AlexMichelle wrote:Lee, any suggestions on what you consumed on the liquid diet and the low residue diet? Food is not all that important to me so I will have no problem at all following that. Would love to hear what you consumed the most on both diets. Also did you lose much weight during that time you were in the hospital? Do you remember how much you lost from prep day until you recovered? I can only afford to lose about five or six pounds without people starting to think that I look sick. I am already on the thin side. For the low residue diet that I am on right now, I'm drinking several Ensure Plus per day so that I will not lose weight. Would love some insight from you.
I have another question for anybody who wants to answer it. Isn't it embarrassing when you have visitors or your roommate has visitors and you start passing gas? How is that handled? It is certainly too bad that patients with this condition do not get to have their own room. I just cannot imagine going through this with other people in the room? Do I just have to get over it? Oh geeze.
I had toast and broth the day after surgery. Around 200 calories. The next day I had 400 calories. And then I experimented with more normal foods after that, about 1,000 calories per day. I was eight pounds lighter on the second day after surgery than the week before. So yes, I lost a decent amount of weight but I also expected to given the accounts of several others that recently went through this. I don't have data points from prep day until recovery or discharge. I'd like to know what I weigh right now as I suspect that I've lost some more weight since coming home. There are some foods that aren't processed by the small intestine and I can see the bits in the bag. So I'm not getting the nutritional value of some of the foods that I'm eating. It takes some time and experimentation to find out what works and what doesn't.
I put on twelve pounds on a vacation early October so I have it to lose. Some added weight was intentional but I didn't intend to put on that much. I have a lot of muscle mass and some decent fat mass and my body can eat some of that if needed. I think that packing on calories before the surgery (unless already overweight) is a good idea.
I have a bag and there's a charcoal filter on the gas outlet so there's no odor. The ventilation system in the hospital was so strong that odors weren't a problem in general. There's also a fair amount of noise in a hospital room. You have IV pumps clicking away, people pushing things in the corridor, equipment running out on the floor and you do have a curtain for separation. If you're worried about the sound of gas, you could just cover yourself with a blanket. I often did that because the rooms were on the chilly side. I also wore a pad. They provided mesh underwear after surgery (they must have put it on after surgery and before I woke up) and it had a pad in it so that will muffle any sound too. They also provided some thin, cloth underwear when I was in the room and they provided pads (quite big pads too).
My roommate was in his 80s so he's seen, heard and smelled it all. At some age, human functioning doesn't bother you. He was also hard of hearing.