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
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