Home again!

Aug 06, 2015

Good morning, all! I had my Vetical Sleeve Gastrectomy on Wednesday, so I figured now would be a good time to update everyone.

First off, thank you to everyone who has been showering me with love and encouragement on Facebook–you’ve made this entire process that much easier.

We went to the hospital at 6:30 on Wednesday, checked in, and were sent up to the surgery floor. They got me all dressed for surgery and gave me a little bit of something that made me a bit loopy. I remember being wheeled into the operating room and moving myself from the bed I was in onto the operating table. I also remember them putting an oxygen mask on me, which had anesthesia in it, and then I don’t remember anything else but waking up in the recovery room. I scared the crap out of Anthony because I woke up extremely nauseous, so I was in recovery for about 3 hours before they were able to move me to a room.

I don’t remember much about the rest of Wednesday. My friend Amanda (who had the same surgery done by the same doctor in December) came by to check on me, and I feel bad because I passed out mid-sentence. She kept Anthony comfy for a bit. One of the ladies from my support group came by and brought all sorts of sample protein powders, which was super sweet of her. She works in the hospital, so she didn’t have to go out of her way to see me, but it was so nice of her to bring the samples.

The rest of Wednesday passed by in a cloud of extreme nausea and sleeping. I got up to walk once or twice, but that only seemed to make the nausea worse, so we didn’t do too much of that. I wasn’t allowed to have anything to drink, but they did give me a little sponge on a stick to moisten my lips and mouth, which was a godsend. I thought I was going to have an upper GI in the morning, but I didn’t end up needing one, which was great.  I didn’t use the pain pump very often because the medicine in it, dilaudid, was making me really, really nauseous–the last thing I wanted to do was hurt myself throwing up.

Thursday was much better. I woke up well rested at about 10:30 and spent the day awake, sipping water, eating Jello (which was diet “Red” flavor, according to the hospital), and walking. I walked a lot. They changed my pain medicine from dilaudid to a liquid version of Advil/Motrin/anti-inflammatory stuff that didn’t make me nauseous at all (thank god). My mom got to the hospital around 3, and I was released at about 4:30. PROTIP: Getting a drain pulled out of your stomach sucks. It hurt and felt weird and I think it rubbed up against my liver, which freaked me out a bit.

The next few days will be spent with Anthony and my mom, making sure I don’t get dehydrated, burping a lot (getting all the gas out that they used to inflate my absomen), and learning my physical limitations. I have a follow up with my doctor on Tuesday, where he’ll hopefully tell me I can move on from a clear liquid diet to purees–I’ve got a butt-ton of soup in my freezer that I made a few weeks ago specifically for the pureed stage.

To be completely honest, Wednesday was a bad day and I regretted deciding to do this to myself. However, now that my nausea is gone, as the minutes and hours go by, I’m feeling much better and don’t regret the opportunity of life that this surgery is going to give me.

If anyone has any questions you want to ask, please feel free to either ask below or shoot me an email at shortfatandsassyblog[at]gmail[dot]com

Love you all!!

4 Comments