Alright y’all, I’m sure that a question that has crossed your mind at this point is “if you don’t have a stomach, what do you eat and what restrictions do you have??”. Honestly that is the most common thing I am asked by people when they find out that I have no stomach AT ALL. I did not have a partial gastrectomy, I had a total gastrectomy, my esophagus is attached to my intestines. Everything I consume is not broken down by stomach acid, it breaks down inside my intestines. Which brings me to the first thing I want to talk about; eating without a stomach means you have to eat really slow. This has posed a lot of problems for me, before my surgery I was a pretty fast eater. I wouldn’t say I ate faster than an average person but eating lunch would take about ten minutes for me when I had a stomach, and now that I don’t have one it takes about thirty minutes. By chewing my food thoroughly and allowing it time to pass through my esophagus and start to move through my intestines WHILE I am eating prevents me from getting sick. Imagine my esophagus and intestines are a pipe, if I eat too much really fast the food will just build up on top of each other and it gets clogged. When this happens, food gets stuck in my esophagus, leading to me throwing it all up. So, the key it to eat very slow, it helps my intestines break down the food better and it also allows me to consume more food at one time.
Alright so the second thing I want to talk about is the amount of meals I am suppose to eat in a day. Obviously without a stomach I can’t eat much at one time, so rather than eating 3 meals I am supposed to eat 6 small meals a day. I admit I am very bad at keeping track and I tend to just snack throughout the day. I am a fan of pretzels, cashews, hummus, guacamole, crackers and for some reason I have been really into ham lately so I put ham on top of pretzels and eat that a lot. This is not everything I eat every single day but these are snacks I like to consistently keep in my house for the times that I realize I really need to eat something because I hadn’t for a few hours. Now you might be thinking “whoa you go hours without eating and don’t even realize it?”. YES. Before my stomach was removed, I read stories from people who had already had the surgery and I was really taken back by the fact that almost everyone said they don’t get hungry anymore. I wouldn’t say I never get hungry, sometimes I am hungry, but its pretty rare. If I don’t watch myself close enough, I can go all day without eating and not even notice. So, a huge change in my life has been becoming aware of everything I have eaten throughout the day, and making sure that I take out the time to eat even though I don’t have the urge to. One of the hardest adjustments for me is eating when I am not hungry at all, I absolutely hate forcing myself to eat but I have to. If I didn’t force myself to eat, I would probably be hospitalized for malnutrition.
It may seem like what I am suppose to eat is extremely regulated but in fact it’s not, doctors actually encourage me to try as many foods as possible to test how my body will react to it. Essentially, I can eat whatever I want at my own risk. Of course, there are some things I know to avoid, such as cake, fast food (even though I ate a cheeseburger yesterday and threw it up), ice cream, anything drenched in butter or oil, anything deep fried, etc. But sometimes I take the risk and eat those things anyways just to see what happens, the worst thing is I’ll throw it up. When I was about a month out of surgery, I wanted ice cream, after about two bites I knew that if I kept eating it, I would get very sick. My body sends me signs that something will affect me in a negative way. Right now, at this moment, I am drinking apple cider, and my body is telling me “don’t you dare take another sip”. In fact, I just had to take a break from writing this to throw some of it up, IT HAPPENS THAT FAST. And most of the time I get sick so fast that I have to literally run to the bathroom or throw up in the closest trash can, I don’t even know the amount of times I have thrown up in the street since my surgery (I can only imagine how drunk people must think I am), but hey, it happens and I cant control it. At first, I was super self-conscious about throwing up in public, but now I have the “if it happens it happens” mentality. Like I said, I can’t control it, sometimes I get sick after eating one bite of something and have to run to the bathroom in a restaurant. This is why I say “I can eat anything at my own risk”, because whenever I try to eat anything new, I’m always taking the chance of having a negative reaction to it. What’s weird is that I could have eaten or drank something multiple times, or even the day before, and I’ll randomly get sick from it. I have drank apple cider probably four times this past week, yet today I threw it up and I wasn’t able to handle it. Why? I have no idea. The doctors have no idea. This is part of my new life, especially this soon after my surgery. I am taking a risk every time I consume anything; I am always prepared for the possibility of throwing up, or in the worst case getting dumping syndrome.
