chapter 4

There were so many things I'd been told I could not do. I couldn't drive for six weeks after my operation in case I had to do an emergency stop and the steering wheel forced my wound to pop open and my entrails to spill out... or something. I think they were just trying to scare me into complying.
I was not to lift heavy weights or push heavy objects, but I lived on my own! How could I get my shopping in? I was off sick, so I could not afford the extravagance of a taxi, so I had to get the bus. The nearest bus took half an hour to do a five minute journey and there was only one every 20 minutes. I refused to spend all day every day travelling on the bus to get a couple of things for my tea.
Alternatively, I could buy a few basics from the local paper shop, but I would pay a premium price for that convenience.
Or, I could ring up the local takeaway and place an order for delivery.
I was struggling to get my simple everyday jobs done. The trouble was, I told my mum and the people from work that I was fine because Pete was helping me. But how could Pete help when he was a figment of my imagination?
I was on my own and alone. If I did not go out, I did not speak to another soul for days. If I did go out, I saw plenty people, but none of them stopped to say anything more than 'morning'. I was finding everything very frustrating!

Nutritionally, I was not doing very well. I'd had nothing to eat in intensive care. They'd given me plenty intravenous fluids and if I had stayed there much longer they would have had to started feeding me through some kind of tube.
When I got to the ward, I got to experience the delicacies put out by the NHS kitchen.
I have never been a fan of canteen food and that was exactly what it was. Mass produced grey meat of uncertain origin with a thick layer of fat. Tasteless, over cooked vegetables and thick artificial tasting gravy. Bleugh! I tried the salad. It was limp, boring and tasteless. The quiche had a soggy bottom and an over cooked crust. Bleugh!
The only meal that I found was reasonable was the breakfast. A little bit of orange juice and a thick gloopy, but very nice porridge. That was enough for me.
I picked at the rest of the food and I didn't order a sweet because they were so unhealthy, unless it was a piece of fruit. Someone must have noticed because they sent a dietician to see me.
She told me straight. She had done her calculations, not just looked at my height and weight and BMI. She took into account my build, my muscle density and fat distribution.

I was dangerously underweight.

I didn't believe it. I had always been so careful. I thought I ate healthily, I'd almost eliminated fats and carbs from my diet and ate lots of protein.

She said I was wrong.

She said my body needed some fats because I was deficient in the fat soluble vitamins. She said my body needed carbohydrates to work efficiently. They were my fuel. Too much fuel and it would be stored as fat. Too little fuel and my body would convert proteins to use and the most readily available proteins were my muscles. The same muscles that I worked to hard in the gym to build up. My body had been digesting itself!
She said my body needed extra fuel right now to heal itself. My diet had to be a lot more balanced. I had to eat a lot more carbohydrate and start eating a little bit of fat. I had to increase my overall calories so that my body could heal itself.
She said the hospital menus had been constructed to provide a good balance for patients who were ill. She admitted the quality was not good, but the kitchens did not do so bad with the meagre budget the government provided.
It needn't cost a lot to eat healthily, it just took time, planning and a bit of ingenuity.
If I did not like the food the hospital provided and I could afford it, I could always supplement it at the hospital restaurant or the hospital shop.
In the mean time, she was going to provide me with some supplemental drinks, to boost my fat stores and increase my calories.

I agreed to try changing things temporarily. I could not train with my body the way that it was. I just had to accept that my body was healing and it had different needs.
I'd been looking forward to trying the asparagus soup. But when I took the lid off the brown plastic bowl, I was faced with a luminous green thin gloop that gave off such a stench that I baulked at it and had to replace the lid while I came up for fresh air.feeling braver, I took the lid off again. I played around with it, picked up a small spoonful and placed it in my mouth with my eyes closed. I had to try it. It had to get well. Bleugh! It tasted as bad as it smelled. I could not eat any more. I was convinced that despite the name, that gloopy concoction had never ever seen an asparagus stick in all it's life!
I tried some potato for my lunch. It tasted of nothing and was so lumpy it made me retch. I tried the strawberry mousse as a dessert. It was only a tiny portion, but it was light and fluffy, sweet and tasted artificial, but was nice. I wished I could have had more.
The supplemental drink I received a bit later was chocolate flavour and straight out of the fridge. I thought it would be like my protein shakes. It wasn't. It was thick, sweet, creamy and delicious. It left a bit of a residue on my tongue, but I didn't mind that. I looked forward to my next one.
The dietician was right. The restaurant food was of a much better quality than that provided on the wards, despite coming from the same kitchen and cooked by the same chefs. It was good to eat something hot for once as well, instead of that intermediary lukewarm rubbish from the meal trolley that came to the ward.
The food at the shop was expensive, but it was all right if all I wanted was a sandwich, or some biscuits. It was mostly for staff, but there tins of soup, pot noodles, crisps, chocolate, yoghurts, and other stuff on sale too.

I started having two x two course breakfasts, two x two course lunches and two x three course dinners every day, plus the supplements the dietician sent.
Of course, I might only have a mouthful of the meal on the ward, but I made up for that in the restaurant.
At first, it was a struggle to eat so much, having been restricted so much for so long. But it felt good to have a belly full of food.
Not only that, but visiting the restaurant gave me something to do other than sleeping and watching telly, which did not appeal to me anyway.
After a week of eating like this, I felt so much better than I had for years! I felt more alert and I had more energy.
The dietician was pleased with my progress, which showed in my blood results apparently. I was doing the right thing. I was eating. Eating something was always better than nothing. A high protein low fat regime was good for athletes, in training, but I had to remember that was not what I was right now.