I expected to have to wait a while and brought my drawing book, and then drew the IV several times.

I've drawn my IVs before, once when I had to get a CT-scan for my lungs (in the beginning of getting ill) and then when I had surgery and they had to give me a new one every two or three days because it kept clogging up.

I have an anecdote there: I got this medication that didn't help so much, so one of the nurses (bless her) switched me to something else, and that worked great. This after exclaiming:

But this stuff relaxes your stomach! You don't have that anymore, I will give you something else.

The stuff I got after that worked great. The next time they wanted to give me that other stuff again, but I and TG protested heavily and I got the other stuff again. They also turned down the epidural (took away one of the opiates) to help with the nausea.

It never went away completely.

Now that I've removed certain foods from my diet (wheat-products and milk) and have stopped taking the Plaquenil I have a lot less nausea. It hasn't gone away completely (yet), however, it has gone away a lot. Instead of mostly nauseous with some nausea-free hours, the reverse happens most of the time. I only have the last week or two to look at, so I won't yet do a little victory dance. It looks good, though, and that makes me happy.

The women also looked pretty good post-surgery. Just one tiny tube. Maybe I just got the wrong straw with those two tubes in my nose, one in my back, my arm and a catheter (woopie!). They could have shown more of course, but the show isn't about CDH1 and HDGC, so I guess this type of exposure is OK.

Most people don't even know you can (fairly easily) live without a stomach, maybe this will help. Just too bad they didn't explain dumping syndrome a bit more, as this usually becomes the most debilitating part of a TG. If you look it up it'll say 'nausea, vomiting, cramps, abdominal pain, diarrhea' for early dumping and 'sweating, fast heart-rate, weakness, feeling tired, or mental confusion' for late dumping. It sounds so very simply, but trust me, it's not your regular discomfort. Though these days I know how to handle it better, the late dumping wears me out. The past few days have not treated me well on that area, though the symptoms stay mild (I can still function, but I have pain, nausea, fast heart-rate, foggy head etc, which complicate things).
Because most people don't know anything about this, they'll do the wrong things like offer food or water (when I have dumping the smell, sight and even thought of food makes it much worse, plus I can't drink water and drinking will make it worse, as dumping comes from food passing through to fast). They'll think that because you can eat a larger portion one time, you're okay, or you can eat that much all the time. (No, I can't, larger portions that seem normal mean I have a rare good moment.)
They don't understand I cannot skip meals, I really have to eat 6-8 times per day (I go for 8, the manual says 6). Or that if things go wrong, they really go wrong and it takes the rest of the day to recover. If you know me personally, and you think it's all going well, remember that you only see me on my good days and even if I look bad or ill at the time, it is still a good day cause on the bad days I don't go out. And I still have more bad days (or mediocre days) than good days.

Having said that, things don't go too bad (I'm at home, not in the hospital on a feeding tube), I'm just still very much in my recovery phase. I struggle daily to get enough food inside to maintain my weight, never mention gaining some of those 60 pounds back (no, weight-loss is most definitely not a good thing). Most of the time I hate food and eating, due to the problems it brings. The meal/menu-planning may help, but not liking food does not make it easier to pick foods to eat for the rest of the week. I live alone, so I have to do all the cooking myself, and cooking itself sometimes brings on nausea. Getting ready to go somewhere (without known food) takes about 2 hours, cause it includes things like walking the dog, cooking food, preparing lunchbox with multiple options, fill thermos with tea & milk, pack meds and food and such into backpack. It takes longer because I can't rush. Can't eat when I rush. Can't easily grab a snack on the go, or rely on any random restaurant for food. I have to bring my own and that takes preparation and preparation takes energy, of which I don't have much to begin with. It's all about the spoons...

Due to a genetic mutation I have an extremely high risk to get (and die from) a particular nasty kind of stomach-cancer. To prevent the getting and dying part, I decided to have my stomach removed (a total gastroectomy).
Because this runs in the family I have seen what it can do to someone and what happens when the stomach gets removed. I've had five family-members before me, and two after me having the same procedure.

One can live without a stomach, it just takes time to adjust.

It has taken a bit more time than I expected, though, but I'll manage. Due to complications I had to stop taking my rheumatoid arthritis medication for a while, which caused it to flame up. I have started them again and now have to wait for things to calm down again, which takes a month or two.

Dealing with this consumes a lot of time (which I have plenty off) and energy (which unfortunately, I have very little off), and I try to still do fun stuff. My RA tends to flame up during winter so I suspect I have a bumpy ride ahead of me still.
During this time my fridge has started to act up, something I do not want as the lack of stomach acid also means I have far less protection against evil germs in food. Luckily I saw it as an opportunity to channel my creativity into designed a new area for my fridge and pantry (with drawers, yay!).

I have found ways to boost my energy a little, so I plan to do more fun stuff (and update my poor blog a bit more cough). I'll probably post random content, of anything that keeps me busy, and drawings where possible. The RA makes drawing uncomfortable and I don't want to see drawing as something painful, I have to limit it for now.

So, who has the stomach for some horror-surgery-stories?

I just couldn't help myself!