All Liquid Diets

So my surgery was 12 days ago. Post op tomorrow morning. Swelling's almost entirely gone. There's a splint on the roof of my mouth that's driving me CRAZY. Starting a few days after I got home from the hospital it started scraping up my tongue something fierce. It was awful. Now it's just a way of reminding me that it'll be another two weeks before I can start cheating on my all liquid diet the way I want to.

See, this this is like a retainer in the sense that it's a hunk of plastic molded to fit my teeth and palate. It covers the roof of my mouth and then wraps around my teeth and hooks onto my braces. I have no idea exactly how it's staying in because, of course, I was unconscious when they put it in, but I know I can't remove it. And since when I say wrapping I mean it covers my teeth, eating is a no go. I mean, I'm not supposed to anyway, but if I tried it wouldn't work.

And I have elastics hooking my upper and lower braces together. Unfortunately, this means my all liquid thing does not include ice cream. Or mashed potatoes, which is what I lived on last time I was on an all liquid diet....

I'm praying that tomorrow my lovely surgeon will tell me that I can stop wearing the elastics and can start using straws again. That will make my life 84423897483275x easier. Exactly that many times easier, in fact. Really.

Anyhoo, so here's my thing on this all liquid crap:

Ensure leaves an icky residue in your mouth. When you have elastics 24/7, that means your mouth is seriously gross. This is why I've told my parents I will not be drinking the Ensure, no matter how much ice cream it is blended with, until I've been given leave to remove my elastics more often. It's just too gross.

Also, my mother has been at knitting camp for the last week. That's basically a conference for knitters. Anyway, apparently one of the camper's kids had this same surgery and whatever the camper made for the family she through in the blender for the kid. Which is specifically what I told my mother years ago I would refuse to do right now.

If you ask me, that is the most inconsiderate thing you can do for someone who is recovering from surgery (well, aside from saying things about their swelling...).

Here's the thing: I am 19 years old. It is summer vacation. When you think of college freshmen on summer vacation, you think of all kinds of excitement and fun things. But instead, I am recuperating. I am going to bed early. I am taking lots of naps. I am not driving. In other words, I am missing out on an awful lot right now. Seriously, you know where I was last Thursday night while practically EVERYONE I KNOW (including my boyfriend and THIRTEEN YEAR OLD BROTHER) was at the Harry Potter midnight showing? Asleep. I didn't get to go. I cannot tell you how crappy that was.

I'm missing out on so much crap and I can't eat ANYTHING I want. And people want me to eat whatever they're eating, in mush form. A) that's disgusting. B) that's not fair. If I'm missing out on everything else in the world, it's not fair to ask me to eat something that doesn't actually resemble anything edible.

That said, I've lost 14lbs so far. 'Course, my diet may change dramatically tomorrow since stopping wearing the elastics will greatly alter what I'm willing/able to consume.

Who knew you could lose weight on Pepsi and egg drop soup?

PS It's totally possible to slurp whipped cream off the top of a milkshake.