Can everyone tell me as specific as they can how the first 3 days post op are?

You will feel like you got hit by a truck.

Yeah lol that's what I'm expecting so anything better will be great!! Ha. Thanks for the honesty!

It's better to expect it to be bad and be pleasantly surprised than the other way around :-).

Will this be your first surgery? If so, you can probably find lots of good information by using Google. For example, I just put in "what can I expect from general anesthesia" and there are tons of hits, such as http://www.mayoclinic.com/health/anesthesia/MY00100 and  http://lifelinetomodernmedicine.com/what_expect.aspx.

Similarly, you could search stuff like "what to expect after abdominal surgery," "how to do a bowel prep" or any number of issues that are related to lots of surgeries, not just the DS. Sometimes we get too narrow or hyperfocused on just this particular type of procedure. The DS is a huge abdominal/digestive tract surgery, so the immediate postop experience is similar to what people go through with lots and lots of other procedures. You can cast a nice wide net for that kind of question.

Very true and thank you! I totally forgot about mayoclinic :)

First day..back pain from laying on the frickin operating table, loopy and sleepy...whatever.

2nd day - trippin off of my drains and how when I stood up they would leak onto the floor, alittle uncomfortable but not much pain, sleepy

3rd day,  the fun starts and bowels wake up,  the nasty stufff scared me and I thought all poop from here on out would be like that.  Thank goodness it is not.  Again loopy, sleepy not much pain.

When you start to add things to your diet you will go throught other changes.  Nausea might be present, I didn't have too much of that until week 2, and the meds helped.

Thanks for the note on back pain, I was curious about that myself.  I had a pre-op bone density test done and had to lay on a table for about 20 minutes.  My back was killing me and it made me wonder about laying on the operating table for a couple hours and how my back would respond.

So.... as with the rest of the process... I will expect the worse !

Thanks soo much!

Hazey.  I can't remember **** most days anyways but  post op was really hazey to me.  Not alot of pain ever so I was lucky.  I went out of the country by myself so I had no visitors.  I wish I had some though,  I got very bored.  They'll make you walk, shower poop and pee in the hospital.  Up and adam as soon as possible.  I could not believe they had me showering the day after surgery.

Aw that is just terrible. Were you okay with being alone? Wow showering the first day. Eek!

I'd like to invite you to read my profile under December 2006/January 2007. I wrote quite a bit about my hospital and early recovery experience there.