Hitting a low

I had spent the weekend in great and possibly misguided optimism.  The last two days in the hospital were relaxing, pleasant and painless.  I was fed, rested in bed, read, and walked around the gardens.  I was thinking of returning to work and traveling.  There was no indication anywhere for any negativity.

The exit interview, if that’s what it’s called, with one of the surgeons took my spirits down a notch already.  She shook her head in pity when I asked about working and gave me a two-week sick note.  Then she grounded me for six weeks.  No air travel until November.  On the subject of sutures, stitches and tape, she was more positive.  No need for questions.  You don’t need this anymore, she said, ripping everything off.  The stitches will dissolve in due time.

Before the doctor came, a nutritionist stopped by.  No banned food, nothing wrong with a glass of wine every now and then, but you need to get your weight back, she said and handed me a brochure about foods rich in energy and protein.  This looked fair enough, eat lots, eat rich, but I should have seen the warning lights.  What she was proposing was very far from my regular diet.

Today, I was suffering.  The first full day at home was hard.  Though my mom took care of me, I had to do more than at the hospital, and at night I played with the children when they came home.  I also went to work for three meetings, which probably wasn’t the smartest move.  But the worst was eating.

I spent all day eating.  Well, that’s what I should have done.  What I did was spent all day trying to eat, but after a big breakfast I couldn’t fit much more.  My colon is only half as long as it used to be, my gallbladder is gone, and I’ve just been brought back up to a normal diet over the past four days.  Now suddenly I’m expected to stuff myself with six meals a day, with cream and sugar and chocolate and snacks, snacks, snacks.

I was stuffed all day.  My stomach was full, my gut confused.  Where’s this coming from all of a sudden?  I need to gain a good 10 kg before starting chemo.  How do you gain 10 kg?  This sounds absurd.  I sat at the table looking askance at a half-full plate of pasta and cream sauce.  I lie in bed feeling sorry for myself.  Whatever I did, wherever I hid, my mom came with little bowls of more, chocolate-covered nuts, biscuits, dried fruits.  I should be healing and recovering.  Instead, I spent all day digesting hard at the limit of my abilities.  I’m a wreck, stuffed, bulging, immobile, dispirited.

After one day only, I already feel like giving up.  What’s the point in all this?  Do I really need to stuff my face with crap to get healthy?  This just doesn’t sound right.  And what about my stomach?  It led a happy life, I think.  Then it was starved over nearly four days and carefully nursed back to the living.  Now it’s being assaulted as it never has.  This cannot be right.

I’ll give it another chance tomorrow.  The reading on the bathroom scale was so low this morning that even I got scared a little.  I need to put on weight.  But I need to do it in a way that’s compatible with who I am.  My body cannot change engrained habits from one moment to the next, or get used to nutritional chaos.  Tomorrow I’ll go for walks and try to get some motion in my system.  That should help with digestion and also with my mood.  The food will follow.