Traveling by plane and keeping up with liquid intake

[lark60 430]

Just wanted to share an experience with everyone. I recently went on a trip to Korea to see my daughter and 5 of my 9 grandkids. I am 10 months post sleeve and this was my first LONG distance trip. I had traveled by plane after the surgery (short flight of 2 hours) before and was prepared to only drink Water on the flight (though the soda was a temptation I resisted).

Well...... the flight from San Francisco to Korea was 15 hours long. I had brought a shaker bottle and prepackaged samples of Protein shakes to get through the TSA thrill (no way was I going to hassle with getting pre made/packaged Protein Shakes through the screening). The flight out went as I had planned. I asked for Water every time they brought around the tray. The meals provided were pretty good! I skipped the high carb foods (bread, potatoes, rice) and took my time eating (I tried to keep the meal under an hour though). I also skipped the iceberg lettuce salad since I was trying to eat the other veggies provided with the meal. Again, water after the meal. For "breakfast" I made my shake. All in all the trip up was a success in regards to traveling and dealing with meals/water intake.

The trip back was a different beast. Maybe I had become over confident or maybe the 2 week vacation of being off my regular routine were the problem but I seemed to have a harder time with the return flight. I started out ok and made sure to ask for water frequently (I also had my water bottle that I purchased preflight) dinner was beef with rice (I had been eating rice every day for the past 2 weeks and knew to limit the amount to a tablespoon), spinach, roll and salad. I ate the beef, small amount of rice and the spinach. Skipped the roll and salad. After the meal I tried a glass of orange juice (the first time since the surgery. Hindsight being 20/20 I should have NEVER tried something new on a plane) The OJ did not sit well on my stomach. I started having heart burn almost immediately and knew the beverage choice was a mistake. Trying to get water down when my stomach was upset was a nightmare and I spent the remainder of the flight (about 10 hours) fearing I would throw up on the plane. I didn't dare eat anything else and stuck to sipping water as much as I could. I tried a sprite zero (mixed with water to get rid of the bubbles but it didn't seem to help.

Of course I couldn't sleep because of the upset stomach (and the drunk man behind me who kept pulling on my chair to move around) so when I arrived in San Fran I was very jet lagged, sick and just wanted to sleep. I had a 6 hour layover to endure till I could get home to my bed. I spent the time in the lounge closest to the bathroom. Lets just say the OJ finally completed the trip before me. My fear of vomiting on the plane was not realized but I did have 1 episode at the airport (not sure why since I hadn't eaten for over 10 hours). My bum was sore from the diarrhea by the time I got on the plane again.

Lessons learned: Don't try new things on a 15 hour international flight. BRING anti nausea medication (I forgot to pack my zofran and regretted this error) Stick to water, frequently, while flying.