Month: February 2020

Well, I did wake up and watch cricket at 3am. That was OK. But I’ve been even more zonked than usual today – napped after breakfast. Walked the dog, had lunch, then instead of lifting as I’d planned, dozed off again. I figured there’s no hurry, another day won’t hurt and clearly my body still needs lots of rest to heal.

Ate a few different foods today – french toast for lunch, a hot cross bun at afternoon tea, and I finally got the nerve to cook a hot apple pie for dessert. None of them caused major issues in terms of throat pain or irritation, so like I said to the wife it’s just a matter of trying things. I probably still wouldn’t eat salt and vinegar chips right now but a few more foods are back on the menu.

Pain wise today’s been good. Was sore when I woke up, but after hydrating and showering it improved a lot. Eating is more uncomfortable than painful now; I’m probably getting more pain in my ears than my throat. Still getting some minor bleeding as bits of scab fall off though.

I’m going to attempt to sleep in my own bed tonight for the first time since the operation. Hopefully my wife can deal with the snoring. Also, hopefully I sleep better and feel more refreshed tomorrow because I have plans to run some errands and do some light lifting just to get back into the swing of things.

Here’s to a good day tomorrow.

Obligatory yukky progress photo:

Still here.

Slept part of the night horizontal for the first time since hospital. It was on the couch, but the wife heard me snoring from a couple of rooms away and I woke up with a crazy sore throat (as usual). Probably won’t do that again tonight, but there’s a cricket match at an ungodly hour so I’ll try to keep myself amused with that.

Could only manage a smoothie for breakfast, and generally feel like I underate even more than usual today – eating is still just a battle, generally. But I’ve gotta say, it’s 10 pm as I write this and today has clearly been the easiest day so far in terms of throat pain. I’ve probably felt more phlegmy than usual and have had more radiated pain in my ears than previously. But if it improves again tomorrow, I’m thinking I might be able to get into the gym and do a few light sets to get the blood flowing a bit.

That’s about it really – nothing noteworthy really happened. I did do some work from home, and emailed my boss an update on how things are going. I’m supposed to be back at work on Monday, but don’t want to go if I’m still unable to eat or talk normally. Also, I feel like this has taken more out of me than expected – I need a nap every time I take the dog for a walk! Right now I feel like I’m an 80% chance of being back on time, but thankfully they are flexible – I can do plenty from here if needed, so if I need extra time I’ll take it.

So my last post might’ve sounded like it was all rainbows and butterflies but now it’s 9 days post-surgery and my perspective has changed a bit.

The main challenge (and the one I was expecting) was the direct consequences of the surgery – I’ve been in constant pain, was off my head on opioids for the first week, struggling to get any quality sleep, and as a result of the throat pain I’ve had to modify my diet significantly and eat mainly soft foods. None of this was really unexpected, although I probably underestimated the extent and the duration of impact. It’s been a challenging ten days or so for sure, and it’s not finished yet.

There’s a secondary problem though. Eating/swallowing genuinely hurts – so it’s been a struggle to force meals down. I’ve actually burst into tears a couple of times during dinner (soup!) if that gives any indication. So I have a genuine physiological reason for undereating right now. But while I’m not really having any difficulty eating zooper doopers or custard or ice cream from a mental standpoint, I still am finding myself having fairly small serves and stopping a long way from the point of satisfaction. Sometimes it’s because I am just sick of my throat hurting, but there have definitely been times when it’s from a fear of eating ‘too much’ -because I’m far less active than usual (and not lifting) and secretly hope to drop fat during this period, and also the (maybe legitimate) fear that if I overeat and make myself sick that would probably be disastrous for the stitches in my throat…

But restriction is restriction. I actually felt woozy and weak this afternoon after walking the dog, as if I’d been dieting for weeks. I managed to eat a tiny bit of ice cream and have a nap but still feel like it wasn’t enough.

This really does suck and I can’t wait to be able to eat normally again. It’s just too much for my poor brain to deal with right now.

Another night on the couch – two decent snatches of sleep (a few hours each) broken by waking up in agony that Panadol and Zooper Doopers barely make a dent in. I’ve also had a bit of a stomachache all day, I think continuing to take the laxatives even after stopping the opiates might’ve been a bad idea. Will leave them out tomorrow and see if things improve.

Aside from that, it’s been a pretty unremarkable day. Walked the dog twice, did lots of Netflixing, and tried to keep the throat pain at bay. It was mostly manageable – down to maybe 3 or 4 out of 10 – but mealtimes still suck donkeys balls and jump back to 6 or 7. Ate pretty light, but forced down some soup, ice cream and custard for dinner tonight. Was pleasantly surprised that swallowing some Panadol an hour or so later didn’t take a whole lot of effort.

My voice still feels pretty weak and I don’t want to talk loudly or for long periods, it hurts and I get hoarse very fast.

Today was Tuesday – I’ve got aspirations of getting into the gym for some very light lifting most likely on Thursday, and possibly going back to sleeping in bed that night too. Fingers crossed.

Wow. A week since the operation already! I must admit, before this all started I thought I’d be feeling better than I am at this point. But you just gotta roll with it.

Today started out shittily. I didn’t sleep well, and I’m pretty sure that my throat was bleeding most of the night because I woke up with a sore throat and a stomachache, presumably from swallowing blood. Took Targen but no Endone, and phoned the hospital – the nurse I spoke to suggested I go to a GP for assessment or otherwise, if I felt like it was really necessary, to head into A&E, where they could check it out and their ENT might be able to cauterise it if needed.

