Post Op - Day One

It is finished. I suppose this is the point in which I tell you all the gruesome details, so here goes...


I'm fine. I'm pretty sore, but overall, I would rate my pain as 3 or 4. A bit more when I'm standing and walking. I'm still getting used to the type of pain involved, but it is totally manageable and I'm so relieved it is not worse. I'll start from the beginning.

I live 3 hours away from my hospital so my sister graciously housed me for a few days beforehand for my pre-op appointments. I arrived there on a Wednesday, my surgery was Friday.  When I arrived, my stomach was turning in knots partly due to nerves, and partly due to the Devil's Drano, Milk of Magnesia. I was starving. I was close to gnawing my hand off before the operation. I was also on liquids two days prior to this. Understandable, right?  When I arrived, I was placed in the pre-op "holding tank" where I got to meet my post-care nurse, and briefly speak with my surgeon again (who, by the way looks like a younger Steve Guttenburg).  I also met my anesthesiologist (who looked quite a bit like Robert Irvine). And as an aside, my Nutrition Specialist looks like Amy Poehler. I was totally star struck throughout my whole experience. LOL.

I was hooked up to an IV, incorrectly at first, but then the situation was mended after some stern words with the nurse, and was given a dose of some relaxants. Wow, did that stuff work fast.  Almost immediately, it felt as if I had taken 3 shots of tequila, and was ready to hit the floor.  It certainly did not disappoint.  I got to spend my last few minutes as a free woman with DH by my side, which improved the situation dramatically.  I got one quick smooch in before I was whisked away into the operating room.  The whole time, I was praying and praising God that this whole part of my life was over.  As I was staring at the overhead fluorescent lights, I was in tears (happy tears, mind you) and my surgeon was concerned. I just whimpered "I'm so happy" and was out like a light. It may not sound like much, but it was a very moving experience.  I still get a little weepy thinking about the new life I get to live. No more worries about digging my own grave with a knife and fork.

I woke up shortly after in a recovery room with the sweetest little nurse I've ever met.  Surprisingly enough, as soon as I woke up, I was having coherent conversations with her, answering such questions as my name, what I'm in here for, my spouse's name, my surgeon's name. This is surprising because if one can recall, I had a rather unpleasant episode waking up from my EGD. The nurse was surprised as well, and remarked that it was the fastest that anyone has ever "came to" after being under General Anesthesia that she had ever seen. I was shortly moved into the outpatient room with a not-too-sweet nurse and to my surprise (the whole day was full of them, apparently) my hubby. I was asked to try to sit up, but the pain was so weird that I couldn't wrap my head around it. I was still a little foggy from the anesthesia, and couldn't do it. For those curious, the pain from the surgery was nothing compared to the problems I was having with my throat.  There were so many different sensations of pain I didn't know what to do, so I just cried. I begged the nurse for more meds and analgesic throat spray. It's not that the pain from the surgery was severe, but so many different kinds was hard to take.  To begin with, The discomfort from the incisions was there, layered on top was discomfort from the band around my stomach, layered on top of that was hunger pangs that I had no idea how to decipher. My newly formed pouch was full from the ice chips I had eaten in the recovery room, but my old stomach was growling like I hadn't eaten in weeks.  The worst of it, though, was my throat.  A few days before the surgery, DH so thoughtfully let me contract some of his chest congestion and sore throat.  The sore throat was worse the morning of the surgery than it had been since I got it, and when I woke up and was able to talk, I sounded like an 80 year old with smokers cough.  The pain in my throat was almost unbearable. I was in desperate need to swallow, but my mouth was so dry that when I did, my throat would stick together and make it worse.  Even ice chips did nothing for me. It turns out, they placed a breathing tube down my throat to aide in oxygen saturation, and it aggravated the throat problem to a downright scary degree. In addition, I was having to cough up infected sputum while bracing my incisions from feeling like my intestines were going to pop out. 

But that was yesterday. This morning, I awoke around 2:30 and was unable to get back to sleep. Turns out DH was awake as well and we then decided to book it back home where I could be miserable in my own bed. The trip down was a little scary, and the hubs was still pretty tired from not sleeping well, but we arrived safe and sound at about 6:30 this morning.

All in all, as the day progressed, my pain subsided.  I'll begin here by telling everyone that the worst part about any kind of abdominal surgery is the O2 (or maybe it's Co2) they pump your stomach with to inflate it to have room to work. They can't remove all the gas, so it ends up settling in your shoulder, intestines, anywhere your body has a cavity. Next is walking and standing. To me, and I still haven't quite figured out the pain I'm feeling, it feels like gravity is pulling everything down around your lungs.  For a while there, I was convinced that one of my lungs collapsed because I had such a hard time breathing.  This is especially scary for because I'm a musician, and I pride myself with having an abnormally large lung capacity. But this too, goes away with walking and time.

I'm still finding it difficult to get up and down from a seated or lying position. Luckily, the hubby is here with me until Monday morning, which, by then, I should be able to handle. But the most remarkable thing so far? I've eaten 3 square meals of 4 oz of chicken broth, and I am FULL. I'm not having buyers remorse, I'm not craving food. I feel great. I feel alive. I feel more feminine. I'm no longer eating the same portions as my male partner.

This has been a nice release for me. Tomorrow, expect more. :)