It’s my second full week back at work, and it’s going well. Since I have the energy level of a small child, I’d have to say I’m a bit tired, especially by the end of the week.

I’m curious what my vitamin levels are right now. I keep up with my gummy vitamins and sublingual B12 drops, but what exactly is my body absorbing with my new plumbing? My nutritionist seems to think as long as my poop is normal, my absorption must be good. For now, I hope she’s right. Eventually when I go back, I’m sure we’ll check my levels again.

Food eating is going well at my desk job. We make fun of how often I eat, and I could keep making stomachless jokes all day. Glad it’s easy to take bites while sitting in front of a computer. The last few days, if my myfitnesspal app and I are calculating stuff right, I’ve been able to consume over 2000 calories. Score one for team Marne! Hopefully 113 is my bottom.

Yesterday, I got the question from a coworker, “where have you been the last 8 weeks?”. It was caveated with a nice “you don’t have to say if you don’t want to.” But of course, I’m blogging on the Internet, so I’m obviously pretty open about this whole thing. I see this as my opportunity to educate people about gastric cancer. When I told them I had a genetic predisposition to an undetectable stomach cancer with average age of onset in your 30s, had my stomach removed and beat stage I cancer, I got the ‘jaw dropped’ response. A look like, that’s crazy. Crazy for two reasons. 1. Didn’t know you could live without a stomach. And 2. I’m still pretty young and look healthy, albeit skinny. People just don’t expect to hear it. It’s never a short conversation. But I told them a lot of information about the whole ordeal, and they thought I was pretty peppy and positive about the whole thing. Having worried about this surgery for 6 months prior, I’m probably less stressed now. And knowing what to expect made the transition pretty good.

What I’ve also realized is that most people I’ve mentioned my saga to know somebody who’s fought and passed away from gastric cancer. Cancer sucks. I’m blessed to have beaten it. My dad must be watching over me with God.

Been thinking when I run my half marathon, maybe I can share my story. Also thinking of bringing awareness to nostomachforcancer by running with some signage that I’m running stomachless. Might make some more folks google and learn about stomach cancer.