The thought of getting more anaesthesia and cauterisation really didn’t appeal, and I didn’t think the bleeding was profuse enough to be be immediately life threatening, so I sat on the couch all morning procrastinating over whether to go into hospital or not and googling for alternatives. In my internetting I read studies suggesting that probably 80% of these bleeds don’t need anything more than conservative treatment (ie, what I could do at home) so I alternated between a cold pack on my neck, zooper doopers, and salt water rinses/gargles. Sure enough, it took a few hours but the bleeding seemed to eventually stop. Crisis averted.

I still felt pretty ordinary most of the day and didn’t really eat anything solid until 3pm or so, but the calories seemed to perk me up. At dinner time, for the first time in a few nights I managed to eat a whole bowl of soup without having to stop and take a break. It still took a while though! Had some dessert and took the dog for a little walk just to get some sun, and still no signs of bleeding after eating and walking around and flushing my mouth out with salt water. I really hope that’s the end of it.

Had to go out in the car after dinner to pick up the offspring, so decided not to take Targen this evening. It’s now been about 42 hours without Endone and 14 hours without Targen and the pain seems quite manageable. There’s a few more pills there if I find myself hurting badly again, but it feels kinda nice to be off them sooner rather than later.

I’d hoped to get into the gym for some super light movement this week, but today definitely wasn’t the day. Maybe I’m not too far away from starting though – once I’m confident the risk of bleeding has passed. Obviously I’m not going to do anything heavy or anything involving a valsalva! But no reason I couldn’t start doing some light curls and fluff work just to get the blood flowing. This all makes me feel like there’s light at the end of the tunnel….

Took another photo tonight, so again, look away if you’re squeamish. Not so bloody now, but still super gross looking:

Sleep last night was OK – maybe because I didn’t try to force it and stayed up until my eyes were closing by themselves, and drifted in and out of sleep til 2am or so. Got up to go to the toilet, spat out a big gob of brown stuff, and immediately felt a big lessening of the pain on one side of my throat – it went from maybe 7 out of 10 to 3 out of 10. I think the scab has started to come off.

Unfortunately the other side is still pretty sore, so I stayed up for a little while, took an Endone at about 3am and crashed pretty hard after that.

When I woke up I was very sore and clogged up as usual, so had a shower (which seems to loosen the gunk and help provide relief) and while showering, spat out something small and black. On closer inspection, it turned out to be an (intact) stitch. This concerned me a bit, as I expected them to stay in until they dissolve… but while I’ve still been spitting small amounts of blood on and off throughout the day, it doesn’t seem excessive so I don’t think anything’s opened up that shouldn’t have.

Skipped the Endone this morning, and just took Targen plus the anti-bleeding pills. Managed to get out and walk the dog, as well as vacuum and mop the floors this morning, and spend a bit of time with the kidlet this afternoon so it’s been a kinda productive day.

Mealtimes, as usual, have been the most painful, so I haven’t eaten a great deal today. But aside from when eating/swallowing, the normal day to day pain has definitely eased a little, particularly on the side where the scab has fallen off (which is where the blood seems to be coming from). After dinner (which was a bit of a battle pain wise.. it was only chicken soup!) there was a bit more blood in my spit than usual, and I was pretty close to phoning the hospital for advice. However I sucked on a zooper dooper and the bleeding seemed to settle down so I decided not to bother – if things are still bad tomorrow I’ll give them a ring, but I’m about 80% sure it’s normal to bleed a bit more as the scabs fall off.

I’ve managed to get through the whole day without Endone. There’s a T20 game on tonight from South Africa, so I’m sitting here drinking a cold bottle of electrolyte water, and I’ll try to watch the cricket for a while instead of sleeping.

When I was considering phoning the hospital, I took a few photos of the current state of my throat, it’s pretty disgusting looking. If you’re squeamish, maybe don’t enlarge it or look too hard:

I mentioned in my Day 5 post that I did a huge poo today. Well I actually wrote a couple of posts about it on a forum, and decided to cross post it here, just because. So here goes:

It’s true what they say about opiates and constipation, probably exacerbated by eating a lot less than usual. I’ve just produced (and it took some work) one of the most amazingly huge BMs in the history of log cabins. A triple flusher, as long as my forearm and almost as thick. I kid you not, it was almost Instagram worthy.

Oh seriously, it was a doozy. Like you know when the midwife is telling the mother not to push til it’s time? I was in there for like half an hour feeling this immense weight on my o-ring, but nothing was happening and I didn’t want to force it, but then all of a sudden this contraction happens and there was absolutely no control, it was time to strain. So that went on for a few very long moments, at the same time I’m trying to make sure I don’t valsalva and make my throat pop open. Then when it’s over I realise that I barely felt a thing snap off, and didn’t really hear a splash either, so I’m expecting to see these little rabbit pellets like what happens sometimes. So I look down to see something the size of a large blue tongue lizard stretching from below the waterline to half way up the bowl. I wouldn’t have thought it was anatomically possible if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes.

I found some Senna laxatives after that and popped a couple. Not going through that trauma again… it’s been a rough week.

