This has been a hell of a week.
I started the pre-op liquid diet on Tuesday morning. Day 1 wasn’t bad. The novelty of it all made it a challenge. I’ve done a day of this before and ended up with a migraine, so I was curious to see if I’d get one again. I didn’t!
If you’re thinking about having any kind of bariatric surgery, I can’t stress enough the importance of weening yourself off of all or most of your vices before you hit the liquid diet phase. I think it’s made all the difference in my experience. When I started the liquid diet, I had already quit diet soda, coffee, and fast food. As a result, I haven’t had any migraines or headaches. The only side effect in all of this has been a few dizzy spells due to low blood sugar (my nutritionist told me how to fix that) and some very snarly hunger pangs.
Days 2 and 3 were pretty awful. I had growly hunger most of the time. The protein shakes take some getting used to as well.
Day 4 wasn’t so bad. I was getting the hang of it, the shakes weren’t bothering me, and I was distracted by my excitement over getting to see “Catching Fire” on opening night.
Day 5, today, has been a real bitch. It’s Saturday. At work, I had my job to distract me. Here at home I have nothing to keep my mind off the fact that I can’t eat anything. It’s not even about my “vice foods” anymore, it’s just about not being able to eat at all. I know it’s just my mind and my situation, but every other damn commercial on tv is food related. Today has crawled by.
Finally this afternoon I made myself get up and go check the mail – and imagine how happy I was to see my November Birchbox in the mail. Yay! Something fun. I opened it up and came face to face with this:
Seriously, who’s got the HMP voodoo doll? F*ck a duck…
And here’s the best part: there’s a huge winter storm coming our way. We’re expecting sleet and ice. It’s a bad situation for the DFW area…the day before my surgery. Getting to my pre-op appointment is going to take some serious ingenuity…and here’s hoping the roads clear by Tuesday and my surgeon can get to the hospital. Seriously. I will kill someone with a plastic spoon if I have to be on this liquid diet one day longer than necessary.
I’ve known for a long time that I’m comforting myself and emotionally eating when I eat my “vice foods”, but what I never understood until now is that I have an emotional connection to just…eating. Maybe it’s normal for everyone to have an emotional connection to regular eating, but I never connected with it. I thought this would be hard because I wouldn’t be able to eat the bad things anymore, but what really makes it hard is not even being allowed to eat the healthy things I enjoy.
I feel like an enormous wuss for even writing this, but it’s how I’m feeling right now…and I promised to be honest. I’ve been near tears all day long – and while I think I’ll be able to put my head to my pillow tonight without actually shedding a tear, I feel like a walking talking open wound right now. It’s wearing on me today in a way that I didn’t expect…and the idea of spending most of tomorrow away from HMH isn’t making things easier for me.
All day long I’ve been praying for the moment when I can take an Ambien and make myself go to sleep. It’s that kind of a bad day.
Monday starts the clear liquid diet. That’s going to be absolute hell. I’ll get no nutrition from anything but sugar free jello and broth. And I hate all broth. I just went in the kitchen and made more to see if I’d changed my mind. Nope. Still a gag fest.
Tuesday will be no nutrition or water all day. Surgery right in the middle of that. When I get back to my room, there’s no water or ice chips waiting for me. I have to wait all night without even ice chips. The next morning I’ll go for a barrium swallow test, which will determine whether my new stomach has any leaks. If I pass the test, I get liquids again.
The rest of the week will be clear liquids, followed by the full liquid diet of protein shakes again. I won’t get to try real foods for a few more weeks. It’s getting to me.
I hope most of this has been coherent. I took an Ambien in the middle and I can see myself spelling badly. Please forgive.
I’m going to go zonk out now…positive thoughts and prayers are most welcome.
I love y’all.
I can’t imagine what you’re going through! But you’ve got such a great support team with you! And you can so kick this diets ass!! It’s going to be a small price to pay to gain so much more!! Good luck with it all, I can’t wait to see how it all turns out for you!
You’re such an inspiring woman! 🙂
You got this, I’m so proud of you and your progress and have enjoyed following you on this journey! Work on your needlepoint tomorrow, keep those hands busy- just picture the reward you are going to have in the end.
I think I turned the corner when I figured out that I eat to live, I do not live to eat. Not that I’ve totally conquered the emotional eating or the bored eating. I still do it occasionally. But, I have worked long and hard on my attitude toward food. I know that in time, you will conquer this. I see from your postings that you do see the surgery simply as a tool; it is not the magic bullet. I am looking forward to seeing how your journey progresses.
Dianne, we are proud of you, and we are pulling for you. There are a lot of people you have inspired, encouraged, and made us laugh, and please know there are a lot of prayers and positive thoughts coming your way. Any time we have a loss in our lives, there is a grieving process we go through — denial, anger, depression, bargaining, acceptance — and some stages are harder or more pronounced than others. This IS a loss — it’s the loss of the crutch of turning to food for emotional comfort, to cope with anger and depression, even for celebration. We know, we get it, we have been there and many of us are still there. This is why they do a psych eval before bariatric surgery, and obviously the doctor saw that you are strong enough to do this! Hang in there, girl, keep your eyes on the prize. =) If there are too many food commercials on your regular TV stations, maybe try HBO, Cartoon Network, National Geographic, Sci-fy, Animal Planet, PBS, or DVD’s, seems like those stations don’t focus on that so much…
You’re so close. This is going to be the hardest part. You can do it. Maybe put on some movies to keep yourself occupied while HMH is gone.
I wish I could send you some of my homemade broth. The can/box stuff honestly isn’t very good.
Keep up the good work! Just a little longer!
Woman, you can do this. And if you need to sob hysterically for a little bit, DO IT! Seriously. Cry it out. I also find yelling at the TV when they show food commercials is helpful. Another option is to watch a really gory show, like Bones, where they’re all DEAD BODIES WOOOOOO and then you”ll not want food.
You can do this!! You have set yourself on a journey that will take you to a great place and, well, nothing that’s really worth it comes easily.
Thinking of you all the way from London. That’s half a world of positive thoughts heading round to you. Xx
Good thoughts heading your way from Hawaii. I’ll be having (a different kind of) abdominal surgery in Dec. & have already decided that my clear liquid diet day is going to be mostly filled with coconut water. Any chance you like it & can get some?
you got this you are strong you an face anything hang in there your doing good, know if it was me i could not do it at all