This post may contain affiliate links and/or codes. You won’t pay anything extra, but I might make a commission.
In part one of my gallbladder saga, I told you about my massive gallstone attack, which landed me in the ER. I was going to have my gallbladder out that very night, so I asked my husband to bring the kids down to see me, and to take my phone and kindle, because I doubted that there was going to be a little locker in the OR for my stuff.
But while my family was there, the surgeon informed me that a couple of emergency cases had come in, and my surgery had been bumped.
Now, here’s the weird quirk I discovered about gallbladder surgery: If you’re in the ER with an attack, it’s considered emergency surgery and you can have it done immediately. But once you’re discharged, it becomes elective surgery, and who knows when you’ll get on the schedule?
The surgeon told me to avoid all fatty foods and to follow up with his office the following week. He also said that I would be discharged soon. I don’t really want to go into how much of a lie that was, because I wrote it out on Facebook already: Here, and here, and here. But between the discharge debacle, and the reviews of the hospital online, and more than a few people contacting me privately to tell me to get the hell out of there and find any other hospital for my surgery, I decided to follow up with my own doctor, since apparently this was no longer an emergency.
My own doctor gave me some surgeon recommendations, and I got on the schedule with one for the 18th of December. Not ideal, but at least the surgery would be over and done with before Christmas and New Year’s and a trip to Las Vegas I’m taking in January. Surely there’s a law against going fat-free in Vegas?
My first surgeon, my own doctor, and my new surgeon had all told me to stay away from fat. And my own research had also added white flour, white rice, and white potatoes to that list. But the advice that I was getting from friends who had been through this was all over the place. Some said don’t even take a chance on low-fat dairy (I am anyway). Others said that they ate totally normally before their surgeries, and they think I’m making myself miserable for nothing. But I don’t want to take any chances. I could eat a slice of pizza tomorrow and be fine, or I could have another excruciating attack, and I’m not going to risk it.
In the first few days of super-low-fat eating (cutting it ALL out just isn’t feasible), I tried to make substitutions for things that I like to eat. I tried fat free cream cheese on wheat toast, which was tolerable but not good. (I can use the leftover fat free cream cheese as spackle, so there won’t be any waste.) I also tried an egg white scramble with fat-free cheddar. I couldn’t even swallow a bite of that. It was like chewing rubber!
I thought I could do lots of salads with fat free dressing, but fat free dressing is just gross, period. It went in the garbage after one try.
The only fat free food item that actually worked really well was fat free sour cream. I’ve been having lots of whole wheat burritos with fat free refried beans, brown rice (which has a little fat), pico de gallo, corn, and fat free sour cream. Those are actually really tasty. Which isn’t to say I won’t go back to adding cheese and guac when I can, but for now it’s tasty.
A couple nights ago I had a whole wheat pizza crust from Fresh Direct topped with homemade fat free tomato sauce, and dipped in more tomato sauce. It was OK.
I eat a lot of vegetable soup, and I dip crusty Fresh Direct whole wheat baguettes into it. And bagels. Almost every day I have a giant multi-grain bagel, with nothing on it.
All Bran Flakes with skim milk have also made it into the rotation. And low-fat cottage cheese. Fruit smoothies made with skim milk or fat free vanilla yogurt. Oatmeal.
And that’s about it. That seems like a lot, but not spread out over several weeks. It’s getting repetitive. But as I found out when I went no carb earlier this year, I’d rather just stick with the things I know I like.
A bunch of people said that at least going low fat, I would lose weight before the surgery. Um, no. I think I’ve replaced every fat calorie with about ten carb calories.
So, I figured I could do this no problem for the three weeks until my surgery. And then I went to a consultation with my new surgeon, and basically discovered that because I was so good and staying so healthy, I was screwed for an early surgery.
More soon…