Three Weeks Post Op! Long but Helpful If You're Facing Surgery

Aug 31, 2011

The RNY surgery is behind me, now and I have no regrets.  Already, since the very highest weight I had pre-surgery, I have lost 24 pounds.  Clothes are becoming loose, people who knew I had the surgery (and there are very few) have noticed my weight loss in my face, particularly.

The hospital experience:

I checked in at 5 a.m. on Tuesday, August 9, 2011.  I brought next to nothing with me to the hospital because I knew I'd be in a gown the entire time.  My husband and mother were able to be with me until it was time to go to the pre-op area where I was put in a bed in an area with other patients also waiting for surgery.  There, I was accompanied by a person from my surgeon's office who does the education classes and leads the support groups for WLS.  She literally held my hand when the nurse put my IV in and she and I talked about her own experiences with the WLS she'd had several years ago.

When the time came for me to be wheeled into the operating room, I don't remember much.  I had already met the anesthesiologist in the staging area.  The surgeon did not come out to greet me.  Not that he was obligated to but in past surgeries, I have appreciated having the surgeon stop by my side, pat me on the arm, and ask me how I was doing.  One of the nurses put an oxygen mask on me and that is the very last thing I remember before awakening in the recovery room.

Before I opened my eyes, I was aware of noises and voices going on around me.  Unlike other times I've experienced in a recovery room, I opened my eyes and immediately lifted my head to see what was going on.  I called to the nurse to ask if my mother and husband could come back to see me and was told that they could not.  My voice was very hoarse from the tube that had been down my throat during the surgery.  I felt no pain whatsoever.  I knew that a catheter had been put in went I was under so I was not surprised by that.  Finally, when a room became available in the hospital, I was carted there where my husband and mother were already waiting for me.  I remember napping on and off the rest of that day and sucking on ice chips, the only thing I was allowed to have. 

With the next morning, came the promises of the swallow test I'd be having later in the morning.  I was not allowed to drink anything until that procedure was done.  I was carted in my bed from my room down to the lab where the swallow test was done.  I had to scoot off of my bed onto the table where the imaging machinery was.  The nurses kept talking about how awful the contrast solution would taste that I'd have to drink.  Actually, I didn't find it as bad as the magnesium citrate I had to drink the day before my surgery!!!  An interesting benefit was getting to watch, on screen, what the technicians were seeing through the x-ray equipment: liquid passing through my pouch into my small intestine.  I actually watched it happen on a TV screen and I thought that was very neat getting to see what my pouch looked like.  I passed the swallow test and was able to enjoy "lunch" and "dinner" that day.  My meals were three tiny plastic cups (the size of take-out salad dressing cups) with chicken broth in one, grape juice in another, and fruit-flavored gelatin in the third.  I had to space out each meal over a period of 45 minutes.  I got up and walked a couple of times but felt too weak and exhausted to do very much.

The first night in the hospital, I stayed by myself, kept the TV on, and ended up sleeping soundly.  The second night, however, was a different story.  Every conversation, sound, and light kept me awake.  I could not get comfortable although I had no pain.  Now, without my catheter (which had been removed the previous day) I was able to get out of bed by myself, so I decided to go for a walk at 3:00 a.m.  I was amazed at the number of patients with their doors open, either watching TV or chatting loudly with people who were staying with them overnight.  At this point, I became antsy to get home to my own bed and my quiet, comfortable bedroom.  The major annoyance of my hospital stay were the heprin (sp?) shots the nurses kept giving me in my stomach fat to keep my blood from clotting.  The shots themselves didn't hurt but they left big bruises all over my belly, as if someone had been punching me. 

The morning after my second night in the hospital, I was able to convince my surgeon's intern that I was ready to go home.  By 10:30 a.m., I was on my way home.  Because my husband had gone through the same exact surgery more than two years earlier, with the same surgeon, he made an excellent caregiver at home.  He knew exactly what to do for me.  Admittedly, I hardly walked at all at home, preferring to spend most of my time resting.  I did go up and down the stairs in our split-level home a couple of times each day.

During the two weeks after my surgery, I started experiencing a sharp, stabbing pain on my left side, near the incision where the largest of instruments had gone.  I found out that the drainage tube that would remain in place for two weeks had its starting point in the area of my pain. 

(...to be continued)

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