My first "real" meal.

At my 3 week appointment they let me know I can head to stage 3 for foods. Basically, soft and puréed foods. That was such an amazing thing to hear!i had been craving, for what ever reason, tuna fish with cut up hard boiled eggs and pickles!! Now, pickles are a little tricky. They tell you that you should stay away from foods that have skin on then. I don't exactly know why for sure. My assumption is that the skins are hard to digest and might clog things up. Could be wrong though! So I had to skin the pickles before I can add them to my awesome craving concoction. We only had pickle spears at the house so I also had to take the seeds out as well. I've had some things with the skin on them like beans and corn since my surgery and I have done fine with them. I haven't tried anything else with the skins left on. Maybe with time.

They also had me start up vitamins as well. They all had to be chewable or liquid form for at least the first year. Probably because they can get stuck still, not totally sure. I've taken tylenol as a pill since then and swallowed it whole. Maybe because the multivitamins are so big sometimes. I don't know. I do know that you cant have capsules ever. They have me start 4 vitamin supplements to start. Which is a multivitamin twice a day, calcium citrate twice a day, a B-12 tablet once a day and a dropper full of vitamin D once a week. I say 4 vitamins to start because I might have to take an iron supplement if its too low. They do start iron for women for whatever reason that is. So those are the 4 supplements I have to take for the rest of my life. With the roux en y procedure, you can develop malnutrition very easily. So taking them everyday is a must. Ah if only I would take my own advice. There have been some times where I've gone 3 or more days with out taking them. I don't feel any different, but I have to get on my ass to take them. Taking pills can be such a pain in the ass sometimes, which I'm sure most can relate. Writing this right now, I realized I need to take them. So if you ever decide to go the route I have taken and get this surgery, be prepared to take those 4 or five supplements a day plus a protein powder as well, for the rest of your life. I should take stock in a supplement company.

After I got home from my appointment, Jodi and I decided to head up to Gaylord (a town 30 minutes north of us) to do some christmas shopping for the girls. Plus I had to get my vitamins as well. So off to Walmart we go! We decided to stop to some other shops up there as well and by the time we got out of those shops we got a phone call from a couple we knew that lived in Gaylord (Kirkie and Tommy) and a friend (Derek) to see if we wanted to have dinner. We weren't sure if we wanted to go because, what the hell was I gonna eat? At this time, no one knew I had surgery, kind of a dirty secret if you will. So it was gonna look bad when everyone else is eating and I was the only one not. They decided on going to BC pizza because it had a play room for the kids. We said sure and off we went.

Now, this was the first time I was ever eating food since the surgery. Real food that is. I wasn't sure if BC pizza offered any soups or chili that I could eat. Well come to find out, they pretty much offered either pizza, wings or bread sticks. What the hell was I thinking. I don't know why I thought they might offer some kind of soup. And as of this point, I couldn't have salad. I do have to stop right here, though. My surgeon said I should only eat soft foods or puréed foods to start out with. Well, I figured if Puréeing your food was an option, then chewing it up really finely would work as well! I had all but one of my teeth, that should work! After all, they said I can have thanksgiving dinner in a week, why can't I have chicken chewed up a thousand times now?? That was my reasoning for ordering the BBQ chicken wings.

I was kind of dreading sitting at the same table as everyone else. I didn't know how to bring up the fact that, yeah, I lied to you guys about being ok and why I've been losing weight and oh by the way I had my guys rearranged 3 weeks ago. After thinking about it, I figured if the subject got brought up as to why I was taking for ever to Chew my food, I would let them in on the secret. Well when we got there, I didn't have to worry about it at all. There were a shit ton of kids in the play area and they were all at different booths inside the play area. So we didn't have to sit with each other and I didn't have to say anything about my surgery. Of course now I was disappointed because I talked myself in to spilling my guts (ha) about the surgery, now I didn't have the chance. It was so busy in there that there wasn't a real opportunity to come out with it.

So we ordered our food and as we were waiting we watched our oldest daughter play around. It was nice to see her run around and get to hang with kids around her size and age. Granted all the other kids were 7 years older than her and she was only 2, (We are raising a Hulk baby) but she seemed to have fun!

The food can and I got scared as shit to start eating. This was going to be my first "real" meal since surgery, what was going to happen? Another thing here, apparently I'm an idiot and didn't realize that the wings were deep fried, kind of a big no no for WLS (weight loss surgery) patience. I don't know what I was thinking. Deep friend is a no no because of all the fat, it can cause a dumping syndrome. Something I cared not to have in public, ever. Plus, some people cant stand to have chicken after the surgery. it makes them throw up. So i had that running threw my head as well!! So I started out taking a small bite, I mean smaller than what my daughter was taking. ( which doesn't mean much if you've ever seen her eat) The first bite went ok. I chewed that bitch up 30 times just like they said and swallowed. Hey, I'm ok! Sweet! Waited a minute to take my next bite. Chewed it 30 times, swallowed. Holy shit, I'M EATING!!! Hell yeah!!!! I did it again, chewed it up, then swallowed. My god, I'M THE KING OF THE WORLD!!!!!! And then it hit me, fuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuudge!!!! Only I didn't say fudge. Actually I didn't say anything, but my face did the talking. I got this god awful pain in my new pouch. Like someone sucker punched me there. It was a new feeling I haven't experienced before. I was FULL!!!! Off of two little chicken wings!!! I didn't clean them like I use to, got most of the meat that was easy to take off. Still, I was funking full!! A little too full actually. Man, I think I over did it. I thought, no way am I going to puke this up. That shit was gonna hurt!! Breath dude, just breath. i was damn near doing a Lamaze course inside of BC pizza. I tired not to let anyone know what was going on. I tried to remain cool, but I needed out of there. Thank god my kid started acting up and I had to take her to the car. That was the only time that I found it acceptable for her to start acting like a shit head. She saved daddy from an embarrassing episode. So I took her out to the car where she cried the whole time and I tried to breath through the pain. Eventually the pain went away and I started to feel better. We went back inside and I played it off cool. We said our goodbyes and headed off to shop at Walmart. Thank god because I needed to work off the food I just ate! :)