Encouraging Words Please and Thank You!

Hi all. I am in my final 9 days of my pre-op diet before my surgery on the 8th of September. While I am doing fine and sticking with everything (have to do 3 week pre op diet), I would still like to hear words of encouragement, your preop experiences, or stories about how you felt right after the surgery. 

I applause you for doing 3 weeks of liquid. I had a 2 weeks of eating their food. I felt good after my surgery. I had pain in my shoulder but that was from the gas they pumped her with. The nurse gave me some drops for it and that helped. Only time I had pain is when I walked, the incision that they took the stomach out hurt. I would use the pain pump when I got back. I only stayed one night.  When I was getting ready to go home I started to experiencing pain so I had them wheel me out. It was too early for pain meds so I took some liquid Tylenol but that didn't help. When it was time for my pain meds I took it and still an hour later I was still in pain. I took the other medications that they sent me home with. It finally worked. The next day I was much better. I never had any problem with drinking my fluids. I was driving on the 4th day. I had a pretty good recovery. Now I'm 2 years out, I'm still trying to lose about 15 pounds but it gets harder the smaller you get.

Keep up the good work and you will do fine.

Yvonne

I found the pre-op diet difficult - after surgery, you have the physiological changes and the restriction to help.  But the pre-op is pure will-power.  Keep the faith and know that it is so worth it in the end. 

I started at 385 pounds with a BMI of 60.  I lost 225 pounds and I'm now about 165 pounds with a bmi of 24.  I've been maintaining for about 2 years now, and it feels so great to be able to travel, to keep up with the strenuous tours, to fit in an airplane seat, to buy clothes at normal stores. 

3 years post surgery, I still catch a glimpse of myself in the mirror and I can't believe how good I look!  Its so worth it!

I do want to emphasize - the weight loss surgery makes it possible to manage the obesity, but it doesn't make it easy.  It is a life-long commitment to managing the obesity.  But I am the same person who got to 385 pounds in spite of all my efforts to control it.  Now I can succeed.

I think you will be so happy with your sleeve.  We all deserve good health.  WLS makes it possible.

best wishes,

Carol

The closer the surgery, the more nervous you get. It happens to us all. 

A few months ago I posted the following. Hope it helps.

 

Surgery day.

What follows is a list of everything I remember that happened on the day of surgery, supplemented by my husband's observations when I was too woozy to think straight. If you've been hospitalized before, you'll already be familiar with most of the details. If you've never had surgery, this list will give you as complete a picture as I can manage of what surgery day was like.

 

 

• Once you go into the hospital, head to the admittance office and complete whatever paperwork they require. Bring ID, insurance info, a list of your current medications, a copy of advanced directives, and any other papers they will have required in advance.

• You will be directed to the surgical unit waiting room.

• Wait there until a nurse calls your name.

• The nurse will take you to a curtained-off cubicle, which will have a gurney, a chair and a plastic bag for your clothes.

• She or he will direct you to change into a hospital gown, put a paper shower cap over your hair, and put on those ever-so-stylish hospital pressure socks (Their purpose is to help prevent blood clots in your legs from extended immobility.) The nurse will leave while you change. When you're dressed in your stunning new outfit, open the curtain, and wait for the nurse to come back.

• The nurse will settle you onto the gurney in a semi-reclining position if you're not already there.

• Wait around some more.

• Another nurse will come in and take some blood draws from your arm. An IV port will be inserted (usually in your hand or arm) and fluids from the bag hanging on the IV pole next to your bed will be started to keep you hydrated. An oxygen monitor clip will be placed onto your fingertip. An atutomatic blood pressure cuff will be wrapped around your arm. All of these instruments will be attached to a machine that continuously measures your blood pressure, oxygen levels, and heart rate. It beeps a lot. Don't be alarmed. That machine just loves to beep.

• At this point, if someone came with you to the hospital, he or she will be allowed to come in to keep you company.

• Wait around some more.

• More forms will be brought in for you to sign (liability releases -- just what you want to think about right before surgery!)

• Wait around some more.

• At some point, your anesthesiologist will visit you for a few minutes to tell you what he'll be using to keep you comfortable before, during, and after surgery.

• When your surgeon is ready for you, they'll move you fast.

• Your gurney will be wheeled out of the cubicle, down various corridors, and finally into the OR. It's very bright and cold in there. Ask for blankets if you're cold.

• There will be lots of hustle and bustle around you as the team preps the instruments.

• A little something relaxing will be injected into your IV. It's very soothing. Mmmmmmm.

• Your surgeon will come in masked and gowned. He'll make sure you're you and say a few encouraging words.

• An anesthesia mask will be placed over your face. You'll be told to breathe deeply. A few breaths later, you'll be out cold.

• While you're under anesthesia, the surgical team will intubate you; that is, insert a narrow tube down your throat and into your trachea. This is a precautionary step to keep your airway open during surgery. If your surgeon wants a urinary catheter inserted, they'll do that too. I don't remember anything being said about a catheter in my case. If they used one, it was removed before I regained consciousness. Don't worry that you'll be too heavy for them to do this. They've done it a hundred times before.

