I’ve written this 100 times before over the three years (almost) since I had my gastric bypass surgery. There are times when I will be feeling real pain in my stomach and I cannot tell if it’s because something is wrong or because I am just hungry.
The last couple of days have taken that to a pretty obnoxious extreme. It’s always hunger, but it’s just ridiculous now. When things are going according to the normal routine I can have something to eat and then be okay for a few hours. Breakfast at 7:00, a snack at around 11:00, lunch at 1:00, a snack at 4:00, dinner at 7:00, a snack before bed. Perfect. Hunger pains avoided.
Today? Breakfast is over at 8:00, hunger pains at 9:45. Snack at 10:00, hunger pains at 11:15. What the hell? It’s 11:50 right now and I am slowly making my way through a little package of crackers. At this rate I’ll be finished by noon and then hurting a little before lunch at 1:00. I need to wait 60 minutes after eating before I can take a drink (and having a drink usually doesn’t help the hunger pain the way having something to eat does) which means the pain is back before I am clear to drink.
What the hell, bro? Is there something wrong AND I’m hungry? No, I don’t think so. I think I am unable to keep my surgically altered stomach from getting too empty. If I try to have a big lunch I am going to be full and have to stop, and (assuming this continues today) I still won’t get three pain-free hours.
To add the usual caveat, I am not complaining at all. I lost 220 pounds and if dealing with this now and then is the price I have to pay then I pay it with a great big smile on my face. Still… looking at my stomach and asking, what the hell, bro??
Just some random things going through my tiny little brain right now.
I don’t get hungry anymore. In this post-gastric bypass universe I go from feeling comfortably satisfied, skip right past normal hungry feelings, and catapult straight to oh my god I am so hungry it hurts why does my stomach hurt so much?
Normally that isn’t a big deal. I have something to eat and I feel better. Some days though, like the last couple of days, it gets a bit annoying. Some days I just can’t get out in front of the problem. I eat something, then an hour or so later I feel the hunger pains coming back. Normally I can go about three hours without any issues. Sometimes, like when I was visiting my father in the hospital and had other things on my mind, I could go twice that without my stomach perking up at all.
Today I finished breakfast at around 8:00am. I started feeling it at a little before 11:00am. I was drinking water at the time and had to pause for 15 minutes before I could eat again so I didn’t get any food into my empty stomach until 11:20. I had a quick snack. I was done at 11:26. The hunger pains were back in full force by 12:11pm. What the hell, bro? I went on lunch at 1:00pm so I made myself wait to eat anything more. I didn’t want to fill my new little stomach pouch before lunch and then throw off my schedule even more. I was able to sneak in a little water which helped a little but come on, stomach… you have to do better than 45 minutes, right?
Change of subject. Television shows that are currently being worked through.
Mindhunter on Netflix. I’m about 3/4 of the way through the first of two seasons. It’s creeping me out. Good stuff.
Only Murders in the Building on Hulu. I think I am an episode behind. The new season is good. I was nervous when I heard it was moving to Los Angeles, but so far it’s firmly grounded in New York where it belongs. It is also nice to have Paul Rudd back again.
Agatha All Along on Disney+. Episode three is out today, I think. I’ll watch it tonight. I’m enjoying it so far.
Rings of Power on Amazon Prime. The last couple of episodes feel like a small step back in terms of quality. Word on the street is the next two (the last two episodes of season two) are going to be spectacular. I’m all in.
Dark on Netflix. I liked the first season. I’m halfway through the second season and it is struggling to hold my attention.
The Orville on Hulu. Season three is a bit of a slog. The episodes are WAY too long and not good enough to justify the time commitment. It’s not bad, it’s just not that good.
Futurama on Hulu. Gold. Absolute gold.
Exploding Kittens on Netflix. It’s not bad, but I’m having a hard time staying invested in it.
Coming Soon: Penguin on Max. The first couple of episodes are out but I haven’t watched them yet. I’ll get to them soon.
Coming Soon: Daryl Dixon season two on AMC. The new season kicks off this coming Sunday. I’ll be there.
Dude… that’s a shit load of TV. I’m pretty sure I’ve forgotten a couple of shows too.
