Day 3 - 1st post op day

Feb 03, 2009

I got to meet Shabre fairly early in the morning after she arrived as I didn't sleep super well (all me, nothing to do with surgery).  That was nice - she's a great gal!  I had started walking already the night before (see the not sleeping well part) but continued to do a LOT of walking while my IV was out, as much as possible.  Saw Dr. A around 9ish (I think) and he came in apologizing about the IV issues.  Like it was his fault!  lol  I apologized that they had to call him twice in the middle of the night.  He said that even though I felt fine I would have to get the IV back but that he would send in the anesthesiologist Dr. Salinas to do the new line.  He also said to Cristina (not Cynthia lol - someone got it wrong in a testimonial and she was a little annoyed) to make sure to double up on the speed so I would have it only for 2 hours instead of 4.  It was set up like that until it got dislodged again and then someone goofed and set it low so I was stuck with it about 3 hours.  Oh well.  And Dr. Salinas did a great job - the 1st (unsuccessful) stick I barely felt, then 2nd (successful) one I felt a bit more but was still pretty good.  At that point he also switched our rooms so we got the fancier newer ones (my twin and her daughter got the suite) and we got ICE CHIPS - WOO HOOO!  I thought they were for after the leak test but he said the test goes better when we're lubricated ;)

Before my IV was done, around noonish, we (J and I) went for our leak tests.  Dr. Gabe actually performed them but Dr. A was there too.  We also got our Medic alert bracelets then too.  The barium actually wasn't that bad - it had kind of a sweet, albeit chalky, taste.  As you can guess, NO LEAK! Woot Woot!  And it was really cool to watch and I got Dr. A to take some pics with my camera.  At that point he also sent me the pic of my stomach I had requested, he took it with his Blackberry. lol  I LURVE Dr. A :)

After that, it was mainly a matter of walking, sleeping, killing time surfing OH, playing a game or 2 on my laptop, reading, watching tv... Really nothing else exciting.  At one point to push the painkillers they hooked me back up to the IV as pushing them into the catheter (the tube that goes into your vein is called a catheter - I didn't know that!) actually burned.  Honestly, if you can deal with the burn, do so, because it took about an hour for 10-12 ml to drip.  I learned my lesson - suck it up :)  Mainly because the successful stick was halfway between my wrist and elbow on the inside.  Made it hard to do much without knocking the tube out, so that was a very boring hour.

Dr. Gabe and Dr. A both popped back in to check on us (and our sleeve sistas from the day after) and told me I could ask for a sleeping pill.  Which I did... I asked for it around 10 as I decided to watch Tootsie, which I'd never seen.  I took it around 9:50 and slept til about 4 am.  Par for the course since quitting smoking, grrrr.  Which takes me to day 4....

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