Strange Grumblings...or lack thereof...

Pre-surgery, i knew what hungry was.  I knew that if my stomach growled, i was to stuff food in my face.  I knew that if I had eaten something a few hours ago, I could probably eat something now.  I used to have conversations that went something like this:

Stomach:  "Ggggrrrrrrwwwwwooooollllllllrrrrrrrrr"
Me:  "Yeah, yeah. I know...."
Stomach:  "Rrrrrraaaaawwwwrrrrrrrrrrllllllll"
Me:  "Mmmm...That looks good."
**commence eating**

Surgery has since rendered my stomach mute.  I don't know if he left, of if he's just quiet now, or if the staples are keeping him captive.  Not a peep.  Maybe he's just mad at me and we're not on speaking terms right now...

Anyhow, every few hours now i get this weird empty feeling where my stomach used to be.  It's nothing like hunger.   It's not a gnawing sensation, it's not a rumbling, and it doesn't gurgle at me.  It's just a slight empty feeling.  Though, it's nothing like the emptiness in my soul (that's what my mom says i have).

So I now feed as per the schedule.  I get up, I eat.  I wait 30 minutes or so, then i drink something.  I wait 30 to 60 minutes, and I eat something again...  Sometimes I have to set a reminder on my phone or I'll forget to eat, then I'm confronted by the odd empty tummy...

"Full" is also different.  I take small baby-spoon sized bites and pause for chewing well.  After a few bites, I have a small burp escape.  That's it.  I'm done.  Should I chose to ignore this tiny burp, my stomach allows three or so additional bites before it unceremoniously reverses the direction of my food elevator.  I swear if I don't get the hang of this eating thing, I'm going to adopt baby birds.  There's no retching, no spasms, just "blech" elevator-up!  I will never be able to watch bird-related nature shows again.  Every time I get sick I swear i should hear a tiny "peep!peep!peep!" from somewhere...