I have some linens that I took from my father’s apartment. The plan is to donate them somewhere. My sister suggested the MSPCA at Nevins Farm in Methuen. It’s right around the corner from my house. I wasn’t sure if that was something they’d take so I Googled it today. Sure enough, they take bedding. They don’t take pillows or knitted blankets though. If I have any of those I’ll have to bring them somewhere else.
I also took a combination turn table, AM/FM radio, CD player, cassette player from his apartment. I haven’t found a home for it yet. I am thinking that tomorrow I’ll plug it in next to my desk and listen to old Rush records on vinyl while I work. That sounds like a good plan to me.
Okay then. Here’s hoping the hunger pains are taken care of for a few hours at least. I’m crossing my fingers… and symbolically crossing my bypassed digestive system too… whatever that means.
Is doing the right thing overrated? Are priorities jerks?
Wednesday night I got a little less than six hours of sleep. I was really tired through most of the day on Thursday. I wanted to go to bed early last night but I ended up going to bed late. Fail. Then at about 3:30am I woke up with stomach pain. I have been doing a really shitty job over the last few days of eating three square meals. Three nights in a row I’ve had protein bars for dinner. It caught up to me. I was dealing with hunger pain a lot yesterday. I just couldn’t keep my stomach topped off for very long. I ate something before bed but it wasn’t enough and I was hurting when I woke up in the middle of the night. I had a little protein bar and felt better but I couldn’t fall back to sleep. It was annoying.
The end result? Less than five hours of sleep, and that includes over sleeping by about an hour. That lead to another question. Do I do my normal morning exercise and skip playing some guitar before work, or do I skip some or all of my exercise and play guitar. Ugh. I did the right thing. I did my exercise. I did not play guitar. I punched in to work at 8:50 with plenty of time to spare before the start of my shift, but I did not get any 50/90 challenge work done. No music for me.
Bummer. Maybe I’ll be able to sneak some work in tonight. Also, maybe I’ll have actual dinner tonight instead of just protein supplements. Not that there is anything wrong with that. I just don’t want to have hunger pains today. Let’s do the right thing, m’kay?
The countdown to the end of the work day and the start of my long weekend continues. I was pulled into a meeting for the stretch of time that I was planning to have lunch so I had to delay my break for an hour. It’s 3:00pm now and I am just wrapping up my lunch. My stomach has been okay for most of the day, though I’ve twice been hit with empty stomach hunger pains. The second time was at 11:00am while I was in a (different) meeting and it was pretty uncomfortable. A protein bar and some sugar free chocolate at 11:30 put me right. I’m optimistic that I had enough lunch to hold off any further issues until I get home. Cross those fingers, kids.
For the third day in a row I am trying to get through the day while dealing with feelings of exhaustion. Why? I got a decent night’s sleep last night. I should feel better today than I did yesterday or the day before, right? Nope. I am super tired once again. Last night at about 9:00pm I could barely keep my eyes open. Then, magically, by 10:00 I was wide awake. I was able to get to sleep by 11:00 though so I thought it would be okay. Today I’ve just been wiped out all day. If this comes up again tomorrow I might actually take a nap. Wouldn’t that be fun? I mean, I am old so of course it would be fun. The older you get the more that a good solid nap is a thrill ride. Bring it on, people!
Okay. Back to work. I have a meeting in 18 minutes, and a long weekend two hours after that. Power through, Robert!
Hello folks, here comes another gastric bypass post. Another my-digestive-system-is-no-longer-quite-human sort of post. Sorry. Just bare with me. There will be a cat photo or two as well. Your patience will be rewarded with little four legged fur balls.
Okay…
I’ve mentioned at least 100 times over the past two years that being hungry hurts now. I eat breakfast. All is well. Three hours later I start having a stomach ache. I eat a snack and the stomach ache goes away. I eat lunch, then three hours later I have a stomach ache. &etc, &etc, &etc*. I told my doctor about it. She smiled at me as if to say, “duh!” without actually saying, “duh” and said, “right… you’re hungry.”
My response was, “Huh… duh.”
The downside, of course, is that I can no longer tell if I am having stomach pain because I am hungry, or if I am having stomach pain because something is wrong. I have to have something to eat to know for sure. If I have a snack and the pain vanishes then it means I was just hungry. If I have a snack and the pain stays the same or (more likely) gets worse, then something is wrong. It’s simple and all, but it does up my stress level a little when it happens.