Saturday today – the fifth day since the operation on Monday. I had really hoped that by now the worst of the pain would be past, but I really didn’t feel any better this morning.

I was lights out by 10:30pm, but seemed to be waking up sore every hour or so and spent quite a bit of time up and down to spit in the sink and gargle. Took an Endone about 1am, and ended up taking Targen and paracetamol a couple of hours earlier than usual at 5am. Managed to get a couple of decent hours sleep after that, but once again woke up feeling awful. Lost my rag with miss five and the dog a little bit, was feeling pretty down and had zero motivation to cook breakfast, nor was I feeling particularly hungry. But I’ve gotta eat, so forced down some greek yoghurt and frozen blueberries with a drizzle of honey, washed down with a cup of weak tepid tea. I’ve been trying to limit dairy a little bit because it does tend to make my throat more phlegmy but I didn’t feel congested afterward.

Did some grocery shopping after that, it was nice to get out and about, and buy a few more soft treats including some scallops for tea tonight. Had some heartburn while I was wandering round the supermarket – been getting that a bit this week, I assume it’s related to the surgery and the gunk I’m swallowing.

I also had a frozen Coke No Sugar from Maccas on the way home and boy, did that hit the spot. Made it last all the way home, through unpacking the shopping, and most of the way through a walk with the dog. Then I took another Endone when I got home and since the womenfolk were out for the morning, had a chance to chillax in front of the cricket for a while and enjoy the blissful silence.

Had soup for lunch, and the wife, unbidden, brought home a McFlurry from McDonalds – bless her. That went down well too. I also tried to drink some diet ginger beer but that burnt too much, although I put it back in the fridge to flatten out a bit and it was quite tolerable a few hours later.

Experienced a bout of proper constipation this afternoon, and ended up producing the biggest dump the world has ever seen. I’m hoping to avoid a repeat performance, so took some senna based laxatives and intend to keep taking them til I’m eating normally and off the painkillers.

Unfortunately, I had another meltdown at dinner time. I cooked scrambled eggs with scallops, as well as some ham and mushroom and onion. I felt pretty good before eating but it didn’t take long before my throat was really hurting and I’m pretty sure the salty ham was the culprit. Anyway, I spat the dummy and took a break from eating, and when I came back was able to eat the rest with less pain by avoiding the ham. After that I had a shower, took some more Endone and watched a movie with the wife. We had a pretty good evening in the end.

To summarise, I think the pain levels have been, on average, slightly lower today, and it’s the first day since the operation that I really haven’t had any daytime naps. The two might be connected, I don’t know.

I’m still seeing small amounts of fresh (as well as old) blood in my spit regularly though, and that’s been bothering me. Until now I’ve just assumed the wound is just weeping or something, but if it doesn’t stop soon, and the pain doesn’t really start to ramp down, I’ll have to go back to hospital and get things looked at. Fingers crossed.

Last night felt like I actually had close to proper sleep for the first time since the operation, instead of drifting in and out of painful semi-consciousness all night. At least, as close to proper sleep as is possible when sleeping in a recliner.

I didn’t take an Endone before lights out and had no trouble getting off to sleep for a few hours – but I did wake up at 3am in a reasonable amount of pain. So I took one, grabbed a Zooper Dooper out of the freezer and watched another episode of Bojack. By the time that was done I had no trouble going straight back to sleep through til 6:30am – so that was nice.

In another pleasing sign, even though I woke up sore, I held off on taking any pills for a bit and discovered that the pain settled down quite quickly after a few flushes and spits with water and diluted mouthwash. So I didn’t take any Endone this morning, just Targen and Panadol.

Since the operation I’ve really had no appetite to speak of, and I’ve really only been eating because I know I need the fuel. However this morning my stomach was actually rumbling for some breakfast for the first time all week. So that’s probably a decent sign that I’m on the mend as well – it’s just a shame that it’s still so painful to swallow, even forcing down my scrambled eggs and smoothie was difficult.

Unfortunately the day kinda went to poo after that. I fell asleep again after breakfast and woke up very sore. Walked up to the shops in the afternoon to buy more soup, and decided to try lying down in bed afterwards to see if that’s tolerable now – spoiler alert, it’s not. Woke up feeling horrible, took some pain pills, and then stupidly decided to try and eat a tin of pepper steak soup for dinner. That was not a good choice… it was more peppery than I’d expected and I couldn’t eat much of it. It made me so uncomfortable I actually burst into tears mid meal and had to go and have a shower. The constant pain and poor sleep is really starting to wear me down.

Anyway, after cleaning up from tea the drugs were kicking in again and the evening wasn’t too bad. I’ve decided that I’m going to have to just keep taking the painkillers pre-emptively and not go without – I’ve got nothing to prove to anyone and I’m struggling to be a sane parent and husband when it’s really hurting. Also, I think too much time prone on the couch is probably just causing me to get more phlegmy and painful – I need to move around more, it seems to help.

Today wasn’t a great start to the day. Our five year old woke up on the wrong side of the bed, the dog didn’t want to eat his breakfast, and maybe it’s nocebo because of those things but by jingo my throat was fucking sore when I woke up. Gargling salt water didn’t help much, so I had a shower and decided I absolutely was going to take both Targin and Endone this morning. After that I really wasn’t feeling motivated to cook eggs, and in the end it took me about 45 minutes to force down a green smoothie plus a small tub of yoghurt and frozen blueberries.

