually better than most of my visits.

I have some work to do today and I am procrastinating like a crazy person. I sort of have after dinner earmarked for business stuff. We’ll see.

I have been doing an epically shitty job keeping track of my food and drink today. I create an entry when I start something and then forget to close off the entry when I finish. Everything is guesswork. Do better, Robert.

I’m sitting at my desk right now. I think I will go upstairs and be more social. Maybe I’ll have a few grapes too. Fruits, babie. Nature’s candy.

Good Morning

Good morning everyone. How was your weekend. Did you do anything fun?

I didn’t do any of my exercising yesterday until after 10:00pm. I then did this morning’s exercising at a little after 8:00am. I suspect that is going to result in some issues throughout the day today. I also failed to do any weight training over the weekend. Let’s say that today is the day it starts for real.

Jen and I finished Stranger Things last night. The last episode is about 2.5 hours long. For a TV show, that is looooong. We’re up to date now though. Harry still has to run that particular episode marathon, but once that’s done we’ll all be up to date. The show is now clear to start working on season five (I think they’ve already started without my approval).

I have decided that, after season five is over, I want to see a spin off series that is just Nancy and Robin in the X-Files. I think I smell a hit. Steve can show up and be their muscle from time to time, and the rest of the cast can make cameos (except Mike, he’s kind of a douche). Oh! Now that I think of it, Will and Dustin and Lucas can be the guys from The Lone Gunmen! This show is going to rule!

I tried out the new toaster oven/air fryer last night by trying to air fry some potatoes. The results were less than stellar, but I don’t know if it was my fault or the oven’s fault. I think it was a combination of the two. The potatoes were one part bland (my fault) and one part… squishy? I guess? That’s probably the oven’s fault. I want another crack at it tonight (with maybe some broccoli too?) but we ran out of olive oil so we need to hit the store for a resupply. Challenge accepted.

I brought up the idea of maybe Jen and me taking a day off on a day when Harry doesn’t have to work so that we can all have an extra shot at doing something fun together before he goes back to school. There isn’t a whole lot of time left with him this summer and I feel like we need to do something to take advantage of what time we have. We also need to get up to Vermont to visit Bellana and steal some additional time with her as well.

Okay, Robert. Back to work with you.

Digestive Revolt

I tried to eat dinner without my stop watch tonight and my surgically modified stomach kicked me in the fucking balls for it (figuratively). Hard. Really hard.

I have had two stomach revolts in the six previous weeks. One was due to gas and the other was nausea that cleared itself up after a few minutes. No vomit.

Tonight was worse than those two combined. Gas and nausea. Lots of nausea. There was a very small amount of vomit, but mostly just a ton of saliva. The nausea though. Damn. It’s been about 45 minutes and I’m just starting to calm down. Yikes!

I’m positive it was due to eating too fast. I was trying to see how I’d do without using a stop watch to make sure I wait at least 30 seconds after swallowing a bite before taking another. Clearly my internal clock was cutting corners and this is the result.

I don’t think this was dumping syndrome. It may have been what the folks on the Facebook groups call The Foamies, which is your body trying to help get food into your stomach by ramping up saliva production.

Okay. It’s been 50 minutes. I still don’t feel good but I don’t feel nauseous any more. I think it’s safe to leave the bathroom again.

Wish me luck.

Back to Work

My month of post-surgery medical leave is officially over. I punched in to work for the first time at a little before 9:00am.

I am so far behind it’s insane, yet at the same time I already feel like I never left. There have been a bunch of staffing changes and some new policies and other fun things. I had 1,683 emails in my inbox when I started the day, and I think there have been 50 or so more come in today already.

I have had meetings all morning and that has made it tough to get my liquids in. I am in the middle of a slightly shortened lunch break right now and I am not sure if I will be able to finish my 2.5 ounce meal before the next meeting starts. In the past I would just eat quickly and then chug some water if I was feeling dehydrated. I can’t do that now though. My stomach won’t let me.

This will calm down over the next day or so, but for today I am stressing mightily. It will be okay though. I am happy to be back. I just want to feel a little less like an alien posing as me, you know what I mean? You probably don’t know what I mean, but that’s sort of how I feel.

Weird, man.

