Home and post-op

Nov 01, 2011

I did it!
I checked in and remained calm the whole time. I wasnt nervous one bit. Everything went smooth during the 2 hr waiting period before surgery.  I was informed that they were going to use the robot for part of my surgery.  WHAT? A Robot?  How cool is that.  My surgeon came in and confirmed that he would be operating a robot.  

I woke up from surgery with a tube in my nose and not feeling much pain. I was in and out of sleep. I remember someone putting something in my hand and told me to push the button for pain medicine.  Someone else asked if the tube in my nose was bothering me.  It wasnt. I fell back asleep. I woke back up and told someone that the tube was now bothering me.  So they removed it. It was the weirdest feeling ever. That tube came from my stomach and out of my nose.
A little while later, they told me they were taking me to my room.

We got to my room, they inflated a "hovermat" thing that was underneath me and slid me onto my bed then rolled me and took it out from underneath me. That was when I had to look at my belly. 1 incision or several little ones?  YAY! several little ones! And they looked almost healed.  They sewed from the inside and used a glue to close them up. No outer stitches. No tape. No steri-strips.
My nurses were amazing. I had a student nurse.  She'd never had a gastric bypass patient before so she was very curious and very attentive.  She was the sweetest thing.
They got me up to walk as much as I could handle that night before bed.
I was able to sleep on my side that night. I was SO glad. I dont sleep well on my back. I had minimal pain and I was comfortable.  It kinda sucked only having a little sponge, the size of a dum dum lollipop, on a stick in ice water to suck on for water. My oxygen saturation rate was low, so they had to hook my cpap machine up to the oxygen while I slept.
The next day they removed my catheter and let me take a shower. I walked a few more times. But by then I was exhausted.  I wasnt able to pee enough to satisfy them, so they ended up giving me a water pill because I had gained 16 lbs of water and I had very little output.
I had some tea and chicken broth and lots of water. I was scared to drink too much. I could feel each sip as it left my pouch. there was lots of air bubbles moving around and I burped a lot.
They decided to release me that night.
I went to my moms and I was exhausted by the time I got there. I went straight to bed. I had a little pain, so I was taking the pain meds they sent me home with but by Friday I wasnt taking any pain meds anymore. I have only taken some tylenol a couple times for a headache. 
I think the toughest thing has been a toss up between getting in enough water, figuring out all these medicines, and head hunger.  I'm not hungry at all.  I dont have the hunger pangs at all. But commercials on tv are going to drive me crazy! I thought halloween candy would be bad, but not like when my neighbors in my apartment are making garlic toast, or browning hamburger... it smells so good.
I came back home on Sunday and it feels good to be home. The family went out to dinner for my nieces birthday at Red Robin... We had an awesome waitress. I ordered french onion soup with out the cheese or bread and she strained out the onions. So basically I had au jus. LOL  But it tasted great.
Oh, and I weighed myself this morning and the scale said 344. I am down 16 lbs from surgery and down a total of 70 from my highest weight! Thats just mind boggling!  I now weigh less than I did when I got married nearly 5 years ago.

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