By the time I’d done that I was feeling a bit woozy from the drugs and wasn’t keen to walk the dog so I had a nap instead.

Things did seem to get better from there, though. After waking up, I did take the dog for a walk after all and it was a glorious sunny day, so that helped lift my spirits a little.

Had scrambled eggs and yoghurt for lunch, and soup followed by rice pudding for dinner, but it’s still a battle to swallow even soft foods and liquids. The pain really doesn’t seem to have improved much, I’ve been gargling salty water and eating icy poles but nothing really gives much immediate relief. It comes and goes through the day, which I theorise is mostly to do with the timing of drugs. I’ve been taking the Targen (the slow release oxycodone) first thing in the morning and at dinner time, and today I took an Endone first thing in the morning and one mid afternoon. Right now (post dinner) I feel reasonably comfortable and I think that’s because the Targen has kicked in on top of the second Endone. My script is for up to three Endone per day so I figure this way I can take one more before bed if I feel like I need it…..

Anyway – another day almost done – let’s hope things start to improve from here because I’ve had enough of this already. I miss proper food, sleeping in my own bed, and the gym. Tomorrow I might try and walk a little more or find some other way to get off the couch, just to keep my mind off things. It can’t hurt.

Last night was pretty yukky sleep wise, but probably not as bad as the night in hospital immediately post surgery. I got a little sleep, interspersed with Netflix. Started the day with a shower, Targen and Endone, then scrambled eggs and yoghurt. Winning.

I was all alone today as the wife took the dog to work with her, and it also rained pretty solidly all day. That seemed like a perfect excuse to stay glued to the couch, alternating between Netflixing and internetting on the iPad and attempting to sleep. Pain wise, mid morning I would’ve said it was about the same as yesterday – extremely uncomfortable but not agonising. But when I woke up from a nap at about 2:30pm it seemed to hit critical mass and really felt awful – probably the worst it’s been since the surgery.

At that point I took some paracetamol and started gargling with salty water. I also forced myself to eat some soup and rice pudding, and an icy pole after that. That all seemed to help a little, but the rest of the afternoon still wasn’t pleasant. Took another Targen before dinner (sausages and potato salad, and I really had to choke them down). After doing the dishes and having a shower the drugs seemed to kick in, it’s now 10:45pm and it doesn’t feel too sore right now.

I hope that today was the worst of the pain – although I did have a conversation on Facebook with another person who’d had a UPPP. He said that it’ll really start to hurt again once the scab comes off, so I might have that to look forward to in a few days time!

Although I’ve been taking the Targen twice a day, I have a really addictive personality and I’m trying to save the Endone for when they’re really needed. It was good to get through the day on just the one, and I might even skip it tomorrow morning. Also, I’m already a bit sick of being cooped up in the house, so I’m planning on getting out to take the dog for a walk and get some sun at the very least. I was pretty miserable today – hopefully tomorrow will be better.

To be honest, there isn’t a massive amount to report about today. When the nurses checked on me this morning my vital signs were all fine, so they gave me some more drugs and the all clear to head home.

They offered me breakfast but it turned out to be toast and corn flakes, two of the worst possible foods to try and force down a sore swollen throat, so I gave them a miss. At least there were a few tinned peaches which were pretty easy to eat.

I had a flying visit from the surgeon who reassured me that the pain would get a lot worse over the next few days before it got better, so that gave me something to look forward to! Then they wrote me some scripts and medical certificates and let me loose into the sunshine. My dear wife and taxi driver had parked a few blocks away and I’ve gotta say, after being cooped up in hospital it felt good to go for a stroll in the sun. The downside was, I walked past a few coffee shops on the way and realised I’m really going to miss hot coffee and pastries over the next week or two.

We got the scripts filled on the way home (the pharmacist had to get ‘the good stuff’ from the safe out the back) and I grabbed some more soft food (soups, chocolate custard and rice pudding!) for sustenance at the same time. After that it was a pretty uneventful day.

I cooked scrambled eggs for breakfast and as far as ‘foods to eat after a UPPP’ they’d have to rate pretty highly. After that I dozed on the couch most of the day – there has been some minor bleeding from my throat but I don’t believe it’s anything abnormal. My normally insatiable appetite has been pretty much non existent, and I’m not sure if its caused by the painkillers or the fact that swallowing is so painful. Either way, I nuked a small tub of chicken soup at about 2:30pm, did some more dozing, and hung out with the kidlet when she came home from school. Ate a little baked potato (mashed) for tea and chocolate custard for dessert. Protein ice cream and a hot chocolate to round out the day, while I blogged and the wife caught up with Phryne Fisher.

Calorie wise, the last two days feel like they’ve been really low, and so has protein. Part of me is hoping/wanting to take advantage of the low appetite to drop a little fat but the other part knows I need to eat enough to heal up! So I’ve got this weird dichotomy going on – I need to force myself to eat, but not be silly about it seeing as I’m not very active and can’t train. My poor disordered brain is just muddling through at the moment.

Now I’m ensconced on the couch, ready to try and pass the night away upright in my recliner. Hopefully I’ll get at least some quality sleep.

Being that the surgery is done under general anaesthetic, I wasn’t allowed to eat anything from midnight the night before the surgery – and I wasn’t even allowed to drink water from an hour before my scheduled admission time at 11am. So on the day of the surgery, I headed into the hospital to be admitted. Lots of paperwork, confirming my name and date of birth multiple times, then into a bed to wait for my turn at surgery.

