Tag: weight loss surgery

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.

Stage III

I am officially on the Stage III Diet. What does that mean?

To start with, things aren’t that much different. Now instead of x ounces of puréed food we can start having x+y ounces of soft foods. Think seriously boiled veggies or meatballs or canned chicken or tuna without the extra step in the blender. The values of x and y are dependent on the patient. For me, x was about two ounces. Y will eventually be about a cup.

For my first meal I stayed purée but I increased the amount. I scrambled two eggs. That came out to about four ounces or half a cup. It was by far the biggest meal I’ve had since two days before the surgery.

Going forward I will have to take very small bites, about the size of a pencil eraser, and chew each bite at least 25 times. I will also need to take short breaks between bites. A one cup sized meal needs to take about 40 minutes. Yikes.

I’m also back to the 60 minutes between eating and having a drink. That is going to suck for me getting my fluids in, but they did up the hourly fluid goal by two ounces. That should help.

Okay, my 60 minute post-scrambled eggs timer just went off. I need to go get myself a protein shake. Talk to you later.

The Next Step

Today marks two weeks on the post-surgery recovery plan’s Stage II diet. (It might be phase II, not stage II, but who cares) Where do we go from here?

In about 5-10 minutes I will be heading out of the house to go to my Stage III class. That is, I believe, when they start letting me eat solid foods. Actual chewing will be involved.

I gotta say, I am a smidgen nervous about this step. I really want to eat food again, but I also really want to keep babying my little baby stomach.

I’ll let you know how it goes. Wish me luck.

Nothing to Write About

I feel like I have nothing to write about. I’m sitting at my desk listening to a podcast and trying to eat a little pureed chicken. I have nothing to write about. I am so focused on getting my 60 ounces of liquids and 60 grams of protein in each day that I haven’t really worried about anything other than binge watching some TV. I’ve also spent a ton of time stressing over my mother’s situation, but I am not sharing that today so sorry not sorry.

I haven’t payed any attention to the NHL playoffs and I’ve barely payed attention to baseball, beyond checking the Red Sox scores once a day. I did finally finish reading Steve Hackett’s autobiography. There wasn’t a whole lot of detail there, but it was still a good read. I’m thinking Mike Rutherford’s book might be next. Get some of that Charterhouse story and all that.

I weighed myself today. Remember the other day when I wrote something about how I didn’t want to weigh myself all of the time? Yeah, I weighed myself again. If the scale I keep in the bedroom is accurate I have lost 60 pounds since January 19th. That is insane.

Should I play guitar after I post this meandering crap of a post? Jen is working in her office and Harry is working at his new job so why not just make a little noise on my own? I don’t know. I’m a little wary of it for some reason. I don’t know why. It’s a weird feeling. I don’t know.

Maybe I’ll goof around with the blog and see if I can find a new theme and layout. Maybe I’ll do that for a while, maybe not. I don’t know. Maybe I’ll sneak in some Breaking Bad. I only have about half of the final season left to go. Maybe I’ll check iBooks and see how much Mike Rutherfords’ book costs.

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.

Meatball

Jen made spaghetti and meatballs for dinner for her and Harry, who coincidentally started a new job in a restaurant today, and she purred a meatball for me.

It was my first post-op taste of red meat and it was glorious.

It made me think about eating at restaurants. My go-to is usually a steak, but there is no way I’m going to be able to eat a whole steak in one sitting now. I’m going to have to learn how to be the kind of guy who takes home the leftovers. Maybe I’ll keep a cooler in the trunk of each car, or something like that.

Two Weeks

Two weeks ago at about this time, I think I was being moved from the operating room to the recovery room. I’m trying to find some way to commemorate this historic anniversary and I am coming up with nothing. I’m in the cellar, watching Breaking Bad again and surfing online music stores on my laptop. I don’t want to spend money on gitter stuff but what can you do? Pedal boards and random gear are just fun to daydream about. I have made sure to avoid looking at actual guitars though. Amps too. Just pedals and non-bank breaking stuff.

As for the post-surgical update, I had a weird experience today. I ate my delicious tuna fish puree at lunch time. When I was done I… well… it’s so odd… I felt… hungry. As in, damn I could go for another ounce of that fun stuff. It was just a weird feeling.

I am still not giving any details on the subject, but my mother is still in the hospital. I still can’t do anything about it, and likely won’t be able to for another 2-3 weeks. I feel less than useless. Again, no details are coming but I just needed to state that publicly for my own guilt ridden reasons. That is all.

Happy two-week birthday to my little baby stomach*.

* In his book Ghost Rider, Neil Peart, while dealing with the deaths of his wife and daughter, refers to parts of his recovery as feeding his little baby soul. My soul is okay, but my little baby stomach needs constant attention.