My Post Op Experience

Dec 02, 2012

This is from Nov. 16, 2 days after I was sleeved.  I meant to post it here then, so I'm catching up!

Well, I was sleeved on Wed at around 3:30.  Was supposed to be 2, but the later you are in the day, the the higher the chance the OR will get backed up.  So here are all the details, the best I can recall:

1. Sine I was dehydrated, and a hard stick, getting the IV in wasn't pretty! Fourth time was a char.  First two tries were unsuccessful, third try infiltrated, fourth worked.  The IV was just about the worst part!

2. Had a long talk with the anesthesiologist about nausea, since I am prone to it.  She gave me a patch as well as lot of antinausea drugs in my IV -- and you guessed it!  I still woke up with nausea.

3. Since pain meds cause nausea for me, I stopped them within a few hours of getting back to my room. The nurses continued to pump me full of anti-nausea meds.  By late yesterday afternoon, the nausea had tapered off, and by this AM -- no nausea. I slept sitting up to help the nausea.

4. Pain -- well, I do have a little, but it's more like soreness.  Certain movement hurt, so I try to avoid those.  But pain is better than nausea for me! I had a little PCA, but only used it a couple of times.

5.  Swallow test.  Yuck.  Since I was nauseous anywhy, I chugged the stuff (expecting I'd just throw it up!) -- but no, it stayed down.  The test showed the contrast moving through my system, but it seemed to backed up in my esphogus, so no liquids until I had an X-ray later in the day.  X-ray was OK, so I got liquids that evening.

6. Luckily, I brought some peppermint tea, and they had water.  I ordered chicken broth, jello and Isopure.  Yuck on all counts.  Since I was being hydrated through the IV, i only had the jello, tea and water.

7. I did laps around the hall everytime I had to go to the bathroom.  So my routine was to got to the bathroom, do laps til I got tired (maybe 3-4), come back and use the spirometer, and then doze back off.

8. Came home today around 11:30 am.  NO DRAIN!  Yeah!  I didn't even have a drain in the hospital.  I was not expecting that at all.  My understanding was the most of my doc's patients go home with a drain.  

Overall -- the pain isn't too bad -- it's more like the soreness you get after a huge workout.  Moving certain ways hurts, but if I'm still, like sitting, I have zero pain.

Now, it's time to shovel in the liquids.  Off I go!  So far, both warm and cold work just fine for me.  I'm keeping my fingers crossed!

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