The First Few Weeks Inpatient

After the first week I was on 3500 calories a day. I felt like I was eating a house! My body started to adapt to the routine and the schedule. It was still exhausting. After meals I felt like I had eaten a whole buffet of food. Here are a few examples of what the meals consisted of:

Breakfast:

A cup of oatmeal with butter and brown sugar

A Banana

A Muffin

Scrambled eggs

Bacon

Soy Milk

Juice

Dinner:

Roasted Rotisserie chicken (with all the skin!)

Rice with Gravy

A cup of cooked vegetables

Macaroni Salad

A cupcake

Ice Tea

Juice

An Ensure Drink

Within the first few days of eating solid foods again I started having night sweats. I learned this was a normal part of the re-feeding process as your body's metabolism starts to work again. It was a good thing! Although I woke up a few times in a puddle of sweat, I knew it was a good sign that my body was starting to work again. It was working to repair and build tissue and many other functions it had not done in a long time. Along with the increased calories and the night sweats I would get moments of "hot flashes" throughout the day. I may only be 26 years old but yes I know firsthand what hot flashes are like! whew! I would have LOVED to be able to stick my head in a freezer at times.

My abdomen started to feel sore, tender, bloated and achy and I was pretty sure that it was my intestines expanding again and my skin starting to stretch. 

In this program, you meet with the team of doctors each day to discuss any questions you have regarding your treatment or progress. They will not tell you what your weight is - EVER. You will never know what their goal weight is for you or how close you are to your goal weight. They will basically tell you "you're gaining" or "things aren't going well and your weight has plateaued or dropped" and that's about it. 

Each time I met with the doctors they commended me on getting all the food in me and working hard. They reassured me that I am doing the best I can do and that this WILL be a success. In the first two weeks, when the pain was at an extreme, hearing the reassurance from the treatment team and nurses truly made me persevere. I always remember my first doctor told me, "food is the best medicine, and we would not be putting all this food in you if it was not safe for you." Although I was unsure about this approach of overloading my GI system with food, hearing the doctors and nurses assure me that if my body was not capable of handling these foods it would not be keeping the food down made me believe I could do this. This was the first time I truly felt like I trusted and believed in what a doctor was telling me. I believed them and reminded myself that the food I ate before the meal stayed down and if my body couldn't tolerate it wouldn't be keeping it down. I used this as my motivation to get through each meal. 

Each day I met with the doctor's and explained my symptoms and pain, they commended me for pushing through and getting all the food in me. My doctor told me everyday, "you are doing great!" One conversation that will always stick out in my mind was him talking to me about how it felt to be eating all kinds of food again that I hadn't had in so long. One question I remember him asking me was, "so when was the last time you ate a burger?" I told him it hadn't been since 2012 when I was at a barbecue and he laughed and said, "wow, that must be a date that sticks out in your mind." It really was though, I remember eating the burger it tasted amazing, then the next day regretting it because of the toll it took on my GI system, leaving me in pain. 

Although I received continuous reassurance from the team of doctors, for the first few weeks of the program I witnessed my fellow peers in the program struggle with making progress. Having their weight plateau or not reaching their goal weight after a prolonged time in the program. I was afraid and thought to myself, "what happens when it happens to me?" I saw it happening to everyone else. The answer I got from the doctors was, as long as you follow all the protocol, eat all your meals you'll do fine. From my peers, who had prior experience in the re-feeding process, I was told that sometimes your body just starts to slow down even when you aren't purposely doing anything. I was still afraid it would happen to me, and it did. After about 3 weeks in the program I met with the team and they told me my rate of gaining weight had slowed down. They gave me 24 hours to pay attention to how much I was moving around and if I was doing anything "extra" that could be contributed to burning extra calories. If my weight did not go up by the next day I would be put on Inadequate Weight Gain protocol (IWG). It means losing privileges and being monitored excessively to ensure you aren't deliberately doing anything to prevent your weight from going up. That night I piled on as much as I could to my dinner tray (being limited to only a few options) but I managed to choose a giant chocolate cupcake doused in chocolate syrup and icing and the next day found out I did it! I didn't get put on IWG. A few days later, they told me my rate of weight gain was still slowing so they gave me the option of going on IWG or increasing to 4000 calories. I took the calorie increase =) Punishing me wouldn't make my weight go up, but more calories WOULD!

On 9/22 a little over a month since I was admitted I went in to meet with the team and they really spent a good amount of time praising me for all I have conquered. They said from the moment I got here I said I wanted to try and wanted to get well and to this day I have been doing AMAZING. They commended me for taking all that has been put in front of me and never saying "no" or I can't. The one nurse said that despite my concerns of how I would feel physically, I never said No, I always said, "I am willing."

Hearing my peers tell me how brave I am for coming into a program so different from what I thought it would be really helped me stay motivated and continue to fight.