4 days post-op

and I need to give myself a break. I expect too much of myself sometimes. I'm sitting here feeling kind of shitty because my stomach hurts. Well, no duh! Things were rearranged in there only 4 days ago girl! It's gonna hurt for a little while. Go easy on yourself. I just feel that if I don't give 100% then I'm not doing my part to contribute to our world here right now. I feel like I should be de-cluttering the living room table, watering the plants outside, emptying the dishwasher, starting laundry (a day early) - just doing something besides sitting here on my ass doing computer stuff. But my tummy does hurt today. I've taken my liquid Vicodin (yum) so it's hurting less than when I got up, but I feel the need to be productive.

I have only two new incisions on my belly. They're about 1-2" long. The doctor "reused" some of the incisions he made with the gallbladder surgery two weeks ago. None of the incisions hurt. It's just my guts inside. The upper part where my new pouch is and the lower part where the drain is. Oh yeah, that fucking drain. I'm sick of it already and I can't have it removed until next Thursday. I tell you, I'm going to do a little dance when they take that sucker out. It's draining fluid from around (in?) my intestines where the new connection was made. It drains yellow, red fluids into a tube that connects to a squeezy bag thing outside. The place where the drain tube is connected is sewn to my skin (barely) and it leaks. All day, every day. It's a pain in the ass. All my clothes get wet all the time with the "gut juice" and it's disgusting. I have to empty this drain 1-2x a day every day. Can you see how happy this makes me? Yeah right. I can't wear shorts because the drain makes a big bulge if I stuff it in there and the waistband of my shorts hits right at the incision site. Ok, I'm done bitching about that.

So far so good on not dumping. I don't mean bowel movements, those are fine. Dumping is when you eat something with sugar in it and your body reacts and not in a good way. You cramp up, are nauseated and in pain. Lasts about 30 minutes I hear. No thanks. I've been a really good label reader for things coming out of commercial products. I've mostly been eating things from the ground. Yesterday I made my first green smoothie of my new life. I put in 1/4 avocado, small handful of spinach and 1/2 persian cucumber and blended it to a smooth oblivion in my Magic Bullet. I added some water so that I could drink instead of eat it. It was delish and my tummy liked it, too.

I'm working on some good juices for tummy health right now. Any suggestions? What veggies to you put together for your upset tummy? I know cabbage is good. I've got some recipes from Cindy that I will try out this weekend. I just had to wait until the honeymoon period was over with the new pouch. I didn't want to freak it out right off the bat, you know? There are far too few stomachs in this world that haven't tried natural organic juices, but mine is not one of them, but still didn't want to rock the boat, you know? It's only been a few days for god's sake, Debbie! Give yourself a freakin' break!

I must learn to be kinder to myself. I expect so much more from myself than I do from any friend or family member. I already talked about this in a previous post, so I'm not even going to bore myself with it again. I promise to be nicer to ME this week.

My weight is doing ok. When I went in the hospital, I was 266, and when I came out I was 272. Damn fluids they pump in you. Last night when I weighed I was 267.4. Not bad for 4 days out, right?

No pictures, because you really don't want to see what I want to share.