Curse You, Anthony Bourdain

I've been craving real food so badly the last few weeks. I sit and watch Food Network and Travel Channel shows to torture myself. Anthony Bourdain's Cajun episode replayed and I had to watch it. Actually, they serve a good purpose, I guess. They make me so hungry, I can force myself to pour another can down my tube and hopefully gain back some weight. My pre-surgery weight was around 180, which was down from my average 185 to begin with. Right now I'm at 157. Almost 30 lbs lost over the last four months.

But the craving... I've tried scrambled eggs, soup, mashed potatoes, and for the most part, I can swallow it without too much trouble. It hurts and doesn't go down perfectly but it's doable. Last night I made chocolate pudding in the hopes that chocolate, being the last thing I could really taste, might be the first taste to come back. Nope. And the complete lack of taste makes eating it so much more difficult than the physical pain and discomfort. It makes me a little queasy, eating something with no flavor, like I'm doing it wrong or something. I really feel that if they could develop a pill that kills people's sense of taste, they could market it as a diet drug. 5 bites and I'm done.

On the other hand, I opened a Diet Coke and tried to drink it. I was surprised by the fact that I could kinda taste it, but more surprised at how much it burned the inside of my mouth. Like acid tearing through my skin. Oh wait, it is acid... I still managed to drink about a quarter of the can and the burning lessened with each try.

I'm finally feeling less fatigued. Hopefully I can get stuff done today. Like shipping the paintings people were kind enough to buy from my Etsy shop. Up until this week it's been difficult to do much more than sit and click a mouse. Even typing is tiring. But, my mouth is almost healed, the dead skin has finally started peeling off my neck and I was able to sleep through most of the night without waking to clear my throat. Slowly but surely.