May 26, 2009, the day had come. Time for the surgery itself. In to the hospital at 0500 because my surgery time had been moved from 1030 to 0730, so we were up at 0330. I had my stuff ready to pack, so the morning went smoothly and we were there on time. I figured as the patient, I had the least to complain about with the early start as I would shortly be going back to sleep. The admissions were done in a snap and I was taken back to my room where they did the pre-op stuff. Then it was off to the operating room. Sometimes it pays to be the first patient on the books, because things can go according to schedule a little more easily.
Waking up from this surgery was a much more pleasant experience than the last surgery in a hospital. Last year’s abdominal surgery turned out to be for a much different reason than everyone thought, and I was sore coming out of that one. This surgery had no surprises. It took a little longer than what the norm is, but that was anticipated as Dr. Frances advised prior to the surgery that she may have to scrape out some scar tissue from last year’s surgery while she was in there. But there were no hernia repairs necessary, no appendectomy’s (which happened the last time – surprise), and no gall bladder removal. Just 4 tiny incisions and one incision about 3 inches long where they put in the port. A relative breeze. At the hospital I had the procedure done in, they do require an overnight stay, which I was fine with. I’d rather stay and have someone make sure I was doing fine, than go home and find out I’m not. Some places do the surgery on an outpatient basis, but I was glad to stay overnight.
Per usual hospital procedure, practically as soon as you are back in your room, they want you up and walking around, which this time around was not an issue. One surprise to me was that they skipped the whole ice chip as a meal thing, and we straight to letting me have actual water. Of course, they had little two ounce cups that you were to sip from (making it last two to three sips for each one). That was how they measured your intake – you drank from the little cup and put it into a bigger cup when you were done, and they knew how much you had to drink by how many cups you went through.
The patient in the other bed in the room had the gastric bypass a little later in the day. In talking with one of the nurses, who took care of me last year as well, they keep all of the bariatric patients together, which is kind of nice. We have something in common and can help support each other, even just post surgery. The upshot is that everything went smoothly, and I was able to go home on schedule and to continue on my journey.
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LK Gardner-Griffie
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