The first time around I was there until after 4pm before they sent me home, and as you can imagine by that point I was pretty famished! Thankfully this time around there were no unforeseen delays and I was in a gown by about 12:30 and being wheeled towards the operating theatre by about 1:30. A bit of a chat to the friendly anaesthetist, a cannula in my arm, and into the theatre we went. Part of me was a bit disappointed I had to move myself from the rolling bed onto the operating table – it wasn’t like the hospital dramas on TV where they pick the patients up to move them. The anaesthetist put an oxygen mask on me, got me to take some deep breaths, and then fired some Fentanyl into the drip – the next thing I knew I was waking up in recovery a few hours later.

The first thing I noticed was the pain, or lack of it – after lots of reading about this operation in the lead up, I was expecting to be in agony but it was really not too bad. Turns out I’d had local anaesthetic injected into my throat while I was under, and that would take a while to wear off. The second thing was that I didn’t feel sick at all – last time I had surgery under a general anaesthetic I felt awfully nauseous in recovery, and I had serious concerns about that this time because vomiting after a throat operation didn’t sound like a pleasant experience at all! But I needn’t have worried, they may have given me an antiemetic just to be sure.

After they monitored me for a while they wheeled me into a ward for the night, dosed me up with some painkillers and offered me some food. I wasn’t particularly hungry, but after not eating all day I knew I could use the calories, and I was pleasantly surprised to be able to eat a plateful of (soft) food and a bowl of custard for dessert without too much discomfort.

The nurse gave me some medication intravenously to reduce the bleeding (I had a couple more infusions of that during the night and the next morning) and then it was time to settle in for the night with Netflix and a jug of ice chips to suck on. And honestly, for the first few hours it wasn’t too bad at all – I was pretty comfortable, stayed hydrated and well entertained by Bojack Horseman. But eventually I started to struggle to stay awake and decided to try and get some sleep, which is where the fun starts. I couldn’t really sleep properly while sitting upright because the bed was a little short for my long legs, so I laid the bed flat and tried to sleep that way, which was a fatal mistake. I snored like mad, my throat got very dry and painful, and by 4am I was frustrated and exhausted. Luckily at that point the nurse stuck her head in and offered me some more pain relief which I gratefully accepted – a good thing she did, as my neighbours on the ward were probably ready to smother me to stop the horrendous snorting noises I was making. But the Endone kicked in so from then on I lay upright, browsed Facebook and dozed until the lights came on. It was only the next day when I read a US hospital’s recommendations to NOT lie down to sleep in the first few days after surgery, I wish I’d read that sooner.

At one of my toilet visits during the night, I risked a look in my mouth. It wasn’t a pretty picture – the back of my throat was black with blood and stitches and I had a bunch of black blood blisters and fun stuff on my tongue as well.

Well, I’ve managed 2 weeks without a skipped meal or a binge, and got into a pretty good routine.

Then yesterday I went to hospital for some surgery. This was the second time I’d been in to have the operation (I mentioned it in this post) and this time it went more to plan. I had a UPPP done, which should help (or hopefully cure) my snoring and mild sleep apnea. It meant an overnight stay in hospital, and I came home this morning with a very sore throat and scripts for strong pain killers and anti-bleeding medication.

I’ll document my recovery on my less private blog, but wanted to post here about how it’s impacting on my relationship with food.

On the negative side, there is a part of my brain that is quietly hopeful I’ll lose a little weight during the recovery process. A combination of extremely painful swallowing and opioids means my appetite is genuinely very low. I’m having to force myself to eat because I know that I need calories to heal – and I’m also scared I’ll lose muscle mass since I can’t lift weights for a week or two either. I don’t want to feel like I’m restricting/dieting because I’m scared of the consequences later but it’s not easy when every swallow is painful.

On the positive side, I’m really limited to soft foods for the next week or so until the pain subsides a bit, so a lot of the foods I normally eat are out of the question. This means I’m forced to step out of my comfort zone and try some stuff I wouldn’t normally eat – so I’ve bought chocolate custard (which was YUM) and rice puddings and soups and some very special looking ice cream and will probably go out hunting for other treats once I get through that lot. And also… it’s a couple of weeks where I can totally switch off from work, catch up on some Netflix and truly relax a bit. I need to avoid lifting weights too, and although I mentioned it in the negative column, a break from the gym is scary but very much overdue. I’ve been training pretty hard for a lot of years without any extended break and the little injury niggles have built up over time, so hopefully I’ll come back a lot fresher and pain free.

So I guess I’ve got mixed feelings right now, I can’t wait to feel better but will enjoy the time out anyway. And hopefully, the end result will improve my quality of life (and prevent a snoring related divorce!) which would be a win for the whole household, really.

Be kind to yourselves!

I had a UPPP performed yesterday so I thought it might be interesting to document the process and my recovery.

For some background, my wife complained about my snoring enough that I went to my GP last year and got a referral for a sleep study. I had that done in-home (which was an experience in itself) and the results came back that I had mild sleep apnea, although when I’m in REM sleep or sleeping on my back the number of nightly AHI events tipped into the moderate range. I tried a mandibular splint, which seemed to help but was a nuisance and gave me a sore jaw.