Dumping syndrome is a WHOLE new world of hell. I’m not going to go into too much detail of how bad it can be, but considering it’s called “dumping syndrome” I bet you can figure out what it means. Mayo Clinic describes it as this “Also called rapid gastric emptying, dumping syndrome occurs when food, especially sugar, moves from your stomach into your small bowel too quickly.” I have been lucky enough to only experience this one time. I made the mistake of putting sweet cream into my coffee. It literally felt like I was dying, my heart was racing and I felt like I was unable to breathe. I am lucky to have only experienced it once because it is seriously horrible, it is the one thing that the doctors in the hospital MAKE you listen to while they warn you about it. If you are interested in what it is be my guest and google it. But the reason I wanted to talk about it is because dumping syndrome gets in the way of my blood sugar. So, I have to be careful with the amount of sugar I put in my body because too much could result in dumping syndrome. Yet, if I don’t eat anything with sugar my blood sugar will drop which causes me to get dizzy when standing and really tired. Sounds like a catch 22 right? IT IS. I mostly stick to drinks as my source of sugar, things like apple cider and tea or coffee provide me with enough sugar to keep my blood sugar at a good level. But will I ever be able to eat a piece of strawberry cake from my favorite bakery ever again? Probably not, I know the negative side effects that would come with eating something like that and the risk is not worth the few bites I would get before my body starts to turn against me. Lucky for me I was always a salt fan, rather than sweets, even when I did have a stomach. But I will admit I really miss sweet tea, especially since I live in the south.
Alright let’s talk about protein shakes. If you drink them for fun, I almost don’t believe you because most of them, I have found, to be gritty and bitter. I am not going to name brands but there was one my husband told me to try that was coffee flavored and it definitely was dairy based. Well, ever since my surgery I have had issues with dairy so that didn’t go over well, I threw it all up. It really bothers me that I have an issue with dairy because I LOVE cheerios, not the honey nut kind, just plain old cheerios. And now I can’t eat them without feeling sick afterwards, unless I want to eat them dry (but who would want to do that). I admit that I still eat cheerios pretty often, but I ALWAYS feel sick afterwards. Back to the topic of protein shakes, I tend to sway towards the fruit and veggie drinks that are high in protein, I don’t think they are classified as “protein shakes” but they do contain a lot of protein in them. I am still not going to name brands but you can find them next to the protein shakes in the grocery store. I don’t drink them daily because protein shakes are really only recommended for days that you aren’t able to eat much of anything, and I rarely go all day without eating, I tend to force myself to eat enough to where I don’t have to drink the protein shake. However, I do like to have them at my house so they are there when I don’t feel like eating breakfast, or I realize I skipped breakfast and lunch.
OK so I feel like I talked enough about what I can eat and drink, so now let’s get into what I am able to do. In short, I am able to do anything that my body can handle. A big part of this recovery is determined on you and how your specific body reacts to things. For me, I have a lot of issues being in the heat. If I am outside in the heat too long, I tend to get sick and extremely lightheaded. Since the weather is still really humid, and hot here in the south, it has been hard for me to do much of anything outside for prolong periods of time. This restricts me from going to local events that are held outside during the day, sports events that are held outside, or even just going to a city and walking around can be too much for me. I am hoping that next summer is different and I am able to do more but this year I really haven’t been able to do a lot because it simply is too hot outside. The one thing I found really soothing was the pool, swimming is not a problem for me. Unfortunately, summer is over and the pool is closing. I am hoping with the cooler weather I am able to do more outside, even if it is just going on walks. But with the temperature being 90 degrees plus humidity I haven’t been able to be outside for long. I also sometimes forget that anything is wrong with me and I’ll speed walk, I always walked a little faster than the average person before surgery. So, adjusting the speed that I walk has been a task for me, I constantly have to be reminded by my husband to slow down.
Obviously, the next question you may have could be “well why don’t you do things inside?”. Well I can but this is also restricted. I tried doing yoga once since I have been out of surgery, my abdomen simply can’t handle to be stretched like that yet. Yoga was pretty painful for me especially when I would twist sideways. I even experience pain when I sleep on my side still, so I usually sleep on my back (unless I roll over in the night while I’m unconscious). I also have tried working out on a treadmill, this went pretty well for me in the beginning. But as the recovery went on and I started to get weaker, and my weight started to drop, I lost a lot of my energy. Right now, I am focusing on getting healthy, and eating normally, so I am gaining the nutrients I need to get back into physical activities the way I want to.
It is really surprising for most people that I have as much freedom as I do following such a major surgery. Honestly, I am constantly surprised at the things I am able to do. But everything really is trial and error, it is all about getting out of my comfort zone and giving things a shot. It could go one of two ways, good or bad. And if it goes bad the nausea or pain will pass, it always does. Everyday is different, my body reacts differently every single day, and I think that is what makes this new life so hard to figure out. So much of it is unknown. I’m constantly wondering “will that make me sick?” and “would I be able to do something like that without experiencing discomfort?”. All I can do is try and see what happens.
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