Surgery Posting, Part 6

Surgery Posting, Part 1
Surgery Posting, Part 2
Surgery Posting, Part 3
Surgery Posting, Part 4
Surgery Posting, Part 5
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Monday
I woke up in the morning and began to pack my things. My grandparents were supposed to come by around noon to pick me up and take me to their house for a week. We figured it would be best to have someone at my disposal that first week since I had no real idea of what to expect from a recovery standpoint. I have never been in a hospital, well, except when I was born, so I really have no idea how things will be. Now I had heard of people who had this surgery vomiting for days or experiencing nausea and the dumping right away and being just miserable. Up until this point, I hadn’t any problems. While I was packing, I had my first wave of nausea, followed by a hotflash and the urge to puke. I never really did puke, I had dry heaves, so it is about the same thing, just nothing comes out. That lasted about ten minutes or so and then I was fine. I started to drink some liquids and began to feel better, so I resumed packing. I realize at this point, that while dry heaving sucks as much as puking as far as the feeling goes since you go through the motions, I am not connected to my full stomach anymore and thus, the acid factor is gone! No taste, no smell! This is a good side effect of surgery, let me tell you!! =)
I still had to see the dietician before leaving and the resident was supposed to come by one last time. I got all my discharge instructions for caring for my incisions and who to call if any complications arise. I was told ahead of time I would need vitamins after surgery, however, noone mentioned they needed to be chewable those first 12 weeks, so I still needed to pick those up along with some prescriptions for pain medicine and acid reflux. After my dry heaves experience that morning, I decided I had better ask for a puke bucket to have in the car just in case, so the nurse had to go find one for me. Also had to get a stash of the little one ounce cuppies that I was to measure my food in. Was not supposed to use a scale or anything else to measure, only the cuppies. So, Grama and Grampa Gardner arrive and we loaded me into a wheelchair(dang hospital policy) and they carried my stuff and we went out to the car to get the heck out of dodge! FREEDOM!!
First place we head is to my house. I needed to drop off all the hospital paraphernalia and then repack the things I was going to need for the week of staying with my grandparents, we sort of made that decision in the hospital, so was not prepared ahead of time. So we dropped off a bunch of stuff and went out with some more! =) Us girls, you know how we pack!
After that, we went to Walmart to pick up the vitamins and meds that I needed, and then we were on our way. It is about a three hour drive to my grandparents home in Wisconsin, and I slept part of the way.
By the time we got home, I was pretty tired, but glad to not be in the hospital. I napped for awhile before resuming my eating and drinking 2.5 hour rotation. For the rest of the week, this cycle continued. It turns out I was mostly able to care for myself, I was tired all the time and took frequent naps, but I had to be careful of my schedule. At this point I was eating every 2.5 hours and drinking in-between meals since I can’t eat and drink at the same time. I had pre-purchased a stash of baby food consisting of fruits and veggies, definitely not the meat, although I did buy a few “dinners” like mac ‘n cheese and chicken and rice thinking those couldn’t be that bad. Well, needless to say, baby food is baby food for a reason. Babies don’t know any better, so of course it tastes good to them. ME on the other hand, I am a salt-a-holic, self-confessed, it runs in my family. I tried to add salt or sugar, depending on the item, there was no amount that could make it edible. So I ditch the baby food plan(suggested by the diet booklet) and decide to give it all to Jess, he just started on baby food, he’ll enjoy it. So my next task was to find food I could tolerate. Not so easy when you can’t have Splenda(sucralose). Splenda has pretty much replaced aspartame as the main sugar additive for sugar free or lite products of almost all companies. So, I am at Walmart scouring labels trying to find food that I can have that doesn’t contain Splenda. I was there for nearly two hours! I ended up buying yogurt that had sugar in it, I just found the one kind that had less than the others. I bought applesauce without sugar, I am okay with this flavor, so that was alright. I bought Malt O Meal, which I have a childhood aversion too, but since it was something I could semi-tolerate, I did it. I bought a box of Sweet ‘n Low. I bought tea bags, decaf, as directed. I bought frozen fruit to puree into a smoothie. And I bought a box of instant potatoes, so I could make those in bigger batches and eat as needed. I bought chicken broth. I bought split peas, I like pea soup, so we made a batch, it has a protein content, so yay! I bought cottage cheese, which once blended, tastes similar to sour cream, so by adding a little Lawry’s seasoning salt, tasted good. It also had a protein content, so since I wasn’t eating meat, it was a good way to try and get it. My Grama made pot roast one night and it had potatoes and carrots in it, so I mashed them up and enjoyed that for a few meals. The taste of the meat in the veggies made me hungry for the roast, but the flavoring of it at least helped. I bought orange sherbert. I bought sugar free jello and pudding, oddly enough, the grocery store version has aspartame and not Splenda, so I have no idea if the hospital had it wrong or what. I rotated my diet amongst these foods over the week. I did wake up nauseated every morning that first week, I had to eat something immediately upon waking or I’d have the dry heaves problem. Most of the time it worked. I had a few sessions in the afternoon too, no apparent reason, just the trauma of what happened I think.