Post-Op - Day 1

Mar 11, 2011

I didn't really get a great deal of sleep the night after my surgery.  I can't sleep in hospitals.  The nurses didn't bother me too much, maybe once or twice, but I walked often and kept chewing my ice chips.  About 7:30 in the morning the day shift nurse came in and told me to get changed into my clothes and prepare to be discharged. 

Being that we lived 7 hours from Denton, I was wanting to leave as soon as possible to drive during the day and to avoid traffic as much as possible.  About that time, the kitchen staff brought around breakfast.  I was hoping for some more onion soup as it was great the night before to sip on that.  Very soothing.  i open up the tray to find three slabs of bacon and some french toast.  Pretty ticked off.....  I got the nurse to order some broth for me, which came quickly.  My wife ate the bacon.  Lucky.  I got the broth and made the mistake of taking in too much too soon.  I didn't puke but it did hurt.  A full feeling like I couldn't even explain.  Just a huge pressure right under your chest.  

Eating too much to early made me feel bad for most of the day so I ended up slacking off on eating ice chips.  I almost got dehydrated and had trouble using the restroom because of it.  Around noon I was getting anxious and asked when the Dr. was expected to be by.  It was then I found out that he wouldn't be in until atleast 5 pm.  That was sort of upsetting because I was so ready to get out of there.  But we laid around watching tv and being bored.  It ended up that after the dr. got the hospital he was asked to step in on a surgery with another surgeon and due to that, we didn't get checked out until after 7:00 pm.  

We still wanted to get home that night so we decided we'd go ahead and drive straight through.  We made plans to stop at the most every hour for atleast 5-10 minutes.  We stuck to that and  everything went well.  We got about 2 hours outside of Beaumont and the pain started back in my chest just like it did right after surgery.  It became excrutiating.  We kept hoping to find a 24 hour pharmacy and found one in Cleveland, TX where the pharmacist was able to very quickly get the lortab scrip filled in about 30 seconds.  That was a God send because I was near tears over the pain.  We ended up getting home about 2:30 am, unloaded the car and jumped into bed.

It was a long day but I did learn a few important things.  First I learned that I HAVE TO eat slowly, even with broth.1/2 tsp every 5 minutes would probably be ok.  I'm going to try that going forward.  I also have to be very mindful that I'm constantly drinking water or eating ice.  It is easy to get dehydrated and you just feel bad when you are.  I also learned that pain medicine after discharge is crucial.  If you have to wait a day you will be in pain.  Get them filled asap.  Plan on taking some every 6 hours.  Also, if you travel for the few weeks after surgery, make sure you move around as often as possible.  Blood clots can be fatal and can happen to anyone.  I made sure to move around in the seat and shift my weight, flex my legs, move my arms, and stop hourly to walk. 

It was so great to get to sleep in my own bed.  I can't even express how great that was.  Sleeping was comfortable and pain was minimal.

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