The radio silence has been due to my having surgery last week and being in recovery mode since. The short version of this article is as follows: surgery is never fun, it’s weird not feeling hungry, and life is good. If you want the details, keep reading. Otherwise, have an excellent day, see you next time.

The surgery went very well. I have a history of having severe nausea after anesthesia, and considering it’s the #1 post-op complaint about bariatric surgery, I was a bit worried. But my anesthesiologist gave me a drug beforehand, plus a scopolamine (motion sickness) patch, and gave me IV Zofran during the procedure. Whatever she knocked me out with caused me to lose a chunk of time, I don’t even recall being moved from the pre-op area to the surgical suite, nor being in post-op recovery at all. I had absolutely zero nausea. I had filled a couple of prescriptions for dealing with it at home but haven’t opened them up at all.

My post-operative pain was there, but it wasn’t even comparable with the pain after my knee reconstruction. It was enough I couldn’t ignore it and limited some movement, but it wasn’t unbearable. Which is good, because I found out that Dilaudid doesn’t do jack for me. If the pain had been much worse, I’d have asked to try morphine instead, but it was already lessening by Day 2. Tramadol took the edge off, so I didn’t ask for Norco. Went home Day 2 and by Day 3 my unmedicated arthritis hurt worse than my stomach. At this point, it’s slighty sore when I move certain ways, and that’s it.

Recovering from surgery means a lot of sleeping and laying around doing nothing. Since my arthritis is flared up, I can’t really do any knitting or crafting that I would like to when forced to rest for hours on end, so I’ve been watching a lot of Netflix. And drinking. Water, I mean. Well, and the protein shakes. My instructions are to drink at least 48 oz of fluids and get about 60 grams of protein in, with more being better and fluids being a higher priority than the protein at least to start. I didn’t meet the fluid goal until Day 5, and still haven’t met the protein goal, but I’ve been improving every day.

When researching the surgery, almost everyone I talked to said that their appetite completely went away after the surgery, and they had to remind themselves to eat. While I really hoped that it would happen for me as well (and worried that it wouldn’t) it’s been a huge adjustment. I’m really not hungry. My stomach can be empty, and I know I’m physically hungry, but I just don’t feel hungry or interested in food. It’s not quite a food aversion (though I am getting hellishly sick of protein shakes) but just a general disinterest. I’m using timers on my phone to remind me to drink and eat because I’ll get involved in something and just not think about it.

I had arranged to work from home this week because of the surgery, and it was a good call. Today is probably the first day I think I could manage the office if I had to. My department has started offering part time work from home, and my days are Tuesday and Thursday, which breaks the week up well. I was on the fence about it, but after this week I will definitely take advantage of it.

I’m already down about 13 lbs from my weight on the surgery day, so that’s awesome. Of course, the journey is just beginning, but I think I’m off to a great start.