A New Dinner Experience

We tried something new for dinner tonight. It was very exciting.

Jen stirred up some ground beef and boiled up some potatoes. I took three ounces of beef and two ounces of potato. It was a pretty amazing Irish moment for me.

There was a catch though. Even with that tiny meal, it took me an hour and 10 minutes to get through it.

Each tiny bite was chewed 32 times at least, and I waited at least 30 seconds before starting the next bite. It took a long time. I’m starting to foresee a time in the near future when I’m going to be reheating food in the microwave mid-meal. You heard it here first.

Despite the 70 minute epic event…. Oh it was so delicious. Thanks, Jen!

Hoping for a Quiet Day

The last couple of days were busier than what you might expect from a convalescent type situation. On Tuesday I had a doctors appointment followed by the long awaited city inspection of our new furnace. Then on Wednesday I went to get the car inspected and ended up putting it in for some work. Harry helped me out driving me there and back. It ended up being a lot of hurry up and wait, but it was stressful and it kept me off of my liquid intake schedule. I ended up hitting my protein goal with easy, but I was drastically under my liquid goal.

There is nothing on the agenda today other than righting the intake ship after the last two days. I am definitely feeling out of whack today. The real wrench in the works is having to wait an hour after eating before I can drink again. I’ve been feeling some dry mouth by the time that hour is up. It’s rough.

On the upside, I did actually eat some solid food yesterday. I had scrambled eggs for breakfast, which I was already having during the puree stage. I had tuna fish for lunch but I didn’t put it in the blender first. It’s still crazy soft so I didn’t really need to chew it much. By the time dinner came around I wasn’t terribly hungry but I figured I’d challenge myself a little.

I had already hit the 60 grams of protein goal so I went with something else. I boiled the shit out of a couple of ounces of baby carrots. It ended up soft enough to be just a bit tougher than pureed, but I still had to chew it. As instructed, I was taking tiny bites. They said think pea sized, or pencil eraser sized. I was then chewing every bite at least 25 times. That’s what they told us in the stage III diet class. My grandmother though used to always tell us to chew each bite 32 times, so that’s what I did. Some bites got a little more, but 32 is going to be the goal going forward. Thanks, Nana.

I’m not sure what I want to do for meals tonight. I still have a bowl full of left over tuna fish in the fridge. That will likely be lunch. No clue for dinner. I guess it depends on where I am with the protein intake and how hungry I am. I’m more interested in fixing the low fluid intake from the last two days. I don’t want to feel dehydrated like this anymore.

And that, friends, is the story for this morning.

Drive

Jen and I went for a drive today. You wouldn’t think that was a huge deal but there it is. We drove to Danvers and back. In full pandemic mode, we didn’t go anywhere, we just drove there and drove back.

It was magnificent.

It made me a smidge late for my lunch but it was okay. I took a water bottle with me so I could keep sipping. Puréed tuna fish for lunch, puréed meatball for dinner.

It’s been a good day. Tuesday should be the day when I graduate to solid food. I’m good for now, but I’m feeling pretty ready to chew stuff again.

Applesauce

I know I used to eat applesauce when I was a kid. I know I liked it.

Now?

I’m having 0.6 ounces of applesauce for lunch (about 0.25 grams of protein) and… well… I don’t think I like it anymore.

Live and learn, right?

Dietician

I just leaped over another hurdle. I had my first meeting with the Dietician. It was a Zoom call. We talked about how I eat and how much I eat and how I’ve made some changes already. So much more to do. She’s going to send me a meal plan. I really think that will help tremendously. I need someone to tell me what to eat because when I choose for myself I end up eating everything there is.

One thing she wants me to do now, because I will have to do it post-surgery so why not get used to it ahead of time, is no drinking while eating. I never even imagined that would be required. I also never imagined how ridiculously difficult it would be.

I am always drinking something. It used to be soda, now it’s water. The new rule is to stop drinking 15 minutes before eating, and then to not start again for 60 minutes after eating. That’s going to be tough for me, but I’ll figure it out. The timer on my Apple Watch gets used pretty much constantly already. Once I have to time when I can have a glass of water it’s going to be used so much it might catch fire.

I also have to start keeping a food journal. Oh Google Sheets, I’m coming for you!