Well, it's been a few weeks since I've posted, due to me being out of town, and then adjusting back to work... but here I am, almost 6 weeks since my surgery, and feeling way more normal than I did last time I posted. Not to say that I am not still having challenges, but I'm definitely well on my way to recovery.
About three weeks ago, my husband Dan and I headed up north to visit relatives. For this we flew. Now I have to give kudos to those of you who were sleeved (or banded, or had RNY) in Mexico, and flew home a few days after surgery, because my flight north was not a fun experience. My tiny tummy definitely did not like the changes in altitude. So, first lesson of my trip: Sit in an aisle seat on the plane. I did, in fact have an aisle seat, but even so, I still got to use my barf-bag on a plane for the first time ever! I never threw up, but I was doing a ton of spitting up into it, just praying for the fasten seat belts light to go out so I could run into the bathroom and upchuck my protein shake. Of course by the time that we were free to move about the cabin, I felt way better, and never actually had to vomit. Still, not my finest moment.
So, after a three hour flight, we arrived at my in-law's home where, while my husband's immediate family knew that I had just had surgery, his visiting cousins didn't. That made for some weird mealtimes... I actually sat in a separate room from everyone else during dinner, claiming it was too crowded in the main room. Fortunately, Dan's cousins are vegans, so they really weren't eating the same foods as the rest of us, so maybe didn't notice that neither was I...
I was on soft foods at this point, and had told my mother in-law that I could eat eggs... so she made me a quiche. Yeah, I threw that up into her hedge. It was a super-awkward time for me. Basically at this point, I hadn't really kept anything other than protein shakes down in days, so I was pretty much destined to vomit up almost anything else that I ate. Yet at the same time, I don't want to offend anyone, since they were going out of their way to make foods that I'd be able to eat. So, yeah, I took a lot of long walks around in Dan's parent's back yard, and in the woods behind my brother in-law's house while I was there.
Next, Dan, myself, and my in-laws made the four hour road trip to where my parents live. Second lesson I learned on my trip: Riding in the back seat of a car may cause motion sickness. Now, I'm not going to say that my in-laws are not good drivers... but riding in the back of their van for four hours was torture for me. I have literally never gotten carsick in my entire life, but there I was, fighting off waves of nausea. I again, had only had a protein shake in the morning before we left, and spent almost the entire trip spitting up into a water bottle. Finally, about 3 hours in, Dan asked me if it would help if we cracked a window. After about 10 minutes of fumbling around in the front seat to figure out how to turn off the child-protective locks on the windows, my window was opened about two inches. Those two inches felt like freedom to me. They felt like life pouring back into my lungs. I spent the rest of the trip with my nose stuck out the window like a dog... but I got there in one piece, and perhaps more importantly, with my protein shake still in my stomach!
So, we arrived in New York just in time for my mother's Memorial Day picnic. I think I've mentioned before that my family likes to eat. Here, it was a little different because everyone at the picnic knew that I'd had this surgery. Just nobody cared. Although my mom has had weight loss surgery, and knows what a soft diet looks like, I was presented with grilled chicken, pasta salad, watermelon, chips, buffalo chicken dip, and chocolate chip cookies. I ate about four bites of grilled chicken. I tried to wet it with BBQ sauce. I threw it up in my mother's bathroom. When I got back to the table, my mom said "Is your stomach empty now?" I lied and said no, just to not give her the satisfaction. I then ate about two bites of the pasta salad, which thankfully did stay down. When we left her house for my dad's, where we were staying, my mother presented me with a plastic baggy with three hard boiled eggs in it. "I thought you could eat these." "Uh, yeah. Why didn't you give them to me before I barfed up your chicken." (That's what I wanted to say. I didn't though.)
Now, while I preferred staying at my Dad's house because the bed is comfier, and I love his dog, this presented it's own challenges, in that he does not cook. Not unless you count hot dogs or toast. He literally eats out seven days a week. And he lives at least a half hour from anywhere. So we spent a lot of time in the car. Here's my next lesson for when you're traveling with your sleeve: Full tummy and riding in a car do not mix. The first day I spent with my dad, I literally threw up everything that I attempted to eat. Threw up my protein shake at the restaurant where he, Dan, and the in-laws were eating breakfast. Threw up the quiche that I ordered for lunch (in a super-fancy hotel, I might add). Threw up the two bites of a chicken dumpling I tried to eat for dinner in my dad's truck!
It did get better after Dan's parents went home to Massachusetts, and we picked up our rental car. Next Lesson: If you must ride in a car, better to be the driver. Not always a perfect solution, but it did cut back on the throwing up in the car episodes.
The problems that I had for the rest of the trip were mainly just from me trying to be accommodating to everyone else, instead of the other way around. So, my final lesson is this: If you can, try and eat what you know you can tolerate, and on your own schedule, not everyone else's. Not always easy to do, especially when you're a guest in someone else's home, but when I look back on the ten days that I spent traveling, I know I would have been a lot more comfortable if I'd just said "You know what, I need fifteen or twenty minutes to just sit here and digest before we can go anywhere." more often.
