I'm a post-op

Jul 16, 2010

 Well, I had my surgery 3 days ago, spent two nights in the hospital and got to come yesterday. Overall, everything went very well. We arrived at the hospital at 05:45 as instructed and waited until 6-ish before they called me back. Weighed in (went from 243 to 232.5 on 10 day pre-op diet) into gown and signed forms, answered medical history questions, met anesthesiologist and then they had difficulty starting my IV. One nurse tried once, then a second nurse tried, didn't get blood flow but thought she had it in since the fluid ran in. I immediately felt pain and knew ( as a nurse) it was infiltrated. The circulating nurse, a male, came in and said. "oh it's fine, let's go" By the time he had me in the OR I was about to come off the bed in pain from the fluid going in wrong.  The male nurse tried again to tell the anesthesiologist that "it's fine" and luckily he saw it was infiltrated and stopped it immediately and put a new one in easily. I thought it was so cool that during the pain, I felt someone rubbing my feet through the blanket and it was my surgeon. Next they said I would be waking up in recovery and I thanked them all and said good nite. It was about 07:30.
At 0930 I woke up and the recovery room nurse assured me all went well. I felt sore but not overwhelming pain. By 11:15, I was in my room and so grateful to God that this part was over. The weird thing was the PCA pump was Morphine and I seemed to have a opposite reaction to it. Instead of sleepy I was a little wired and couldn't sleep. By 2:15 pm they had me up in a chair. I got a little woosy and pale but they gave me Zofran and I quickly felt better. By the way, at this point I had a nasal cannula, pulse oximeter on my finger, IV in arm and foley catheter in.  I got up a second time in the chair that night and felt fine.
Later that evening I made a mistake of trying not to use the PCA pump and went 3 hours without pushing the button, I then spent several hours trying to "chase the pain" unsuccessfully. ( Don't do this ;-) Finally at 0200 I was nearly in tears and the nurse came and gave me a bolus of Morphine to "catch up" and I quickly felt better. Part of the pain I think wasn't so much the surgery pain as much as the surgery gases starting to move around.  By morning I was off O2 and the pulse Ox and started walking the halls and this helped the most with the gas pains.
About 0800,the day after surgery, I started the "leak test: which is when they start giving me 1 oz of ice chips every half hour that have blue dye on them. I put chap stick on prior to try to keep from looking like a Smurf but tongue and teeth were still blue until I could brush my teeth after wards. They kept checking my small penrose drain underneath my belly dressing for blue dye leak and there was none so I got to start more ice and clear fluids: one ounce per 30 minutes and just the ice was divine.  By noon I had everything out except the IV and was able to shower...also a good feeling. I had to keep the IV because my WBC had risen to 29,000. ( 5-10,000 is normal) They said walking and deep breathing with my spirometer would ward off pneumonia so I walked for 15 minutes four times that day.  The PCA was stopped at this point and I started on Lortab elixir that lasts longer for pain control. Also, even though I am not diabetic my glucose had risen the day of surgery to 194 by evening. (80-120 is normal) and they had to give me 2 units of Insulin. I was a little worried about this but they assured me it is a normal reaction to the stress of surgery and that I would level off the second day and I did.
The second night I finally was able to sleep and this helped a lot. I got a suppository before sleep and this worked a little during the night and wasn't too bad. I woke up to get my IV out and they pulled my penrose drain. I got Lortab elixer just prior and it wasn't too painful. Dressing re-applied and I was ready to be discharged. By the way I have 5 "stab wounds" from the Lap RNY. 4 are covered with steri-strips and one is left open from the drain that closes on it's own. So now I'm home and starting the next stage of my journey.

3 Comments