So I vomited today

Last updated on Wed, 14th Sep 2022

I learned a valuable lesson today about not eating too quickly, and making sure I chew my food properly.

I had a call with my dietician yesterday, and she said that now that I’m a week after the surgery I can progress from a liquid to a soft food diet. I was pleased to hear that news because it meant that I could have a small amount of mashed potato with some baked beans for my dinner for the first time in about 3 weeks. And I love potatoes!

So this morning I was perhaps a little too excited to expand my culinary choices, and I ended up cooking myself a small mushroom omlet. I figured that both the eggs and mushrooms were soft foods, so I would be ok.

Unfortunately I tucked into it with a bit too much enthusiasm, and forgot to chew everything fully and to pace myself. So about halfway through eating it, I got a pain in my chest, and I knew pretty quickly that something was stuck. I guess maybe one of the bits of egg or mushroom got trapped in my new stomach pouch.

I wasn’t able to shift the blockage. Sipping water didn’t seem to help clear it either. And after another couple of minutes I got the sensation that I needed to throw up. Luckily I was near the bathroom at the time, because it came up quite quickly. In fact I vomited twice, about 5 minutes apart, and all of the egg and mushroom came back out.

And when I blew my nose after vomiting, there was egg in that too! Ew!

Anyway, so I guess I need to slow down a bit, in a number of ways:

• I need to slow down when eating. I need to take really small mouthfuls, and also remember to chew everything about 20 times before swallowing. I also need to put down my fork between mouthfuls to slow everything down.
• I need to slow down my enthusiasm about getting back to normal eating. It’s going to take a couple of months for my new smaller stomach to heal fully, and I need to be more careful about re-introducing foods into my diet, and not rush to reintroduce foods.

After all I hate vomiting. And I don’t want to be doing it too often because that can’t be good for the new stomach either.