I can't believe it's already been four months! As far as the healing process, there are a few things to note that I thought might be helpful for people wondering what it's like the first few weeks and months post surgery. Please note that this was my experience and not everyone will have all or any of these:
- Shoulder pressure - in my case, I definitely had chest pressure in my shoulders and chest a week or two after the surgery but that eventually got much more mild after about 3 weeks.
- Food getting stuck at my wrap site- oh yeah, definitely had some food get stuck. It feels like you're choking and all you can do is try to push it down by drinking some luke warm water. It's sick. Some of the trouble foods that I battled with include: fish, Gushers (don't ask...I'm addicted), salad and buttered noodles. While some doctors say that you can move to solids chewed well after a week or so, I would REALLY chew it and make sure that you have some kind of sauce if you're doing that route or just wait until two weeks when the swelling has gone down.
- Heartburn - when I went back to work I tried having coffee again in the mornings and it was an EPIC fail. I got WICKED heartburn and felt like I was having a heart attack at about 1:30 PM every day. So, needless to say coffee is permanently out of the question based on my stomach's reaction from it. Same thing with anything more than a 1/2 can of soda for this gal.
- The way heartburn felt - the feeling/sensation that I had when I got heartburn after surgery was COMPLETELY different than it had ever been before. Which to me makes 100% sense since before it just kept coming back up and now it was finally forced to stay down and holy man did it burn the few times that it happened.
- Incisions - My incisions are scars that are by no means invisible but my surgeon did a great job on sewing me up. I did have one suture that didn't dissolve but when I went in for my one month check-up and my doctor saw that it was still there, she pulled it out carefully with medical tweezers so that I didn't have to wait for it to dissolve naturally. It hurt like a beast but it was totally worth not having to wait for it.
- Chest pressure, long term- I'm now at four months and it has been confirmed through X-ray that the wrap works and is closing successfully...and I can tell that it's working when I wake up in the morning since I feel some pressure in my chest that confirms that some air, as well as food, is being held down as well. It's not that big of a deal once you're out of bed for 5 minutes and moving around; it works itself out.
- Appetite/stomach size - the reality of the situation is that since they wrap it around the top of your stomach it will be swollen for quite a while. Then after the swelling is down, you won't eat as much which I attribute to two things. One, because of how long it takes to chew and eat your meals and two, because your stomach shrunk from being on a liquid and small meals diet for a long period of time. And even four months later, I can't and don't eat as much as I used to which for me, is a great thing since with GERD you are supposed eat smaller meals anyways and it just feels SO much better.
- Working out - working out was a beast and it took much longer to get back into it than I was prepared for. I wasn't up and fully functioning from a work out standpoint for about 7 weeks. At seven weeks, my abs were still repairing themselves and felt pretty sore, I wasn't able to eat the normal foods that I had been in the past so my body was screwed up from that lack of "normal foods" and I was getting very tired quickly. For example, instead of my standard 2-2.5 miles jogging, I was taking a 1 mile walk and feeling completely burned out and like I needed a nap (and often times did). But, I did bounce back at about 8 weeks and I'm fully able to do yoga, pilates, running or anything else that I would have before the surgery.
So here's to tomatoes, garlic, red wine and onions being a part of my life again! Yay!
