It’s been one week to the day that I had my gastric bypass. This time last week I was on a pre-op gourney waiting to get knocked out and operated on. I have lot’s of thoughts at this point, but I’m also sure as I move forward some of the thoughts I have on everything will further change and evolve. But I will give as much of an update here as I can.
Surgery wise I am recovering nicely. There never was any great pain at all. I only took my pain meds one time post-op and it was more to help me sleep comfortably than for the pain. Instead of pain my stomach just felt “weird.” I don’t know how to describe it. I guess it’s just an external feeling of what got “re-wired” inside. Each day it’s gotten better.
Perhaps the biggest change has been going from being starving and wishing I could eat, to being a bit freaked out by the fact that I don’t want to eat. I am not hitting the nutrition numbers my docs want, although I’ve been assured by online communities that this is normal in the early days. I’ve only felt mildly hungry one time in the last week, and 1/2 cup of cream soup completely stopped that. I’m getting about 10% of the calories I was getting this time a month ago. My numbers seem to be inching up each day, so that’s good.
I think part of that is still being careful because I don’t want to make myself sick. Either way, I am hopeful the numbers will continue to climb.
As far as NSVs (non scale victories), I noticed my knees and back have been hurting a lot less. There could be multiple explanations for this, from laying around a lot to not sitting at my work desk for 40+ hours. I am working from home this week so I will be sitting up more. We’ll see how that goes but I’m taking it as a victory for now compared to how they felt just a couple of weeks ago!
It hasn’t all been easy for sure. One of the biggest battles for those who have gone through this is the mental battle. A huge part of this is there is a such a mind game involved. A few nights ago I was frustrated with how little I was taking in. Then I started thinking about this being a massive lifelong change and how it will affect our day to day, as much as we like to eat out, etc. I started really regretting it for a while.
Thankfully my wife (who is a Registered Nurse) was there to reassure me that some of this was still the effects of anesthesia and that it was indeed a big change and it was perfectly normal to feel this way.
Lastly (but actually one of the biggest deals) is I’ve lost about 52 pounds, give or take, in this process. At this point, most of that was lost before surgery, but I’m not at all going to discount it. It’s a huge win! I honestly haven’t been this low in at least a year or two.
I think on this side of surgery it is settling in that this is going to be a long term battle. There are going to be victories and frustrations. It’s a long game and a lifetime change. I’m taking it one day at a time.