1 week post up-Liquids, Protein, Vitamins, and Pain

It's been exactly a week since I was released from the hospital and 9 days since my gastric bypass surgery. I want to fill you in on how my week has been going.

At first the week was rough. I was in a lot of pain. I have 5 incision marks including one that is really deep and hurts (pic below of the incision that hurt likes hell-don't look if you don't like gross stuff). These marks just hurt and suck! I was giving some prescription pain killers so I would take that up until about this past weekend. After the weekend I wasn't in too much pain. The exception to that was if I was getting up or down from a sitting or laying position.  The worst was getting in and out of bed and actually going to the restroom. I now have a new appreciation for being able to wipe and that's all I'm going to say about that. You really never realize just how much you use your abdominal muscles until you can't use them anymore.

Part of the reason I was in sooo much pain, and I say sooo much pain is because most people I talk to who had the surgery say they didn't experience as much pain as I was feeling. I don't know if they were trying to down play it or maybe they had forgotten but I was in pain. In addition to having gastric bypass I also had a hiatal hernia I had fixed. Hiatel hernia is where your stomach comes through your diaphragm and into your esophagus. This causes really bad acid reflux. Because my hiatel hernia was so large they decided to repair it while I was having surgery. Some patients have only a small hernia and never have to have it surgically fixed. Now I knew about the hiatel hernia from my pre op testing, specifically the endoscopy I had (long camera put down your throat to view your insides). What I didn't know about was that I had Diverticulitis. What the heck is that right??? After the doctor told me he found out I had this while doing the surgery I had to google it. lol If you know me, you know I google/wikipedia everything. Well what Diverticulitis means is that you have inflammation in your bowel. This can cause irritable bowel syndrome. My next question was, how did I get this? From not getting enough fiber in my diet and from eating alot of sunflower seeds. Again if you know me, you know I eat sunflower seeds all the time. I mean ALL THE TIME!!! Who knew this could cause a problem. Luckily the doctor was able to remove the inflamed portion of my lower bowel (about a foot). And from what the doctor tells me and the literature suggests, there are no long term implications for this and it shouldn't be a problem moving forward. I just need to cut down on the seeds and eat some green veggies.

Now back to my week. Well luckily each day I started to feel better. The pain decreased but I still felt very uncomfortable. I can't really describe it but if I tried to I would say it's a cross between indigestion/gas and just over eating when your stomach just doesn't feel good. And luckily each day that got better too. The largest part of my days have been following my doctors orders. For the last week I have been on an all liquid diet. Yes, I did say ALL LIQUID DIET. Let me tell you what my meals have consisted of.

Breakfast-2 tablespoons of Jell-O
Lunch- 4 tablespoons of chicken soup broth-NOT CHICKEN SOUP-ONLY BROTH
Dinner- THE SAME EXACT THING AS LUNCH

Yes, no food. Nothing that even resembles food. Luckily my new stomach is the size of a thumb and with all the surgery my stomach is too swollen to even want more food. I haven't been technically "hungry" but I've wanted to eat. Every commercial on TV had me wanting whatever food they were showcasing.  Even though I had cravings I stuck to it and just had the liquids all week. GO ME-can't you tell I'm proud?

In addition to the liquid diet I am supposed to be drinking 64 ounces of water a day. This has not been happening. I just have no desire to eat or drink. I have to force myself to drink and when I do I can't sip out of a stray (cause that causes gas) and I can't take large sips. However, hydration is the single most important thing following surgery so I'm really trying to do better at this.

Next in the level of importance is protein. I'm not eating but my body needs protein so I'm supposed to be drinking protein drinks to get me to 50g of protein a day. This is really, really hard. Harder than the 64 ounces. I bought 2 types of protein drinks (Nectar Fuzy Navel and Protein Blitz Fruit Punch) and I hate to drink both of them. I need to drink 2 of the drinks a day to get in the protein and I can barely drink 1 of them. I'm thinking I'm going to have to find a new type. But I spent $70 on the stuff I've already bought so that kind of pisses me off. Argh, can you sense my frustration??? Hopefully I'll find a different drink and I'll be able to report back good news.

Number 3 in importance is something else I'm not doing the best at and that's my vitamins. Since I'm not eating and since I won't be eating much forever I have a whole long list of vitamins I need to take because I won't be getting them from food anymore.  Here is the laundry list of what I need to take
1. B-12
2. Multivitamin-2 times a day
3. Calcium citrate-3 times a day
4. B50 complex
5. Iron
6. Vitamin D

And to complicate matters even more I can't take these all at the same time because certain vitamins won't get absorbed if taking with certain other vitamins. For example, Calcium and Iron can't be taken together because the iron won't absorb. This is some complicated stuff.  And to make matters worse I am not allowed to swallow pills yet so the pills are either crushed or chewable and taste rather yucky.  I need to get down a better system to keep track of all these vitamins and when to take what. Just like the protein I hope to report back with good news soon.

Lastly I've had to get a shot of Lovenex each day. This is an anti-coagulant that works to prevent blot clots. I have to take this for 10 days. I'm 7 days in so I only have 3 more shots left. Michelle has been the one administering these shots and even though it's not the best part of my day she's done a good job. The shot doesn't hurt anymore than a normal shot but the medicine in the shot does burn and guess where the shot is injected-my stomach-as if that area needed anymore torture. Michelle was also responsible for removing my On Q pump. For those of you who may not remember, the hospital inserted a small catheter into my stomach to deliver pain medicine straight to the incision areas (pic of the catheter below). I had to carry this little ball with me where ever I went. Every time I stood up the ball came since it was attached to me-literally. Saturday we took the catheter out. Even though taking it out was pretty gross it didn't hurt. THANK GOD!!

So other than all that I've been a complete bum this last week. I've been either in my bed or on my couch watching TV or movies. The only down part has been that my body has grown quite tired of the laying. I can't seem to sleep in because my body will wake me up and say "hey get up". With the incisions on my stomach I can only sleep on my back, which I didn't think would be an issue since I always sleep on my back, but I guess the difference has been that I can't roll over and sleep on my side or stomach from time to time when I grow uncomfortable.

On a brighter note, I did leave the house twice this week-oooh make that three times. One of those times I did venture out to the movies to see Little Fockers.

So that has been my week 1 post op!!!  Tomorrow I will fill you in on my 1st doctor follow up and weight in!!!!

**Thank you for taking this journey with me!**