After further consultation with my GP he suggested I see an ENT specialist to discuss surgical options as he felt that my throat anatomy could possibly be the cause. The specialist ultimately agreed that with my enlarged uvula and narrowed palate that I was a good candidate for a UPPP, although she couldn’t guarantee it would completely fix the issue. My research (read: googling) seems to suggest that it probably has a 60-70% chance of significantly improving the situation, so although I’d initially planned on paying out of pocket (I don’t have private health insurance) I chose to get it done in the public system. The specialist put me on the waiting list and I was booked in for the surgery about seven months later. Unfortunately on the first scheduled date, there was some sort of delay with a surgery prior to mine and I was sent home to await a rescheduled date. Thankfully the new date was only a couple of weeks later and yesterday was d-day for my uvula.

So I was thinking about something last night….

I’ve been listening to a lot of Christy Harrison’s podcast lately (and reading her book) and hearing a lot of talk about how families and medical professionals and even eating disorder treatment centres inadvertently feed eating disorders by making fat phobic comments, encouraging people to diet, and just generally being unsupportive or misunderstanding how to deal with someone who’s trying to recover from a restrictive eating disorder, particularly if they’re not showing obvious signs of poor health (ie they’re not the stereotypically emaciated anorexia sufferer).

It got me thinking – there have been times in the last few years when I have lamented (to myself) what I’ve felt was a lack of support from my wife. At no point that I recall has she ever really said that she appreciates my efforts to be healthier and set an example for our daughter, at no point has she ever expressed any feelings one way or the other about the changes to my body, nor has she ever encouraged me in any way that I can think of. At times this has felt like a bit of a kick in the guts, because my wife and daughter are a big part of the reason that I started and continue to go through this process of getting stronger and healthier.

But over the past year or so since I have really started to focus more on dealing with my relationship with food and finding a greater sense of balance between weight training sessions and family life, I’ve begun to realise that actually, she’s probably been more supportive than I think. I mean, there’s the obvious, big financial thing that she allowed us to refinance so I could build my home gym. But in more subtle ways, she’s actually been extremely supportive without actually making a big deal of it.

When I was at my worst, she (almost) never complained about my compulsively weighing and measuring foods, my making ‘special’ low calorie meals for myself, my fasting, my lack of desire to go out and eat at restaurants. The only thing we ever had conflict about was my moods and constant anger, which to be fair, was well deserved.

Conversely, at no point in any of my episodes of extreme hunger has she ever got in my way and attempted to make me stop. She has sat there quietly on the couch watching me eat multiple desserts without so much as a raised eyebrow.

At no point in any of this has she made any comments about my body – positive or negative. It’s clear to me that my body is not the reason she married me – and even after gaining a lot of weight back I’m still not as big as I was back when we first met.

The reason this hit home last night is I suggested we go out for dinner, I’d been keen to go to a cafe that does a special burger night on Friday nights. Now in all honesty, she said that she didn’t feel like a burger, and we did spend an hour or so discussing whether we’d go there or somewhere else, but in the end we couldn’t come up with an option that pleased everyone so I got my way. I’ve expressed in the past that I think it’s really important for me to eat the things I feel like eating and not restrict in any way so perhaps this was her way of humouring me. So despite her wish to eat something else, she took one for the team without complaining. We ate burgers (which were mediocre, but that’s OK!) and then went somewhere else for ice cream afterwards and she let me indulge my wish for some less than ‘clean’ food.

I had some minor voices in the back of my head afterwards encouraging me to go off the deep end and eat a ton more, but honestly, they were pretty easy to ignore because I ate plenty. Some hot chocolate when we got home and I was as full as a goog.

It got me thinking, if that was me and I didn’t feel like a burger, how would I react? I think I’d probably put my foot down and refuse to go unless there was an option I’d eat. At least that would’ve been the case a while ago, I’m not sure now.

Anyway, my point being that she does support me in these ways and I am very lucky to be married to someone who doesn’t have her own issues with food or body image and is willing to let me eat and drink whatever I like (within reason) and let my body be whatever size it needs to be. And I’m grateful for that. And on a related note, I really do need to be more disciplined about incorporating some sort of ‘gratefulness’ practice in my life.

In other news – I’m almost 2 weeks since my last episode of uncontrolled eating – I haven’t skipped a single meal in that time, I’ve enjoyed quite a few treats (even some unplanned, like a couple of work morning teas) and feel like I’ve been as close to fully unrestricted in my eating as I’ve ever been. Long may it continue.

I might’ve said this elsewhere, but my struggles with disordered eating started after a bit of a mid-life course change in early 2016, where I decided I wanted to stop being obese and get fit and healthy. It wasn’t just for my own benefit (although let’s be honest, what guy doesn’t want to look good with his shirt off?) but also to set an example for my young child and be the best parent I can for as long as I can.

On reflection, over the past couple of years especially, there have been times where I’ve thought that life was so much easier before all this started, where I didn’t particularly care about my size and weight (indeed, I was oblivious) and ate whatever I felt like in a carefree way. Has all the pain and effort been worth it? What would I do differently?

The answer I came up with was that unequivocally, yes, it’s been worth it, even though I still have issues to work through. The only thing I would probably do differently is to take a more moderate approach and not immerse myself so deeply in the fitness and diet culture that I forget the real reason why I started doing this.

