Chronic small bowel obstruction from adhesions

@thull , you haven't had much time to rest! So sorry you've been through all that, but I'm sure the broth tasted good 🙂 I am SO with you on the "being afraid to eat" thing! The holidays make it worse (I'm already worrying about if I'll have anything other than egg nog on Christmas). It seems that I tend to get my sbo's around the holidays, which has made me wonder if holiday food stress is a contributing factor (which, of course, makes it more stressful!).

@hopeful33250 , I've actually been working hard to find nutritionally sound ways to do this. For example, my breakfast this morning is a glass of lassi--soy or coconut milk whipped up with fat-free Greek yogurt with active cultures and some spices (good amount of protein, calcium, etc.), a glass of organic no-pulp carrot/orange juice, and coffee (because I need caffeine!! 🙂 ). Other mornings I might have prune juice for iron and laxative properties.
The smoothies I often have at night contain everything a nutrtionist could wish for--banana, milk, protein powder and/or tofu, avocado, spinach, oats, yogurt. I take multi-vitamins, too. I try to make everything I put in my mouth nutritionally rich. If I do eat any solid food at night, I keep it low-fiber (pizza!!), and I chew everything (even juice) like crazy before swallowing, to get digestion started.
I think I'm probably "eating" healthier than I ever have!

You really are doing all of the right things, @nancybev. Thanks for all of the good ideas.
Do you have your vitamin levels checked periodically? I'm thinking about Vit D and Iron, etc.

It is stressful and it wouldn't surprise me if the stress made it worse! Luckily, my family and friends are hyper sensitive to the fact that I have major dietary restrictions and plan accordingly. My family also has some food allergies, tree nuts for my husband & son, cranberries for my daughter, and cucumbers for my son in laws mom. So we are all very mindful when planning food for meals and parties. Harder when going out, I always have to look at a menu ahead of time to make sure there is something for me to eat. I love eggnog, but always have to remember my lactaid🙂. If I am going to have anything with alcohol, I generally stick to a glass of wine.

@hopeful33250 , I'll have my annual physical again soon, so I'll get everything checked again. I've been a vegetarian for decades, so I'm pretty used to making sure I get the right nutrients in one way or another. Lately I've started running again, so I've been paying special attention to protein. There's iron in my multivitamins (and prune juice), and I drink a lot of regular milk and nut-milks, all of which tend to have vitamin D and other vitamins, as well as calcium. I also eat scrambled eggs sometimes.

I admire you, @nancybev. You really have it together~

@thull , wine works! 🙂 I have learned the hard way, however, that alcohol may be nice going down (within reason), but it's seriously unpleasant coming back up!
I think that there are probably some lactose-free eggnogs (made with things like soy milk?) out there, too. I'm very fortunate in that one thing that's never been a problem for me is milk...I'm a bit of an ice cream addict, for one thing!

@hopeful33250 , it's definitely debatable whether or not I have it together (but thank you!). I'm basically just desperate to find ways to make this at least manageable, as I really don't want to keep going through the pain and hospitalizations, and I haven't gotten much help from doctors. Desperation can be a useful thing sometimes!

Lactaid now makes ice cream that is pretty good! I have also found Lactaid cottage cheese that is good also. If I am having regular ice cream, I just swallow the lactaid pill with the first bite and it seems to help. Other than the SBO that I came home from the hospital with, my issues seem to be the diverticulitis inflammation swelling up and blocking and making it hard for anything to get thru, but it always seems to be in that lower sigmoid area where they ended up cutting a large section out, but apparently they still found diverticulosis in the part they reattached🙁Which is what I am dealing with now, so at least there is no nausea or vomiting, just intense lower abdominal pain and no appetite, which does not help with my weight

I wish I had the time and energy to plan and make smoothies! Working 2 jobs right now is draining me, but thankfully one ends Friday. On Monday when I was feeling super ill, I left work at 5, got home and was in bed by 5:30. Other than hitting the bathroom, I didn't get out of bed until 7:30 the next morning. Are there any smoothies that are premade out there that are any good?