Friday, March 19, 2010

Updates; Food

First, updates:

The MRI showed the process fracture at C5 and related swelling. The neurosurgeon said that is why I am having back pain; it's referred pain. He said this should improve as the fracture heals. I'm going to take a conservative approach and try physical therapy and muscle relaxants if needbe. I'm going to look for better office furniture as well, since the main time this hurts is when I sit at a desk, and I will be doing a lot of that when I return to work.

Food:

There has been a lot of interest in what I'm eating. It's a strange diet, since I'm used to being able to eat...well...food. I'll just take yesterday as an example.

3-4 containers of Muscle Milk
2-3 yogurts
Baby food oatmeal (ground up enough to make it into a syringe)
2 cans of tomato soup
2 canned of pureed carrots
1 box of chocolate pudding

Oddly, I'm not tired of what I'm "eating." But I'm really missing what I'm not having. The part I'm finding the most frustrating is having to drink/liquefy everything and using the syringe.

Using a syringe allows me to eat more "solid" foods, like yogurt and pudding. I could just go with an all-liquid diet, but it really livens things up to be able pretend to eat something. However, in addition to just not being all that appealing, it often irritates my already cut-up-from-the-wires lips. And inevitably, at least 25% or more ends up on my clothes, the table, the floor...

I also recently found out that it'll be a month or more after the wires are removed before I'm eating anything resembling a normal diet. In fact, it will even be awhile before I can eat soft foods. I guess your jaws become very stiff from lack of use and don't open very well.

At least I'll be able to breathe better. And if I could throw away my syringe collection, I'd be a happy camper. But...that said...I was so psyched for a burger (an item for which I never have cravings) and carrots and apples.

--K--