Husband is now home. Infection appears to be under control, but he’s dead tired from the approximately 1,287 times a night they wake you in the hospital for various stuff. He’s also weak from the lack of activity, and bloated. And we still have the leaky kidney tube to deal with for another 10 goddamn days at least. And they weren’t going to send him home with any pain meds stronger than Tylenol. I called bullshit on that so we at least have a few days’ worth of stronger stuff on hand in case it’s needed.
And I’m the only one here now who can change the dressings, make sure he walks and takes the laxatives he was resisting in the hospital, and try to cajole him into eating something.
See? Proof that Amazon hears all, sees all that we do.
“Ohhh, Jack just read about someone named Rose? Well, let’s sell him some rose-scented… no, wait! We mischievous Amazo-bots know what he really wants…!”
Imagine a rectangular parking garage, with the entrance in one of the short ends. The aisle goes one way counterclockwise in a loop. Imagine a car parked in the corner to the right of the entrance, parallel to the short end. Imagine me in my car, coming up around the corner opposite that.
The other car wants to leave through the only entrance. I see his lights, and I imagine he’ll either go around the loop, or back up to roughly about the entrance at an angle to my left, then leave.
Am I completely crazy for not expecting his plan to be to back up along the entire short side until he was beyond the entrance, then turn right to exit? And do so apparently without looking on the expectation that if I saw him, I’d know what he was doing and back up so he could fulfill his plan?
He doesn’t want to eat at least in part because the narcotics slow the gastrointestinal system down. That leads to a loss of appetite and getting plugged up. He needs to eat to get better. It’s a problem.
I’m sure pharmaceutical companies have spent gazillions of dollars over the years trying to come up with better pain meds. And we sure don’t have much - mainly just variations on morphine and aspirin. That’s a big fucking problem.
Power went out last night. It was a fast storm, I barely noticed, but DTE has dropped the ball so hard on getting people’s power restored in SE Michigan they’ve been yelled at twice by the local government. Traffic yesterday to pick up my son was absolute pandemonium. My husband offered to drive because he knows my nerves during storms. But I was pleasantly surprised we got power back two hours later.
All well and fine, I guess. But now the Internet is down. I’m at work stressing over getting it back in time for some very important things I need to do tomorrow. I won’t be able to come in to the office very easily tomorrow and I have two state grants to submit.
Look at first “low residue” diets then after a few days “soft food” diets. Both can be created at home easily enough and tweaked for any other dietary restrictions.
Neither will solve the problem of emotionally depressed cussedness: “I don’t wanna eat and you can’t make me.”
But they are effective at reducing or eliminating the legitimate fear of bowel problems.
Also unless you two already have contrary experience, IME/IMO opioid constipation is much exaggerated except in the highly susceptible or the already bowel-challenged. Or with silly high doses.
Thanks. Unfortunately one of the few things I can get him to eat consistently is fruit, which is off the low-residue menu. He loves white rice, though, so I may give that a try.
If there is anything that came out of COVID that was positive for me it was consuming much less fast food for the last 3 years and I’ve lost 40 lbs of unnecessary blubber as an unintended result.
I was craving a Nacho Bell Grande yesterday and so Ran for The Boarder. You can’t eat that in your car and it will be shit by the time you get it home so I went into the lobby. They now have a banner covering the register, the only way to order is the self checkout.
No one was sick, there are no employee shortages in the area. My guess is the owner just wanted to run with a 2 man crew to save wages and wants customers to punch in to make up the workload difference.
I didn’t have an employee code for a discount so I left. Taco Bell is not good enough for me to be willing to do that. It’s certainly not cheap enough.
Some of the non-fibrous fruits are decently low-residue. As well, if slightly cooked & pureed, the fibers get a lot shorter. See here for suggestions: https://www.weekand.com/healthy-living/article/lowfiber-fruit-18015448.php
Obviously, if you have either hard limits from either a doctor or a dietician, quit listening to me.
IMO/IME Someone recovering from bowel surgery may well need a negligble residue diet for weeks. That’s (probably) not what you need. Just pretty darn low. So no rare meat, fibrous veggies, etc. Easy does it.
white rice can be overcooked a bit then cuisinarted into something about the consistency of cake frosting. Made with meat or veg stock in lieu of water it can be tasty & filling. Both of which help the patient with wanting to bother to eat. ANyone not allergic to dairy should have some of that added too. Concentrated protein, fat, & nutrients.
The one time I had fentanyl (bruised kidneys: not recommended) my pain went from 10/10 almost passing out to 2/10 almost immediately and my bowel function went nonexistant. Almost has to go back to the ER a few days later. YMMV.
I believe it - the only time I’ve ever had significant amounts of opioids was before and immediately after a surgery and it took about 4 days for my innards to get back to business, so to speak.
I’m not sure about the frosting part but rice cooked in chicken or vegetable broth is really tasty and easy on the stomach. I subsisted on it during my nine -day bout with Noro.
The rice ends up like mashed potatoes, but a bit thinner and not sticky the way potatoes whipped to fully smooth become. Unless you made sticky rice, but that’s on you. Less sticky is more palatable IMO.
My grandson got scammed by a phone scammer yesterday. Not sure who I’m more pissed off at: the scammer for being a phone scamming asshole, my grandson for being gullible enough to fall for the scam, or my wife who gave him the $600 (because he’s broke) without asking enough questions to realize it was a scam.
He got Ju-July-ball, he one holy roller. 