Having said that, I still want to change my body and have a decent physique, although I think my expectations are more realistic now than when I started. And unlike many in the HAES/anti-diet movement, I still believe that this is an attainable goal that’s worth striving for, so long as it’s done the right way, with the right attitude.

The trouble is, becoming the best physical version of yourself is no different than becoming the best intellectual and emotional version of yourself – it requires hard work, sacrifice and trade offs, and those trade offs need to be worth the effort. It’s also very easy to forget, as I did, that our physical selves are not a reflection of the person we are inside – and if we want to leave a legacy for our families and friends to remember us by, we’ll do that by the actions we take, not by the way we look.

This caused me to ponder – who DO I want to be? What sort of man, what sort of parent, and how do I want people to remember me? In many ways, it’s the direct opposite of the person I am when I’m restricting.

During periods of restriction I have been:

• Tired and sore all the darn time
• Very grumpy and quick to anger – regularly arguing and being short with people
• Unfocussed at work, and not very productive – not good for my career prospects!
• Unable to eat out with family without great anxiety
• Avoidant of any social occasion that might involve food, or even disrupt my meal schedule a little bit
• Generally not a very nice person to be around, and not a particularly good husband or parent

It’s only over the past six months or so as I’ve become more and more well-fed that I’ve started to realise I’d far prefer to be:

• Someone who is fit and strong and cares about their health
• A good provider for my family, who is supportive of our shared goals
• The strong, silent type – calm in a crisis. Firm, without needing to raise my voice
• Competent, analytical; not in a rush
• Empathetic and always capable of showing love, but serious when needed
• An example for my daughter of how a man should live and treat others

Notice that ‘having visible abs’ isn’t on that list? That doesn’t mean I don’t want it. It just means that I’ve shuffled it down the priority list to where if I can achieve it without turning into a monster then perhaps I’ll try one day. But right now, I’ll settle for just being strong and healthy and a decent guy. Because my family and my own wellness are far more important – and because I don’t have to prove anything to anyone. I am enough.

It must have been two or three years since I’ve eaten proper takeaway pizza, and at that point I was only able to eat a couple of slices, skipped the garlic bread, ate a heap of green salad with it, and was thoroughly anxious about the amount of calories and fat involved. Ever since then when the family’s had pizza I’ve either made my own low calorie version or dodged it altogether.

But I broke the drought on Friday night, because that’s what I felt like. Ate pizza and sides til I was satisfied (but not stuffed… there were slices left) and didn’t feel guilt.

Did some grocery shopping on Saturday and felt like taking home something sweet, kinda tossing up between a danish or a donut. I think most donuts are overrated, honestly – but I  ended up buying a Black Forest donut because there was a Donut King nearby. I ate it with my post lunch coffee, and once again, it felt like a letdown – it was ok, but it didn’t have me moaning in ecstasy or anything.

In the past, when I’ve eaten really high calorie food like this it’s often triggered the ‘more, more, more!!!!’ urge – especially if the food itself is a bit less of a treat than I’ve built it up to be like the donut was. But I’m taking it as a good sign that this time round, it was fine. Don’t get me wrong – I was tempted to reach for the nearest chocolate bar, but I was able to check in with my body and think about how I actually felt and honestly – I was satisfied. There will be more opportunities to eat.

I’ve stolen so many phrases from others lately. But stuff I’m using a lot is

• Food is just food
• Food doesn’t have to be perfect
• This isn’t your last opportunity to eat!
• Once it’s in, it’s in
• Opposite actions

The last one is really powerful. I often struggle with indecision around what to eat, and based on a question on Facebook the other day, I’m not the only one. What I’m trying to do now when I get this way, is to choose the option that is the highest calorie, or that I’m the most scared of. The other day, I was tempted to and could’ve easily chosen a small cinnamon or iced donut to save calories but I said no, get the gourmet filled one because that’s what was most scary. It really wasn’t so bad, and next time it will be even easier.

I forgot to mention in my prior post – the book that I happened to be reading in the park for a bit of self soothing yesterday? It was Christy Harrison’s book – Anti-Diet 

I’m not a long way in – but I am really enjoying it so far. I’m not sure if this is helping to rid myself of the obsession with food! But it’s a good read nonetheless.

I haven’t posted for a while, basically because it’s just been the same old struggles. There’s been a few short runs of what feels like ‘normality’, but mostly it just feels like I’m making the same mistakes over and over again. I get depressed, and I binge. I tell myself I need to just eat normally and get into a routine for a while and not worry about weight loss. Then one of two things happens – I get depressed and I binge again, or I get cocky and start trying to do stupid shit and restrict food because I feel fat, and ultimately I end up giving up and binging anyway. As an example – I decided to do a bit of an aggressive diet leading up to Christmas, and for about 3 weeks I restricted calories heavily and lost a few kilos. The intention was always to eat at maintenance through Christmas, what with family meals and stuff it is not really practical to diet then and besides, those are times for enjoying ourselves, right? And even with the obligatory work BBQ and family lunch on Christmas Day, I seemed to be tracking pretty well until just after Christmas I absolutely lost the plot and had some fairly severe episodes of uncontrolled binging. I think that was about as low as I have ever felt since this whole thing started, and at times I was seriously considering my future in this world – not good.

