First Day Home
by
, 01-06-2016 at 11:40 AM (2578 Views)
Today is my first day home after my sleeve. I want to take a second a talk about the process at the hospital for anyone interested or about to go through it.
I arrived and had more blood drawn for the anesthesiologist. My tech was the same one I have had in the past-I've seen her when she first got a new boyfriend, when the boyfriend was meeting the protective brother, and now the boyfriend met the family over Christmas and all went well! After that and a urine test (on no liquids for 10 hours!) I went upstairs and was admitted to the hospital. I changed in to my gown-tried it on four or five times to figure out which was was front-and then everyone came in to check in-ask my name and bday 8 times and get me set! Oh, and another pregnancy test. ALL WILL BE NEGATIVE.
Then they came in and got me and wheeled me in to the surgery room. There everyone that I had seen over the past few months was all in one place. It didn't look much like the operating rooms of Greys but an all female surgical staff was pretty kick ass! They asked me where I wanted to to go-I assume most people say places like Fiji-I didn't realize it was an imagery game-so I said Iceland was on my list. My last memory was everyone just kind of laughing saying they packed the wrong imaginary suitcase that morning.
I woke up in post-op very nauseated. I kept slipping back to sleep so they held off on giving me medicine. Finally, they dosed me up when I reached for the tech's hand to throw up in. After that I was wheeled to my room where I stayed for the next 24 hours.
Over the next 24 hours I was in pain. They said some of it was the incision sites and other parts were the CO2 they pump in to you. I was double dosed on morphine and tylenol as well as nausea medication to stabilize. My mother complained about my snoring-which was waking both of us up-but her's isn't too pleasant either so that came with the breathing tube territory. I had requested to have the catheter removed during surgery which was so kind they did-but that did mean I had to get up more to try and urinate. Which wasn't so hard-it was just like an old person-trickle trickle.
The next morning was better and I completed my 4 laps and 36 ounces by 1pm and was home by 6pm. I had two great friends send out emails to everyone letting people know I was okay. Its hard to say "no don't bring food!" without a real reason but hopefully plenty of Propel Zero will come knocking. And have received gorgeous flowers as well.
Since being home the three hardest things
1. Finding a position that is comfortable with enough support to sleep
2. Managing the incision/gas pain
3. Not killing my mother (she is not the born caretaker-leaving the key in the door last night, snoring louder than me, trying to take away my iPad, sneakily trying to reduce my pain meds...) But she is doing her kindest
If anyone has any tips on managing what I really do believe is the leftover gas from inflating my stomach would love to hear! Or what sleep positions you found the most comfortable? And any other 2 day post-op stories-that you would like to share-I would be grateful.
Small steps every day!