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Thursday, January 24, 2008

How it all went...

Well here's my story of my experience with the surgery...

As you know I was scheduled to be his first surgery than got bumped to being his second (don't know why but whatever, made me laugh because he had to be there super early and we both left the hospital at the same time haha). So we got there at 8:15am, got all checked in and sent down to wait in the surgical day care waiting area. We did not have to wait there long at all before someone came to see me - maybe 10-15 minutes at the most. We went into the surgical day care area, they filled out the last bit of papers, weighed me, checked blood pressure, etc and gave me some kind of pill to take and off I went to get changed into my fancy socks, slippers and gown. Went over to the bed/stretcher area that they had for me, they came to put the I.V. in and had a hard time getting it in the back of my hand because of the size the anaesthesiologist wanted them to use so they ended doing it on the inside of my arm instead with a smaller size needle. So that was all done and now I just had to wait until my surgery time. The anaesthesiologist came down to say hi as did my surgeon before hand and then off I went to the OR. The got me all assembled on the table then did the - you're going to feel really relaxed and the next thing I knew I was waking up in recovery coughing like a son of a gun from them pulling the tube out of my throat. I wanted to just lay there and be sleepy but I figured that wouldn't do me any good so I fought the anaesthetic to stay awake. They gave me a thing into my IV for pain and I laid in recovery for a bit then they took me over to the surgical day care area. Was completely awake once I got to the surgical day care area. Got once to go to the bathroom and after I got back in bed I felt a teensy bit nauseous and a bit sore so after a while they gave me a bit of morphine and some gravol which actually made me feel worse after that so no more pain/anti nausea meds for me! Had to go to the bathroom again just after they gave me the morphine and they didn't want to let me get up (protocol) and I was like well I gotta pee so lets just give it a shot see if I'm steady enough on me feet (NO WAY WAS I PEEING IN A BED PAN!), I was so off I went again to the bathroom. Once I got back into bed I was still a bit tired and was cat napping when Darrell arrived so we chatted for a bit and I cat napped a bit more, woke up and had to use the bathroom again (silly IV) and this time I went and then did a couple of laps around the ward. My mouth was incredibly dry and I was very thirsty but I wasn't allowed to have icechips until like 4pm or so which was great when I got them. Dr.Hornstein (the anaesthesiologist) came by at some point to check on me and then Dr.Woodhead (my surgeon) came by around 5pm to say if I was ready to go or not and I was. So got dressed and off we went.

THANKFULLY I did not get any gas pain in my shoulder which I am very happy about. I have some in my belly but apparently it's much more painful if you get it in your shoulder as well (this is from the gas they have to pump your belly with during surgery).

So I am up and about today moving around (not too quickly but not super slowly either). I am currently drinking my apple juice for breakfast and may follow it up with some Jello later.

This is my Post-Op Diet Timeline:

day 1 - water only
day 2 - 4 clear fluids (apple juice, jello, broth)
day 6-16 full fluids (can now add pudding, yogurt, milk, cream soups - strained)
day 17 - 31 is pureed foods

day 32 - slowly reintroduce solid foods.

3 comments:

kree said...

Hi, I live in the Mission, bc area and I am curious how much your surgery cost. I have only been able to find three doctors in bc who would do this procedure. Hope your recovery is speedy. Take care. Kree

Losing Jusme said...

welcome to bandland!! :)

Ang said...

Hi Kree!

I assume you found my blog link from the lapband site so why don't you send me a quick pm and I'll give you all that info. And yes I believe that there are only three (one in surrey, my surgeon in delta and one on the island).

Or alternately, if you check out my post in January 2008 Bandsters "I'm home, I'm banded and this is how it was" I replied to someone else in the lower mainland about surgeons, etc.