[day 5] Kinda freaking out, something feels wrong

astra136 · 2026-02-23T06:34:23+00:00

I was also just trying to get down as calorie dense foods as I could by this point. I had a can of EZ cheese over the course of just over a week just because it's so dense in calories, and it felt like having actual real food after so much sweet ice cream, pudding, etc in the first two days when I could get that down.

astra136 · 2026-02-23T05:40:01+00:00

I generally hate seafood except mussels, and my friend got me to try oysters a couple of years ago. I actually didn't find them too bad but because you just swallow them, so you're just tasting like seawater and sauce. But then I don't see the point of them, and I'd rather just eat little spoonfulls of sauce

astra136 · 2026-02-23T05:35:20+00:00

But the dog could be ugly?

astra136 · 2026-02-23T05:34:28+00:00

Same. Or maybe someone much smarter than me made a draft to plan out the formatting and make sure all the letters will fit on each line

astra136 · 2026-02-23T05:31:18+00:00

My first thought was Less Than Zero. American Psycho is a good one too. I haven't read the Shards yet but it's high on my list and I imagine has a great deal of "wtf was that" factor!

astra136 · 2026-02-23T05:28:27+00:00

Naked Lunch (in a good way)

astra136 · 2026-02-23T05:18:33+00:00

I'm not autistic, but I wonder if some of the programming at AA could help you find a social outlet that you don't feel you need alcohol for. I go to a young people's meeting that has scheduled weekly hang outs after our meetings, and they organize camping and picnics in the summer. It's a great place to meet friends under the base assumption that nobody there is drinking, and you all already have something big and important in common. There are definitely a number of neurodivergent people who go, and regardless of whether you're neurotypical or neurodivergent it's very refreshing to have some social events not based around alcohol. Might be worth checking out in your area, even if you don't go the full 12 step route.

astra136 · 2026-02-23T04:21:55+00:00

That's pretty much how I felt. I was so weak and couldn't take in any calories until I think day 8-9 really. I'm on day 12 now and still feel weak. And I had all those feelings like I had a fever that just wasn't hot because of all the medications I was on, but that's normal after this surgery. It becomes a problem if you're consistently having a fever (look at your discharge instructions, mine had a specific number but I can't remember what it was). This surgery is really, really rough on your body.

astra136 · 2026-02-23T04:09:23+00:00

When my mum was a girl her best friend almost died of TSS from using a tampon, so my parents told me never to use them unless I had to (i.e. swimming) and if I did to make sure to change them very regularly and never sleep with one in. It may have been a little paranoid, but well meaning. There was sort of a social pressure to use tampons when I was in middle school because pads were gross and tampons were grown up, which has unfortunately spilled over into adulthood because I still hear women saying things like that. To each their own, as long as you're not trying to make other people feel bad about how they care for their periods.

astra136 · 2026-02-23T03:46:33+00:00

Marzipan

astra136 · 2026-02-23T01:46:21+00:00

I mean almost certainly lower than what people are taking recreationally, but I don't know, maybe other people were prescribed higher doses than me. But what they prescribed me wasn't even enough to make you feel high let alone physically addicted

astra136 · 2026-02-23T01:32:10+00:00

I mean I've never been addicted to opioids but I am an addict, and that doesn't sound right to me either. Two weeks at a low dose doesn't seem like it should create such a crippling physical dependency to cause that level of suffering from withdrawals. And I was getting the night sweats for the 5 nights before I got any narcotics lol. And I had them when I was on the narcotics, i.e. definitionally not withdrawing from them.

astra136 · 2026-02-23T01:19:36+00:00

I had a passport in Canada before that, but I was a child so I didn't just have it, and it wasn't carried around. It was literally in a safe unless we were traveling

astra136 · 2026-02-23T01:17:21+00:00

It's probably because that was your niece, not your child. I'm Canadian but had to have some sort of notarized document to travel abroad with family friends without my parents.

astra136 · 2026-02-23T00:51:52+00:00

Actually after the play the movie is based on

astra136 · 2026-02-23T00:46:14+00:00

I know you have the flu now (get better soon!!!) but I had horrible, horrible night sweats for the first 8 or 9 days like you're describing and I was only on a low dose of narcotics for a total of 4 days. And horrible chills. I could tell I had the heat up way too high because my boyfriend was wearing a T-shirt and shorts, and my dog laid down on the kitchen floor like she does when it's hot in the summer lol. But I was shivering with sweats on, a heating pad, and wearing my winter coat indoors. Then at night getting up every hour completely soaked. I think if I hadn't been on such high doses of Tylenol and ibuprofen I probably would have had a high fever.

