Milestone: Visiting the Surgeon

I just had an appointment today with the surgeon. I think this is the first I've seen him since operating on me; my wife saw him right after the surgery, but I don't recall seeing him until now. I have seen others, though, so I don't feel neglected or anything like that. When you trust someone with touching your organs and rearranging them I supposed you sort of get accustomed to the idea of letting them handle your care afterwards without too much question.

I think the appointment went fairly well. He wanted to follow up with me in a couple weeks. Bullet points:

• Stop using the protein supplement in water.
• Weight loss is expected to be 20 to 25 pounds a month on average, but it's a curve that gradually levels out.
• Meals should be dixie cup sized. More you eat, less you end up losing.
• Showers only still. He's monitoring the incision healing and said showing is sufficient...I'm going to look forward to a bath and being able to get into a pool, even if I'm still covered up anyway.
  

I had a few other bits of info but they're not of much use to people on the webbertubes unless you are in the immediate area needing support group information. I am off restriction (it's been about six weeks) from lifting things, but taking it easy still since there are times where yes, it does hurt, and even sneezing or yelling at the dog (AAAARGH!) causes me to feel as if something is tugging or ripping in my gut, presumably because it is indeed still healing.

I asked about how easy it is to stretch the stomach. He said that it wasn't too hard. To paraphrase, "If you eat until you feel full, then take a few more bites, that's okay at first. You eat until you feel discomfort, take another bite or two, then continue doing that...next day, day after...soon you'll find you can take four bites more instead of two. You're stretching the stomach. The stomach will get larger later on, that's okay. But not now. First you need to lower your weight, then level it out."

I still worry about it since I'm trying to learn what "full" feels like. I'm experimenting and figuring out portions and whatnot. I take some solace in the fact that I'm pretty sure I'm eating far less than I did before the surgery and not feeling bad about it. I just wish there were clear signs, like some flashing window on a heads up display telling me the fuel tank's full, time to stop!!

Okay. So right now my guideline is to avoid discomfort. If the discomfort feeling hits, I'm eating too much, back off.

Oh, and the weight rocking. He explained that for many patients it's not a smooth curve down. It's a series of steps. They're not sure why the body does what it does, but it seems to level out for a bit, then fall...level out, then fall....level out, then fall. So I'm on a slinky trend now. As long as I'm in the guidelines of 20 to 25 pounds a month for awhile I guess I'm doing well.

He seemed to think all was in normal ranges for my situation. Yay, me! As the other doctor has said of me...I'm just worrying too much.