On the days when I work from the office, I usually finish lunch at around 2:00pm. The hunger pain hits at around 5:00pm. It’s not always three hours. Sometimes it’s a little more, sometimes it’s a little less. Every so often it’s a lot less and I am feeling it at two hours. I guess it depends on what the last thing I ate was. So at work, I eat until 2:00, then around 5:00 I’m hungry enough to feel discomfort so I have something to eat. Usually I wait until I am in the car heading home. Everything is fine at that point except…
On those drives home, I often find that I eat a little too much. By the time I get home I am plenty full and I have ruined my dinner. I usually have a little to eat for dinner with Jen, but not a lot. Two days ago, when I got home I was really stuffed. I cooked dinner for Jen but I didn’t have anything for myself. I managed to have a snack an hour or so later and then fell asleep really early. I ended up going a long time without any food. I mentioned in a post yesterday that I woke up around 2:30am with a stomach ache and I had to have a snack before I could go back to sleep.
Did skipping dinner on Wednesday night mess me up? That’s my question now.
Yesterday I could not get ahead of things. I ate breakfast and was feeling empty stomach pain about an hour and a half later. That felt WAY too soon. I had a snack and then felt it again an hour later. That went on all day. I just couldn’t get out ahead of it. I think I had four or five instances of empty stomach pain throughout the day. I had a pretty substantial snack before I went to sleep. That was at 10:00pm. I was asleep a little before 11:00pm and I was feeling fine.
Until I woke up with a stomach ache at 2:00am. That lead to the usual question: Am I hungry or is there something wrong? I had a snack. I was just hungry. That’s two days in a row where I needed food in the two o’clock hour. Let us hope that this is not the start of a trend here. I don’t want to do this again. Clearly I will if I have to, but I really do not want to.
We’ll see how it goes today. I had a pretty big breakfast (for me) in the car on the way to work today. I finished it at 8:11am. Let’s see how I feel around 11:00am today. Hopefully I won’t be hurting until well after that. Fingers crossed.
Now, as promised… when I got up at 2:00am, Robin Sparkles the Cat was sitting on the cat tree in the living room, right near the pantry closet where I keep my snacks. It was like she was waiting for me. Good kitty.
295/365
And just for completeness sake, before I left the house at 7:30am today, I opened some windows. Lily Pad the Kitty took the opportunity to pose for me, so here’s a picture of her as well. Good kitty.
*That is the correct, deprecated way to abbreviate the word “etcetera” isn’t it? Was it &etc or was it &ct? I tried googling but didn’t see anything. I know it’s been hundreds of years since that abbreviation was considered proper English grammar, but I’m old and stuffy so I want to bring it back.
Having a weird day in the office today. We had an xmas party thing this morning which was nice except that one of our extended group has Covid and was in the office with a bunch of us last week and who knows if last week will forever be known as a super spreader event which would make today a mini super spreader event. Crud, I hate covid so much.
Anyway, the party included pizza. I didn’t have any. My team member who lives in Minnesota did because I DoorDashed him some Pizza Hut. Order entered in Massachusetts, order delivered in Minnesota. Like a Boss, as they say.
Like I said, no pizza for me. Can I have pizza? Probably, if there is no sugar in the tomato sauce. I just haven’t tried it and I really don’t want to. I brought some chicken salad. Meals have been tough over the last few days. Not terrible, but I have been stopping myself early due to signs that stomach issues may be coming forthwith. I prefer to dish out a certain amount of food and then eat it all as it makes tracking protein counts easier, but if I have to stop I have to stop. Today I had to stop. I ate a protein bar in the car on the way in for breakfast, and then maybe an ounce and a half of chicken for lunch. Round about 3:00pm my stomach, which was no longer upset over lunch, started getting upset over being empty.
I am sitting in a conference room with a couple of co-workers. It’s a smallish room but we’re spread out okay. No covid transmissions here. It’s quiet though, and that means everyone can hear my stomach moaning and groaning. It’s super embarrassing and it’s yet another reason why working from home is better than coming into the office. My stomach can sing and dance all it wants when I am alone at my desk at home. Here? Now? Today? I just want to hide. No one has said anything. Everyone is being super polite. I just wish my stomach would shut the fuck up.
ADDENDUM: I should say, in the interest of accuracy, that I am not positive one of my co-workers has covid. It looks that way, but it has not been confirmed.
Inside the Red Head's Head 