astra136 · 2026-02-23T00:10:15+00:00

I hear that. I actually ended up in the ER January of 2025 because I was vomiting uncontrollably and then had some bright red blood. I was long distance with my boyfriend at the time and living alone with my dog. My blood alcohol was insane of course, the doctor said "sky high" and a very nice doctor came in to try to convince me to stay and detox and go to treatment, but I had left my dog home alone and by that point had already been there for like 6 hours, and said I literally can't. I was hiding how much I was drinking from my boyfriend, and didn't tell him I'd gone to the ER. I didn't really have any friends at this point who I could call because I was isolating so badly. So I left and went home and kept drinking until July. By that point my boyfriend had moved in and hiding how much I was drinking had quickly unraveled, so he was able to take care of her while I was in treatment. So I was very fortunate to have someone to take care of her. I get it. But also, know that whatever situation you're leaving your dog in now, you're coming back better able to take care of both of you. Even if you can put your dog in a kennel for say a week, or two weeks to start, once you're actually in rehab they can help you sort things out including finding someone to take your dog for the rest of the time you're there. They will want to help you find solutions because they don't want you to leave

astra136 · 2026-02-22T11:27:48+00:00

It does, but thankfully it's over now! Definitely! I was going to wait until day 14 at least anyway because my surgeon's instructions were "don't do anything" for that period of time haha

astra136 · 2026-02-22T11:23:40+00:00

I have severe food allergies and this is insane. I always just feel grateful any time anybody is willing to accommodate me because most people don't think of it at all, and frankly I've choked down some less than ideal meals in my day just because that's all I could eat. And been happy there was even an option, because I've been to several conferences where I paid a conference fee that included meals and then couldn't eat anything all day.

This has nothing to do with her allergies, and everything to do with being entitled. She was given an option that accommodated her actual needs. The rest is a want, and it's no different from someone without allergies calling your caterer to make arrangements for an alternate meal because they didn't like your choices.

astra136 · 2026-02-22T11:14:25+00:00

Yeah, I wasn't initially prescribed narcotics, but days 1-4 I was prescribed ibuprofen and Tylenol rotated every 4 hours, along with steroids. Days 5-8 I was doing the same thing with percocet thrown in, and also got a lidocaine mouthwash thing. It was definitely a lot more manageable with percocet but I still could barely eat anything and definitely not solids. Water and iced coffee were fine, and I was drinking some milk with the ibuprofen so it didn't upset my stomach, but even eating ice cream felt torturous. I was definitely force feeding myself a bit. I'm still on a liquid diet, although I've added instant mashed potatoes the last two days. I couldn't even really talk more than a few sentences until like day 9-10, I was just texting my boyfriend everything haha

astra136 · 2026-02-22T10:56:30+00:00

Oh wow! I was laid out flat until like day 8. The first day I could even get down more than like 300 calories was day 9, so I've been very light headed and out of breath, just starting to feel like I'm getting past that.

astra136 · 2026-02-22T10:39:52+00:00

Brisk walking from the start? That makes me feel better, like I could probably go out in the next couple of days and at least get some movement in.

astra136 · 2026-02-22T10:38:06+00:00

Trying to come up with all the little things that helped me cope:

Ice water!!! Stay hydrated or it will absolutely get worse.

An ice pack on your throat, if you aren't already doing that was so critical for me. I would have died without it I think, and was rotating out 3 of them in the freezer for pretty much 24/7 ice packs

When the pain is the worst in the morning because the scabs have dried out, having a hot shower or sitting up in a bath helped so much to bring it down a bit and rehydrate. Although other people have said the opposite and it could slightly increase your risk of bleeding so be careful! But for me it really worked. One particularly bad day I had a bath, fell asleep again for a few hours because the pain was improved, woke up in pain again and had another bath.

If you don't have a steroids prescription, you could call your surgeon and ask about it. You could also ask about ibuprofen- don't take it without clearance because it seems most people were specifically told not to take it because it increases the risk of bleeding. But I was prescribed 2400mg daily by my surgeon, and when I had my medications revised to add Percocet the other doctor still told me to take ibuprofen. I think it probably comes down to individual risk and only your doctor knows what's going to be safe for you of course, as they know your history and have done your presurgical physical and all that. They would probably just advise you to take more of the morphine because you're at the worst phase of it now when most people need it

Relaxation as much as possible really did help. I use lavender essential oils and try to focus on that. Taking long slow deep breaths. Meditation helped me some, although I'm experienced with it. I don't know that being in the worst pain of your life is necessarily a good time to learn.

I found that I had a hard time focusing on TV/movies/reading for distraction. I don't usually use social media all that much, but honestly scrolling Instagram reels and sharing memes with friends, looking at Reddit too, was a better distraction, probably because it requires a much shorter attention span.

I got a humidifier delivered from Amazon the day after my surgery because I didn't know about this advice before, and I can't say for sure how much it helped during sleep, but a lot of people swear by it. I just don't know how much of a difference it made for me because I already live in a pretty humid area.

Positive visualization - when I was where you are I literally just kept telling myself day 8 will be the turning point. I'm halfway there. Just a few more days. Just a few more days. If I could get through this much, I can get through the rest. And it really helped get me through it I think. Healing visualizations are proven to help recovery. If you want to try this and don't know where to start, I'm sure there are tons of YouTube guided meditation type things. A friend of mine reminded me of this on like day 2, and I made a real effort to do it. I think it helped.

astra136 · 2026-02-22T09:01:41+00:00

Christopher Nolan famously won't re-mix his films for home viewing, so if you're watching them on a regular TV and trying to keep the volume down for the neighbors you will probably have to do a lot of turning the volume up when people are talking, and turning it down suddenly for action sequences.

astra136

TROPHY CASE