I'm not from D.C. either. I'm actually from upstate NY (about an hour south of Ottawa). I see Dr. M tomorrow morning and then we'll make the 10 hour drive home. I had originally planned to fly home on Saturday but I'm feeling plenty well enough to ride in the car.

I was very scared for this surgery, but it's been SO much easier than I had imagined it would be.

Good luck Quinn!! I am sure you will be very happy with your results. I will be going for my first consultation in April.

Yup. :) Ditto for my med support. They had a schedule and gave me meds on time until I said, "You know.. let's try half dose" or "how about I skip this one." Worked great.

I recommend that you start reading through previous posts here - a lot of people have shared their experiences and there's great information to be found. I read through a lot of posts pre-op and felt as prepared as I could be.

I see you expect to get in and out of a bed post-op, that wasn't possible for me until maybe a week after surgery. I needed help to get in and out of a recliner, but getting into bed was too painful.

I could shower with my drains, and I used a lanyard to clip them to so they wouldn't dangle in the shower.

I had a shower stool to sit on and also a toilet seat riser - both were very helpful.

I had someone else manage my medication in the beginning, this was very valuable for me since I was too out of it to deal with it on my own. If you must do your own meds, make sure you have a timer and a place to write what you take and when you take it. Otherwise you risk pain or over-medication.

I needed straws to drink, since I couldn't comfortably drink otherwise. I had a lot of protein shakes post-op since I had a very renewed sense of restriction and wasn't interested in solid food, but needed to keep my protein up for healing.

I used pantyliner for protecting my incision lines once I got my compression garment 8 days post-op.

Keep ahead of the pain - having to play catch up is the worst.

My doctor prescribes Oxy for pain and Valium for muscle tightness. He told me I wouldn't understand the difference between the pain until after surgery. The Oxy helps incision pain and the Valium helps an over all tightness/fatigue in your muscles (more than than just your abs).

The first days when I was taking both are pretty much a blur. I actually functioned pretty well, but now looking back I don't remember very much of it - just clips of things along the way.

Bed is very hard to get into/out of even when propped on a bunch of pillows at first. I hope you have a chair you can hang out in during the day at least, even if it doesn't recline).