• You will wake up in the recovery room. You'll be very woozy. Your first coherent thought will be "I'm alive!" Then, "I did it! I'm sleeved!" These are very pleasant and reassuring thoughts!

• At some point while still you're still woozy, the nurses will remove the intubation tube. It will feel a little weird but it won't hurt. Sometimes it's removed before you wake up. Your throat will feel very sore. It will take a few days until the soreness goes away.

• You will have a drainage tube dangling from one of the small incisions in your abdomen. It shouldn't hurt, but it's kind of gross looking.

• As if what you were wearing wasn't already sexy-looking enough, you'll find inflatable "pressure boots" wrapped around your lower legs. They automatically inflate and deflate to prevent blood clots in your legs.

• Nurses will keep coming to you and asking in unnecessarily loud voices how you feel. Tell them if you feel nauseated or are in pain (you probably won't be; you'll still be flying high from the anesthesia). But if you find that you're in any distress, the nurses can inject meds into your IV to help you feel better.

• When you're recovered enough to know what's going on around you and can be raised to a sitting position, they'll wheel you to your hospital room, where you'll rest for a little while. You'll still be hooked up to that beeping machine. It lives to beep. You will just have to endure it till the nurse comes in and fixes whatever is making it beep -- empty IV bags, gremlins, whatever. There will be a call button attached to your bed rail to call the nurses if you need them. Rest for a while and contemplate the future. You probably won't feel like reading, watching TV, or playing with your laptop. You'll still be a bit too woozy do much of anything. Over the next few hours, your alertness will increase and you'll feel pretty much like yourself again.

• You will be given a plastic device called an Incentive Spirometer. It looks sort of like a small plastic pitcher with a short hose attached. Your nurse will show you how to use it. It's designed to help you breathe deeply despite the discomfort in your abdomen. You need to start breathing normally and deeply again to prevent pneumonia. You should use it several times an hour. You get to keep it for your very own and take home to use there.

• About four hours or so after your surgery, nurses will come in and help you to your feet and guide you to the bathroom for your first walk and a very welcome bathroom break.

• When you're back in bed, you'll probably sleep for a while.

• You may have one of those push-button painkiller med dispensers. Use it if necessary. You'll feel stiff, and your incision sites will feel sore. You may have pain, especially in your shoulders, from the gas they used in the OR to inflate your abdomen. Sitting upright and walking frequently helps dispel this gas.

• Nurses will come in at regular intervals to inject you with blood thinners and painkillers, check your IV, replace empty IV bags with full ones, and do other sundry chores.

• Once you're fully awake, you can start to take charge of your own recovery. This is where the "walk, walk, walk" advice kicks in. Get up and walk around slowly and carefully in the hallway every half-hour to an hour. You'll have to roll your IV pole along with you. Your sleep that night will be broken up by nurses taking your vital signs and administering medications. Use those breaks to take short walks before going back to sleep.

• This next step was not done by my surgeon but is commonly performed the following morning. You'll be wheelchaired to a room where the surgeon or another doctor will give you a tiny amount of barium solution to drink while observing your new stomach on a fluoroscope to determine if there are any leaks along your incision line. Usually, the line holds just fine.

• Back in your room, having passed the leak test, you'll be given two ounces of water to drink. It will take you a long, long time to get it down. Take heart. Your ability to drink liquids will increase dramatically over the next day or two as your stomach swelling starts to diminish. This is when the "sip, sip, sip" advice kicks in.

• At some point during the day after the surgery, your surgeon will examine you and ask questions about how you're feeling. He'll then determine whether you can go home that day or need to stay one more night. Nearly everyone can go home the day after surgery.

• If you're to be discharged that day, the nurses will remove the drainage tube. Sometimes you have to go home with it, in which case you'll be instructed as to how to take care of it. If they remove the tube in the hospital, it will feel very strange but shouldn't hurt. They'll start unhooking you from the infernal beeping machine, and the IV will be removed from your arm.

• You'll get dressed in your own comfortable clothes and wait around some more.

• A nurse will give you more forms to sign. They'll also go over a list of discharge instructions, which you will take home with you. These instructions tell you what you can and can't do in the first few weeks following surgery and when to call your surgeon should any complications crop up.

• Wait around some more.

• The nurses will help you into a wheelchair (don't bother telling them you can walk out; the hospital's liability insurance demands that you be wheeled out). They'll wheel you out to the entrance where your designated driver will pick you up and take you home. Use that pillow you remembered to put in the car to hold against your stomach to cushion it from bumps in the road.

• When you get home, do a little victory dance in your head, go to bed, and take a nice, well-deserved, beepless nap. Then get busy recovering.

 

psychoticparrot

 

 

Thank You for that description. I have surgery on Friday and your post will be great to remember.