Post Surgery Diet⟫ Liquids
Today has been a day of listening to my kids and realising that not only do they have their heads screwed on well, I can learn a lot from them.
Firstly, I didn’t go to sleep last night – don’t ask me why because I don’t have a decent answer. Instead I puttered about on my laptop, read, watched 1000 lbs Sisters. By the time the girls got up, I was in so much pain but couldn’t figure out why. Stripes proceeded to tear a strip off me for, in no particular order:
(a) scrabbling around trying to pick up my phone when it dropped to the floor;
(b) picking up and putting down two different laptops on various occasions, despite the fact that it meant leaning over the bed and making everything inside me swish around in a very unattractive fashion;
(c) seeming to utterly forget the fact that I had surgery two days ago and they removed two thirds of my stomach, which meant I just might be a little bit more fragile than normal;
(d) not sleeping despite the fact that I knew it would make things worse for myself, and generally acting like an immature twat who didn’t deserve to be out of the hospital.
Fair enough – nothing she said was wrong and I felt rightfully ashamed of myself. Not least because I can see how much she is trying to get everything right, fill in the gaps between the information we have from the hospital/surgery team and reality, keep me alive and breathing, whilst also being there for Book_grim. I need to do better – for myself, but also for her and everyone else who joined this insane journey without asking to.
Then, just before she went to bed, Book_grim asked me how I was doing and I admitted that I was in a lot of pain and not sure why I wasn’t coping. And she laid some wisdom on me that actually made me sit bolt upright beneath the cuddle we were having. Having surgery was a stepping stone to losing the weight – I know this – I have always known this. However, having surgery didn’t fix the arthritis in my knees, the sciatica, the fucked up discs in my back, the migraines, none of it. And I have been without my medication for all of those things since Wednesday. No medicinal cannabis to take the edge off of the knee pain and help me sleep; paracetamol and gabapentin to handle the pain from the surgery as well as all of the other pain I am normally in. And I realised that I was castigating myself for not doing enough when 1, like I said, two days post surgery and 2, I didn’t have my normal coping mechanisms. I can’t even have a proper cuddle with a cat in case they accidentally knock me or hit one of my incisions.
So I think I need to give myself a little leeway and accept that, yes for some people staying in hospital with readily available morphine might have been amazing, I do better at home. And the cost of that is handling the pain the best way that I can. That means, buying those extra pillows to use to bring my laptop up to a level I can use easily; sleeping regardless of what time of day or night it is because my body needs sleep; pushing myself to keep walking and getting the gas out of me whilst also honouring the fact that my body has been through a lot and we’re dealing with A LOT more pain that normal. So, yeah, we’re not superwoman.
Freaked me out that these two humans I remember lying next to whilst they farted in their nappies, shoved their soggy fingers into my mouth, cried and screamed at me (from childhood until at least 10) – they both provided me with a much needed wake up call. And I respect them both far too much not to listen.
I’m writing a book review for a book I’ve just finished, then once my first of the month bills have left my bank account, I’m putting in that order for the pillow, more protein water, cat food and some hair dye!
Book_grim did my nails on my right hand (we ran out of time for her to do the left hand!), and I spent a chunk of time playing with a spreadsheet that a lovely person on Reddit had created to log their weight loss, BMI changes, etc. It was a lot of fun, and I borrowed quite a few of their ideas but I realised I had a lot of similar data in my own spreadsheet so it was more tinkering than anything.
S sent me a gift to help me out when it comes to buying new clothes – it’s actually going to go on boring things like protein water, etc but it was a very nice gift. J has been sending me links to things that helped her get her protein goals in, and at present we have shopping baskets at Tesco, Asda and Sainsbury’s to see which one is going to work out the cheapest. I tried one of the Ufit chocolate shakes I bought, along with some skimmed milk powder and added water and I just couldn’t drink it. I don’t know if blitzing it in the blender pumped too much air into it, but we could all literally hear the noises my body was emitting when I was trying to drink it and we decided that I had time to try things like that when I was more used to things and my body wasn’t struggling as much. I also had a Marigold bouillon which, although I left it a little too long so it was tepid, was a very nice change from just protein water. Stripes even sieved it and was surprised by the sheer number of tiny carrot pieces that could have caused me issues.
Tomorrow I want to try some soup – cuppa soup or just watered down normal stuff, and I’m vaguely excited but trying to remind myself that I am in this for the long run and taking it slow isn’t a bad thing at all.
So a day where I learned a thing or two from my kids, reminded myself that I’m human and made it another day without falling over or busting open any incisions! Go me!
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