Today is Wednesday and my surgery was last Friday. I am 5 days out. I can hardly believe it. Recovery has been a lot more painful that I had expected. Apparently, some people go home from surgery the next day only taking Tylenol for pain. Apparently, I am not those people. Tylenol has a history of causing stomach distress for me, so that was out. In the hospital, I tried two different pain medications, one medication I had a rough reaction to. That means I only had one pain medication option that could only be taken every 4 hours, but only lasted about 2. Instead of coming home on Saturday as planed I stayed an extra night and came home Sunday afternoon.
The pain was pretty intense. I got stuck in bed twice where I could not get up without excruciating pain. After 40 minutes of trying I texted my husband in the other room to get me up. We've worked out a method where my "coughing pillow" goes over my incision and he bear hugs me up to a seated position. A bear hug never felt so good. It's like it holds me together.
I've also learned that eating too fast is a BIG no no. Last night I needed to take a calcium supplement. I ate it a little too quickly and got air caught up beneath my rib and shooting up to my shoulder. Lesson learned.
At this point, I'm just healing and resting and resting and healing. I'm trying to hit all of my fluid and nutritional goals, but it does feel like there are not enough hours in the day. Today is the first day I've been hungry. My main things have been broth with added protein powder, protein shakes, and some yogurt. I tried to make some cream of rice cereal with protein powder added, but that combo did not work well. The protein powder was not having it. I'm wondering if adding the vanilla powder to a fruity herbal tea would work, but I'm guessing because it is hot it would not mix well.
Emotionally, it doesn't feel like I actually did the surgery. It feels like the surgery is a separate thing, something to heal from, but not actually weight loss surgery. It feels like what I'm eating is just a result of healing and not changes for life with a new stomach. I feel like those things will hit later once the pain is gone.
I know I'm healing little by little. It will just take time.
No comments:
Post a Comment