It is now day five including the day of my surgery. I have done extremely well in my opinion. I have been up and down, taken showers, stuck to my clear liquid diet, drank more protein with each successive day, visited with friends, trolled Facebook, helped my mom with the dogs, started doing stuff myself instead of asking my mom to make my broth for me or fix my tea and protein. I really think my recovery has gone as well as I have hoped!
But it's not all unicorns and rainbows either.
I am not one of those lucky people who ceased to crave their favorite foods once I had the surgery. Of course while I was in the hospital and the day after discharge I didn't really want to do anything but have regular pain medicine and sleep. But now that I am getting back to normal life, I am definitely craving solid food. ESPECIALLY my favorite foods like macaroni and cheese, boneless buffalo wings, steak, hamburger, pizza ......even the smell of it is getting to be overwhelming. I just want to have the world's biggest steak all to myself.
But I know that I don't need that; I didn't before my surgery and I definitely don't need it now. So many people think that surgeries like this are an instant fix. I wish it were. But also like so many people, even before having my surgery, I knew that I was addicted to food. If I get hungry I get cranky, I get headaches, I get nauseated. That is happening some now, but mostly the crankiness; I thankfully have not experienced too much of the nausea or headaches.
I would say today has probably been the worst for me as far as hunger cravings. Which is also a good sign that I am healing well probably. I think it is partly because I am already tired of the liquid diet, but also I am tired of protein drinks with a sweet taste. I haven't been able to find any unflavored protein yet; I would mix this with my chicken or beef broths. As funny as it seems I am actually a person who prefers salty foods more than sweet foods. Don't get me wrong, I love my share of sweet foods. But I like the salty foods more.
Also, I think I have been confused as to whether I was just experiencing pain or if I was hungry. I have tried to take less and less of my pain medicine, and have been successful. But since I both drank some protein shots and finally had my pain medicine today, I am not feeling so ravenous.
I have also been trying to distract myself by using this time planning future methods of meal preparation. One of the most important things I plan to do is buy some Bento boxes. These are a Japanese type of product, basically they are compartmentalized food containers. I have been looking at the Gerber brand and the Hello Kitty brand (my favorite! )
Gerber food organizer
I would also like to have this set of small silverware, Hello Kitty brand
The reason I would like to have these things is to help limit my food intake. I should never need to eat more servings than is found in a kids dinner at a restaurant. Also, this helps make things a little more fun for me. The silverware should be child size, and as I will be needing to cut my food into pea size portions it will be a relative size. Smaller silverware will also help to prevent me eating a huge heaping mouthful at one time, and will slow me down. I am hoping that this combination will prevent me from stretching my stomach and also prevent me from causing pain to myself.
As far as actual food goes, I have decided to try doing lettuce wraps more than grain wraps. I have had lettuce wraps before and I really like them. As far as switching to non-fat foods. That is really going to get me. I cannot STAND skim milk or low fat cheeses and dairy products. I honestly don't feel like it is worth eating if it is low fat, it just tastes horrible. So I am going to have to limit my intake of that sort of thing I guess.
But, I hopefully will get better ideas about making my food tasty yet low fat. I have in the last year discovered that I love both avocado and hummus....I think that will help me a lot.
Here's an inspiring story for us all, to remind us than no matter how hard life is, we can turn it around.
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