Exactly two weeks ago I had roughly 80 percent of my stomach removed.
It already feels like much longer ago then that.
Pain from the surgery itself was most severe when I woke up in the recovery room.
My procedure was done laparoscopically so instead of one large incision there was five smallish holes.
The pain at first comes mostly from the pressure in your stomach built up from the CO2 they pump into your stomach to inflate it and give the doctor room to work inside. I can only describe it as feeling like you have been punched in the stomach from the inside. A very dull throbbing pain.
Morphine is pretty great, and every four hours it visits and makes everything better.
I slept well that night despite the procedure. My body needed a nap.
The following morning in the hospital i was pretty stunned how good I felt. No direct pain from the incisions and the gas pain seemed less acute. This was all good because just about every hour I was asked to get up and walk around by the nurses and to my surprise it was pretty easy.
What wasn’t easy was consuming the amount of water I was supposed too, 1 ounce every 15 mins 4 times an hour. I just wasn’t thirsty.
My biggest concern with the surgery was that I was going to feel hungry once the pain wore off. By the time I was leaving the hospital barely 24 hours after having the majority of a major organ removed hunger was the last thing on my mind.
And guess what… here today two weeks later…. My mind thinks about food.. my body says meh.
I can only describe it as this. For a fat person or a “foodie” we sometimes know a great meal is coming in the next day or two at a great restaurant or a family dinner where you know the food will be good. So even though we aren’t remotely hungry at the time we will be thinking…. dreaming… about that future great meal.
The first two weeks as long as i mentally kept reminding myself there was no great future meal coming… I tolerated only being able to drink liquids relatively well.
I think I only had one actual dream about eating pizza. But the rest of the time I had to keep reminding myself to drink my foodless broth.
The first two weeks - Clear Fluids only
Saturday I started being able to eat mushy “foods”. So far Lentil soup ( pureed) yogurt, cottage cheese, avocado, and eggs. Vitamin supplementation has also began.. though less exciting.
Few if any living person knows how much I started weighing before I got fed up and decided to go ahead with the surgery.
I have always been a big guy… but I had gone from being a “big guy” to someone I was embarrassed to be. The great challenge about being a big guy at 6 foot 3 inches is that its especially easy to hide weight. Sure bigger bones and larger musculature from when I actually was in shape was there and that helped disguise the fact that my weight had kept going up well after I was an athlete.
To give you a rough idea I’ll show you the progression of how my weight went from “You could play for the Eagles”… to you could die before you turn 50.
High School Age 18 - 280 pounds
College Age 21- 290 pounds
Post College Age 26 - 310 pounds
Professional life Age 29 - 350 pounds
Early Middle Age and my heaviest Age 34- 414 pounds
Even typing that number doesn’t seem real…
414 pounds to me seemed to me at one time to be the weight you hit when you were cut out of your house! And here I was walking around.
Sure I had tried diets… lost here and there but always gained it back. The final plunge to 414 I can honestly say happened so quickly I didn’t even think to diet before I said “Holy Shit where are we going here with this?”
So where do we stand today?
In 14 days I have lost 34.8 pounds. I can feel it in parts of my body and clothes are already are starting to feel lose. Starting mushy foods hasn’t slowed the weight lose down like i had feared it would . I’m only allowed to eat 4oz at a time and I feel full usually by 3 oz. Amazing. Overall I feel good, with one large exception which I’ll describe in its own post later tonight.
For now. Things are good*
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