Days 2-4 Post-Op - March 13-15

Friday the 13th, but no bad luck here. Pain was still about the same level, but got annoying late in the morning, so I took another dose of Tylenol. I was getting used to the feeling of swallowing, so I was able to drink a lot more. On this day, I managed to have:

• 1 20oz bottle Gatorade
• 16oz coconut water
• 1 pre-boxed vanilla vegan shake
• 1/2 C vanilla almond-milk ice cream
• carrot-banana smoothie (carrot juice, banana, almond milk, agave, and ice)

Mid-afternoon I was feeling pretty groggy, and I figured that part of my discomfort was not having any coffee, like I'm used to. Coffee does dehydrate you , but I though a little would be OK, especially if I'm taking in all these other liquids on top of tons of ice water. I didn't have any coffee to brew and didn't want to go out, but I found some instant espresso powder, which I'd never drink but must've had from making a dessert one time. I put not even 1/4 tsp (I figure maybe 20-30mg caffeine) of that into some almond milk and sweetened it a bit to see how I'd feel. Still a little tired, but better. I could probably add some more without risking dehydration. Luckily I only usually have 1 cup of coffee a day--maybe 10oz of coffee--and I often do half-decaf, so it's not like major withdrawal symptoms, just a bit of morning grogginess.

On the 14th, I managed without any pain-killers at all, and I added mashed potatoes to the diet:

• coconut-almond milk w/ espresso powder
• 16oz coconut water
• 1 pre-boxed vanilla vegan shake
• 1/2 C vanilla almond-milk ice cream w/ chocolate syrup
• chocolate-banana smoothie (Hershey's unsweetened cocoa powder, banana, almond milk, agave, and ice)
• 1 round of mashed potatoes made with almond milk and olive oil (instead of butter).
• 1 round of mashed potatoes made with almond milk and and mix of olive oil and coconut oil (not any better or worse, but just thought I'd try it to see how it tasted; luckily I didn't make it too coconutty)

I needed to add salt to the mashed potatoes, which luckily didn't bother my throat at all.

Today, the 15th, I managed to avoid pain killers again and to eat a good deal as well:

• coconut-almond milk w/ espresso powder
• 1/2 bottle Revive Vitamin Water - This is still a little too acidic. I'll try it again another day.
• "carrot cake" smoothie (carrot juice, almond milk, dates soaked in almond milk, banana, agave, cinnamon, and ice) - I blended it twice to get the dates small enough to swallow. If I do one of these again, I'd suggest blending the dates with almond milk well, then adding other ingredients, then running smoothie mode.
• mashed potatoes made with chicken stock (in place of water), almond milk and olive oil (instead of butter).
• Gravy for mashed potatoes, which I made with chicken stock and corn starch. It was pretty bland, so in addition to plenty of salt I added mixed pepper, garlic powder, dried oregano, and dried sage. Not bad, but would've been better if I had better stock.

We'll see how the infamous Day 5 post-op goes.