Back to the Grind

I can't believe that it has been a little over 2 weeks since my last post.  Christmas flew by and I am grateful for that. Family stress is not something that I need right now.

It is New Years Day and I am sitting here at the computer while my hubby naps.  I am super anxious about going back to work on Monday. I was fortunate to be able to take 6 weeks off post-op which bled into the holiday period that my employer is closed. I have not been to work in 8 weeks!

This transition has seemed easy at times but often feels overwhelming still.  I think about food and fluids much more than I ever did pre-op which chews up a lot of time (pardon the pun!). Also, the last few days have been wonky. I have had a few more stuck issues that induced vomiting (I am guessing from not chewing enough or taking bites that are too big.) I also am developing problems with certain types of foods but it seems that this varies by day. For example, I ate something for dinner on Monday and it was fine. I ate it again on Tuesday and it wouldn't go down. It is maddening sometimes that there is no rhyme or reason!

Also, my concern is growing over the quality of the aftercare that my surgical program is providing.  I feel as if they were all over me before surgery but since then, I've been dropped on my ass. I guess I must have more complex questions than most patients because of the amount of people that I talk to and research that I do but even so, they should be making more of an effort.

Some of the major issues have been:
1) Stage 5 (and final) diet is overwhelming. I was given a list of how many servings of each food group that I need to eat and examples of serving sizes.  However, when I asked what volume of food I should be eating at a sitting - the nutritionist had no answer! How can that be? I mean really...how biig is my stomach and how much food should I be putting in there are one time? How complicated is that?  She told me that "my body would tell me what was appropriate". All well and good until things get stretched out in there...
2) I was told nothing about the actual surgery except they would "make my stomach smaller and bypass part of my intestines". Well, that can mean all kinds of things...how much of my intestines is gone? How much was bypassed? What does that mean for absorption of medication and food?
3) I was told to take a number of vitamins and pills but was never told what needed to be spaced out or what type of schedule I should have with these. What a waste of time to find out that I was taking things too close together and therefore was getting no benefits? Not to mention the money that I was more or less flushing down the toilet.
4) Lastly, there seems to be no concern for helping me out with my anti-depressant post-op. I was told I couldn't take the long release tablets I was taking and that I needed to see the doctor to discuss it. I was told that the reason was because the pills didn't stay in my body long enough to be effective. When I did, he told me he had no experience with post bypass patients and potential problems with pill absorption. Unreal! I wasted time (waiting more than 2 weeks for the appointment and then the time spent in his office) not to mention an exorbitant co-pay for a useless appointment.

Look out medical staff...I am coming for ya! :) These questions need to be answered because I am the one that has to live in this altered body for the rest of my life. One of the things that the program taught me was to advocate for myself....don't know that they thought it would be so effective in terms of the service they were providing!