I decided to write an article about my recent time in hospital for two main reasons:
1) It’s a pretty remarkable story
2) I wanted to create a point of reference for anyone who was curious about the details.

On the 1st April, I checked into hospital for what should have been a simple 3 hour operation followed by an overnight stay. Safe to say it didn’t quite work out that way.

I woke up from the operation and had a drink of water. Then vomited. A lot. The next two days followed a pattern of me feeling too nauseated to eat but bringing back up anything I drank along with a lovely concoction of green bile. An abdominal xray confirmed I had developed something called an ileus and that I would have to be drip fed until the bowel wakes up again. I also had to have a Ryles tube inserted to help empty the stomach without me having to vomit the contents.

As a result of feeling too ill from the ileus treatment to do anything other than sleep and gag, I started to have antidepressant withdrawal because I had missed so many doses. The resulting fever dreams pretty rough. After about the 5th day, my condition started to improve. I started back on my antidepressants, I was allowed liquids and although I was still vomiting I wasn’t bringing up as much or as often. By day 7, I was allowed to eat again and two days later I was allowed to go home.

I was advised to keep to a low fibre diet and eat little and often. That suits me fine because I not having eaten for so long has caused my stomach to shrink so much that I can only eat snack sized portions right now. The lack of food has also caused me to lose a stone and a half. Eating tiny portions means that I’m still losing weight, albeit at a much slower rate. But I’m managing things surprisingly well so far.

I’ll be continuing this diet for the next 6 weeks so wish me luck.