One...Last...Day

So, let's give it up for protein shakes: they have single-handedly kept me from suffering the effects of malnutrition for the last 4 weeks + 2 days.

(/Golfclap)

Now that that's out of the way, let's have a chat about tomorrow, shall we?

I finally go in for my 2-week post-op exam tomorrow, the one that allows me to reintroduce "soft foods" into my diet. I quiver with antici-pation. (Either you get it, or you don't.)  I never in my life would have believed that I could be this excited about the theoretical concept of eating a scrambled egg.

Lor's recovery was a bit different - she really did not feel she had "arrived" until 4 weeks out from surgery, where she was able to return to a diet of normal foods. For her, a trip to Trader Joe's where she bought the next week's worth of real food was her finish line. (Of course, she is still working on eating that week's worth of food, 4 weeks later. Adjustment to new portion size comes slowly.)

Somehow, for me, tomorrow feels like it will be a major accomplishment. Maybe because my tastes are a little broader than Lor's, or maybe I am just more desperate than she was. She spent her two weeks of soft foods living on refried beans and frittatas. Those will also be a part of my diet, of course, but I am really looking forward to so many other soft foods:

• Mashed potatoes (not normally part of the bariatric diet, but perfectly legal for the next two weeks.)
• Creamy Peanut Butter (OMG, peanut butter, how I have missed you.)
• Soups and Chowders (Clam Chowder, here I come!)
• Canned seafood, like tuna and salmon. (Yum!) Even canned chicken is legal, though I have always thought canned chicken smells like cat food, so I am less excited about it.
• Vegetables and fruits, reduced to the consistency of applesauce. So, baby food, essentially. But I can totally get behind some mashed bananas and pureed nectarines. Pureed broccoli or asparagus - maybe not so much.
• And, the big one for me, soft cheeses. I will learn to eat cottage cheese, but I already love ricotta on just about anything. Protein boost + taste - what is not to like?

I am not sure if things like egg salad or guacamole are legal, but I will be asking about them tomorrow for sure.

The other BIG re-addition to the diet? Spices! I can start using mustards, mayonnaise, peppers, salt, cayenne, hot sauce...you get the picture. Finally, tasting my food will return to my life even if crunch isn't due for another couple of weeks. I am definitely at the point now where it doesn't even matter which protein shake I get out of the fridge - they all taste pretty much the same anymore.

Now, as to the protein shake diet around the surgery, I have to say this: it works. The day I began the liquid diet I weighed 261 pounds. Yesterday I weighed in at 241.

20 pounds in 4 weeks works out to losing 5 pounds a week. Those numbers are nothing to take lightly. So, despite my threats to eat the dog, and desire to gnaw my own arm off, it was worth it in the long run. Thank goodness. I would hate to have gone through this and gained weight.

The Dog Would Have Been Too Stringy Anyway,

- Hawkwind

Are We There Yet?

Image courtesy of NPR.

Now that the chaos and madness of the closing have passed, and Lor and I are officially home owners, we can return to the subject that really matters to me currently: food.

Specifically, the lack of it.

I am 8 days out from my vertical sleeve procedure, and I must admit that the "no chewing" thing is really getting old. I have been fortunate enough that I have not fallen into hating protein shakes, like many other bariatric patients do, but getting 100% of my nutrition in liquid form is really starting to wear on me. You know things are bad when you are feeding the dog and are speculating about the taste and consistency of her hard dog food.

See, that's the thing - I am not really hungry, per se. I am not craving food so much as I am craving texture. I want so badly to actually chew something, not just drink it. If I was given a handful of cucumber slices or almonds to chomp on currently I would think I had died and gone to heaven.

Following which I would probably end up in the Emergency Room of the closest hospital, of course. 8 days isn't enough time for your internal staple line to have healed up. I am not saying there isn't a reason for the "liquids-only" restriction. I am just saying that it is slowly driving me crazy.

I have started leaving the room whenever Lor eats her meals during the day - not because it bothers me to see her eat, but because the way I am staring intently at everything she puts in her mouth is making her uncomfortable. She is designing beautiful small meals filled with deli meats, cheeses, and fresh vegetables, and I am sitting there working on my 26th Muscle Milk shake in a row. (Believe me, I counted.) She cooked half a pound of bacon the other day and the smell filled the entire house. I almost ate a pillow to keep from crying in frustration.

But the real injustice of it all is this - Lor got to have her 2-week post-op appointment (the one where you "graduate" from shakes to soft foods) exactly 14 days after her surgery. Due to scheduling issues, mine will not be next Monday, as it should have been, but will instead be next Wednesday - 16 days after my surgery! I will be forced to spend 2 extra days sucking down protein shakes instead of moving on to semi-solid foods like scrambled eggs, refried beans, and Ricotta cheese. 

The injustice of it all is unbearable.

For those of you shaking your heads at me in amusement, go eat nothing but protein shakes for 22 days in a row. Then we'll talk.

If I See One More Sugar-Free Popsicle I May Scream,

- Hawkwind

Pre-op Prep

Day 4 of the liquid diet. I grow crankier and dumber by the minute, it seems. The weird thing is, I don't feel particularly upset at any given moment. But, whenever I am interacted with, my responses all seem to come out of the "annoyed" section of my vocabulary. Lor has been very tolerant, and has not cut my head off and buried me in the backyard.

Yet.

In the midst of this not-so-great emotional adjustment, I got to travel across town for my pre-operative appointment yesterday. This was a new experience for me - during Lor's pre-op appointment I was in a nutritional appointment, so I missed the whole thing. I imagined tons of highly technical information that I was going to completely misunderstand due to my current brain fog.

