So here it is... pre-op diet day 7 and it has not gone well thus far. Turns out that I am missing an enzyme in my stomach which digests protein. My mother has known this since I was a week old but strangely, didn't think to share it with me any of the hundred times I was explaining the high protein pre-op diet. I have always steered away from the high protein foods thinking it a food preference, but the truth is I've not been paying attention to the fact those foods have made me hideously ill, and now I know why. So all the planning and effort of hunting out a non-soy, non-dairy, no sweetener shake was apparently a waste of time and money. On the up side, at least I have a friend who needs the non-everything shakes and tolerates them better than I. My cat also seemed quite interested in them so maybe I'll let him have a go.

So now I'm learning 100001 ways to grill an eggplant as I'm confined to veggies and the tiniest bit of meat for the whole three weeks. Well, at less than 1000 calories a day, I am losing weight... my attention span rivals a gnat and I'm probably right unpleasant to work with when I'm out in the field burning calories sloshing through mud, but my whole office has been warned to stay far, far away from me lest they risk dismemberment with a traffic cone, and they haven't run screaming yet so I'm probably good for another few days.

I do wonder what I did to piss off Karma because she made me work next door to the Nestle plant on day 2 of my diet, then further tried my patience by forcing me to leave the happy smells of chocolaty goodness and plopping me in a restaurant where I had to sit and watch everybody else around me enjoy their yummy thai for an hour before sending me back into the chocolate cloud and raining on me all afternoon. I think she owes me one.

Just remember that in the long run this will all pay off. The worst part for me was the pre-op diet, and it all got easier from that point forward. You'll do great and you'll be grateful for all the weight that you'll lose before your surgery.