Friday, March 12, 2010

Foamies?

Ever heard of the "foamies"?  ...Yeah...me neither.  Nobody told me about this... although I now understand it's a fairly common occurrence for people who have had gastric bypass surgery.

Ok, here's what happened.  I had just finished eating a soft pretzel, which I apparently didn't chew thoroughly enough. And I started getting that pressure/painful feeling that a little bite of pretzel was stuck.  This has happened a couple of times before.  You're supposed to chew each bite at least 30 times to make sure it's small enough to make it through.  If something gets stuck, it can be painful for a long time.. or it can make you throw up.

In this case I had to throw up as my husband was driving us down the highway. So I grabbed a fast food cup out of the car trash can and went to town.  Except here's where it gets weird... I threw up foam.  It looked like I had scraped the bubbles off the top of a sink of dish water and put it in the cup.  I threw up a couple more times and each time... just white bubbles. 

I said to my husband, "Hey look at this!"

He swirved the car and said, "NO!  I don't wanna look at that!"

I said, "It doesn't look like throw up!  It looks like dish soap!"

Anyway... So I got home and looked it up on this weight loss surgery forum I've been going to (RenewedReflections) and sure enough, it's common enough that it even has a nickname... "the foamies."  

Weird but true stories from the life of a recovering over eater.

Just as a post script... I'm down to 238 (from my original 292)... so that's something to smile about.  :-D