Surg Blurbs, Vol. III, the Food Edition

Getting back to the hospitalization recap...

My whole hospital food drama went something like this:

1. Sometime on the first day, I finally get a clear liquids tray (after only being able to swab my mouth with cold water). Somehow I have the sense and awareness to check the included menu to see if my broth is vegetarian. It's not. I think I pick around what little I want to eat (not the broth, not the jello...), whining the whole time.
   
2. I'm pretty sure I eventually called a nurse to have my menu order changed to vegetarian, trying to emphasize exactly what kinda veg I am. Fortunately, she too is a veg, so terms like "lacto-ovo" and "pescatarian" aren't a completely foreign language to her.
3. The next tray is clear liquids veg. An improvement, but I'm getting pretty damn sick of seeing broth, clear juice, jello, and hard candy at every meal (we're working on over 3 days of this now), especially considering jello hasn't been in my repertoire since I was about 8 (gelatin = nasty).
4. I think it was breakfast of the third day that they upgrade me to full liquids, meaning I get to have cream of wheat and a milkshake for breakfast. I am in heaven.
5. Later that day, they give me a ton of meds--some by IV, some by mouth--all at once, on an empty stomach. A half hour later, I make the mistake of calling the nurses' station, complaining of nausea.
6. They knock me back down to clear liquids for dinner. Apparently they vegetarian diet order got lost in the shuffle. I am totally bitchcakes.
7. Fourth day, my surgeon comes in, talking about how they're going to send me home, maybe even with my surgical drain. I'm a little concerned that I haven't graduated to solid foods, much less full liquids, and I haven't gotten my "appliance orientation*" yet. He says that the nausea was probably due to all the meds, and gets me back on full liquids.
   
8. Surgeon comes back an hour later, rethinking the plan to send me home with a gross but totally manageable drain. He yanks several feet of surgical tubing out of my belly. Ow.
9. Lunch on the last day: grilled cheese and tomato soup. Ahh... (I'll leave out the gross powdered mashed potatoes).

*More on this later.