The other day I went through my training log to try and figure out exactly when these episodes started. It looks like it was as early as July 2018. That means I’ve been going through this crap for 18 months now. When I’m in the middle of an episode that timeframe makes me feel absolutely despondent and hopeless, like there’s no end in sight. Right now, I am on my 5th day binge free and while I’m able to look at the situation objectively I feel pretty positive about the progress I’ve made and the fact that there is a future for me that doesn’t involve obsessions with food. So that’s something.

So anyway, much has happened, but I’d like to talk about my latest episode. I was scheduled to go into hospital for some minor surgery last Friday. This meant fasting from the night before – unambiguously not my choice, but medically necessary before going under general anaesthesia. I was originally supposed to be in hospital at 7am, but they pushed it back to 11 so by the time I got there I’d already been fasting for 14 hours and wasn’t even allowed to drink water from 10am.

Well, they admitted me and (an hour or so later) put me in a hospital bed with a drip in my arm, and kept me there for the rest of the day, constantly telling me my turn for surgery would be coming soon, until at 4pm they pulled the rug out from under me and said sorry – we’ve run out of time to perform your procedure today, you’ll have to go home and wait to be rescheduled for another date.

Although I had always known this was a possibility, I didn’t think it would happen at this late stage and it threw all our plans into disarray. My wife had another commitment so couldn’t take me home, I ended up walking a couple of kilometres to meet her and pickup house keys before I could Uber home and find something to eat. Of course, I felt like I deserved a decent meal after that, so I made some burgers and chips, and that kicked off an epic weekend of eating everything in sight that didn’t end til Sunday night. Sure – I let this happen. This was a lapse in willpower on my part. But that willpower wouldn’t have been required if I hadn’t been forced to go without food for so long, I don’t think – and then the added disappointment of losing the 2 weeks off work to recuperate, which I’d been really, really looking forward to just compounded things. But that’s life.

Anyway – I came back to work this week and have had a reasonable week. I’ve aimed for three meals and three snacks a day, haven’t skipped any meals, have partaken in two work morning teas when they were unexpectedly offered, and been moderate without restricting – I think. So once again, we try to keep the ‘sensible’ eating going and learn how ‘normal’ people eat and think about food.

Some random thoughts and things that have happened in the past few days that seem to me like more progress:

• I am getting better at recognising thoughts and moods that trigger these destructive behaviours – and remembering the mantra that MegsyRecovery often cites – ‘opposite actions’! Yesterday, there was cake at work for morning tea but I was tempted to just ignore it – I decided that it was there and I wanted some, but only had a couple of small pieces with my coffee and left some for everyone else!
• Despite that, I was really feeling quite delicate by lunchtime – absolutely jonesing for food, wanting to eat everything in sight, and very stressed – for no good reason, really. I had only packed quite a small lunch (a salad and a wrap with some meat, and some strawberries) and didn’t think it had enough protein. But instead of going ballistic at the bakery or the takeaway, I bought a tub of cottage cheese and added that, plus a couple of leftover sausage rolls from the fridge. That was a decent lunch, and I felt pretty full afterwards but my brain was still going haywire for something else to eat. So I went for a walk, sat in the park and read a book on my phone for 10 minutes. That was pretty effective in terms of self-soothing.
• Last night was chicken schnitzel night at home. I usually turn my wife’s into a parmagiana but sometimes don’t do mine, and if they’re unequal sizes I’ll often give myself the smaller one even if I’m ravenous. Well last night one was significantly bigger than the other, and my brain was screaming at me to take the small one and eat it plain, especially after cake and sausage rolls during the day! But no… ‘opposite actions’! I parma’d them both and ate the big one. Heck I even ate one of my daughter’s chicken nuggets to try and encourage her to eat her dinner without fuss. No guilt.
• We’re having pizza for tea tonight. That would have filled me with fear once, and even as recently as a few months ago I would have just made my own low calorie substitute, on a wrap, with limited cheese. But screw that. The women of the house are having frozen pizza singles but honestly, and it’s not just my fear of processed foods talking, they are just not that nice. I’m either going to buy a decent fresh pizza, or make my own (on a proper pizza base, with proper toppings) and make sure I enjoy the freaking thing. No low calorie substitutes – just food that tastes good but hopefully is also somewhat nutritious. I’m worth it.
• This last thought brings me to something that I battle with every.damn.day – planning my next item of food before even finishing the one I’m eating. Like I’ll be in the middle of a meal, and I’ll be thinking ‘after this I’m gonna have x… and after that maybe even x….’ and just continuing to think about food like that all day. So not only am I thinking about meals in the times I’m not eating, I’m thinking about food in the middle of my meal! It’s just insane. But I am definitely getting better at recognising when this happens, and using CBT (well actually, ACT therapy is where I read about it) techniques to defuse them and move on. Typically my go-to thought here is the ‘thanks, mind’ technique. So during meals I’ll say to myself ‘thanks, mind, for trying to make sure that I’m not going to starve, but there is plenty of food and I can see how I feel after this and decide if I actually do want something else’. Between meals, it’ll be more like ‘thanks, mind, for trying to make sure I don’t go hungry, but there is plenty of food and I can eat whatever I feel like having when the time comes, so there is no need to worry about that right now’. It does seem to be working in terms of letting those thoughts dissipate and not become totally all consuming to the point where they’re distracting me from stuff that does actually require my attention.

So that’s the story of my week. I hope anyone reading this is having a good one and being kind to themselves. You too, are worth it.