Luckily, the appointment was nothing more than a re-hash of all the experiences we just went through with Lor's surgery. On the day of the surgery, I will consult with the anesthesiologist and my surgeon. They will roll me back to a surgical suite and inject me with something that will put me to sleep. They will then inflate my abdomen like a beach ball so the surgeon has lots of room to work in. They will punch a hole in me to correct my hiatal hernia, then punch 5 more holes in me to perform to the removal of the "greater curvature of my stomach." I will then be returned to the hospital room to recover for 48 hours.

I was struck by how much the pre-surgical briefing minimizes the actual trauma they will be inflicting on you. True, they will not be slicing me open like a dissected frog in biology class. But they will still be leaving me with the equivalent of 5 shank wounds and a puncture from a belt knife. I have read many testimonials of people who say they were back at work immediately after their surgeries. Quite frankly, I don't understand how. Lor is only now getting back to where she can bend or flex at the abdomen comfortably, and she is 4 weeks out from her surgery as of yesterday.

Speaking of 4 weeks out, Lor got to have her 4-week post op appointment yesterday while I was having my pre-op appointment. (That is how closely we scheduled these surgeries.) She has been returned to the land of Those Who Can Eat Real Food. Her visit to Trader Joe's yesterday was a lot like a child being taken to a candy store. I have never seen someone so excited about the prospect of eating salmon, bananas, and kale chips.

After my 6 weeks without real food, I am sure I will have a whole different perspective on that too.

Ready To Have My Brain Turned Back On,

- Hawkwind

The Lights Are On, But No One Is Home

So, the first 24 hours of the liquid diet phase is over. I consumed 3 protein shakes, 2 sugar-free popsicles, 1 greek yogurt and 80+ ounces of water - while only occasionally staring longingly into the refrigerator at things I could chew. I got a little cranky towards the end of the day, but I suppose this is to be expected on a day where you only ingest 725 calories all day. (I did manage 93 grams of protein, so yay Muscle Milk shakes!)

But the really weird part occurred right around 3:30 yesterday afternoon. We were sitting in the office of a title company, working on scheduling the closing on our home, when I very distinctly felt my brain shut off. It is hard to describe it otherwise - one moment I was looking over the paperwork, the next I was unable to focus on anything, reading the same line over and over. I am real familiar with this condition - this is how postictal state feels: that is, the period of time after a seizure. But there had been no seizure to accompany it.

I struggled through the next half an hour - forgetting my email address, filling out paperwork incorrectly, trying to remember how to sign my name, for goodness sake. I smiled a lot to make up for it, and we exited the office.

I mentioned it to Lor cautiously, fearing this might be some weird interaction between the severe caloric restriction and my epilepsy. She just nodded her head. "Yeah, that's what happens when you are on the liquid diet. You come down with brain fog."

Wait...she felt like this for 4 weeks?

Yes, it turns out that, for Lor at least, the 4 weeks of liquid diet were accompanied by serious mental confusion and inability to focus. She spent the whole first week like this, recovered for week 2, and then the surgery tipped her right back over the edge into "brain fog". She is only now really getting her mental legs back under her. 

If everyone feels like this while they are going through this process, no wonder they are in a bad mood! Being unable to think straight for a month would drive anyone crazy. We were told to expect fatigue, not mental confusion, during this process - which makes me wonder how many people are just going to bed rather than trying to think.

For maybe the first time in my life, I can be grateful for my experience with epilepsy. I have over a decade of experience in getting through life with my brain functioning at "a sub-optimal level" (as a neurologist would put it.) But it is a very strange sensation - normally I just sort of sit quietly somewhere while post-ictal and wait for the lights to turn back on. Here I am having to push through, not expecting to get back to normal...until August sometime.

Thank goodness I am a writer and am used to sitting around and staring at a blank page, waiting for the next idea to arrive. Can't imagine how this would work if I was an airline pilot. Or a brain surgeon.

1 Hour & 30 Minutes - Longest Time To Write A Blog Post Ever,

- Hawkwind

Wheels Up

Well, it is official. I've been through the classes, I've done the 3+ months of reduced carb diet, I've even received the letter from my insurance company telling me that I am approved. Only one thing left to do before surgery.

Today, the liquid diet phase begins.

For those who have joined us recently, the liquid diet phase means this: every "meal" I have, for the next two weeks, is a protein shake. To break up the monotony, I also get to have a few snacks every day: one cup of yogurt, up to 4 sugar-free popsicles a day, and/or all the broth I want. I also need to be ingesting at least 64 ounces of water a day, but I am an old pro at that by now - I've been doing it since March or so.

We have some very recent experience with this liquid diet thing - Lor did it just about 6 weeks ago. It is not pleasant - she was constantly craving the ability to chew anything. Plus, the adjustment of one's body to the reduced calorie load has a bit of a negative emotional side effect.

In other words, I can expect to be cranky as heck for about the first week of my 4 weeks on nothing but liquids.

The results are pretty profound, though. From the point where Lor started the liquid diet to where she exited the hospital, a period of 3 weeks, she dropped a total of 13 pounds - a little over 4 pounds a week. 

I've now been at this for 25 weeks, since I started the pre-surgery diet early, at the same time Lor did. I've managed to lose 41 pounds in that time, averaging about 1.5 pounds a week. Our surgical team constantly tells us not to compare weight loss numbers, but I am going to anyway - If I am down another 13 pounds at my post-surgical weekly weigh in, 3 weeks from today, I will have lost 54 pounds total.

I will be below 250 pounds for the first time since 2004.

When I weighed around 250, I looked something like this:

2002 - Somewhere between 240 and 250 pounds.

Yeah, I'll take that. 

Protein Shakes, here I come.

Wishing There Were More Interesting Flavors,

- Hawkwind