Filed under: post surgery, the adventure begins | Tags: in the hospital, post op
I can’t believe that I had bariatric surgery last Wednesday. I was not able to do any blogging from the hospital as you will see from this blog.
Wednesday morning we were at the hospital about 8:20am and I merrily filled out a lot of forms and met with admission. At about 9am I was in my johnny and was in the surgical waiting room.
After about an hour I was taken in to the pre op room and put on a gurney and promptly ignored for a while. After about half an hour I finally got my iv inserted (thank goodness not a problem) and finally my surgeon came out and said that he has just finished up his first surgery and I would go in in about an hour.
The anathesologist came in and took one look at me and asked me why I had not shaved off my beard that morning. My heart sank and I told him I was not told to shave my beard. He then consulted with another anesthesiologist and a resident on the merits of shaving my beard in order to get a good fit for the oxygen mask.
Of course in the middle of this my anesthesiologist informed me that, among other things, there was always the possibility of death due to my size and the possibility that I might become aware of the operation during the operation. I am not sure what scared me more. He also told me that they would be putting a breathing tube down my mouth and that my throat would be sore (He was certainly right about that).
Finally he and his colleague and a resident came in with an electric razor they use to remove hair before surgery and I got a shave. I did tell them that my wife was going to be angry about my losing the beard, but that should not stop them.
After a shave and the hanging of a drip I was wheeled into the operating room, hopped on the table and that is about all I remember of the actual operation.
The next thing I remember was being in the recovery room and about three hours of my life had disappeared. No dreams, no memories also no heart attack or awareness. I was groggy but thrilled to be in recovery.
After another five or six hours in recovery I was finally wheeled up to a room on the fouth floor of the North Building of Tufts Medical Center, but it might as well have been on the moon,
I was very weak and very groggy and the entire process seemed less real then a fantasy. At this point I had not had anything to eat or drink for almost 24 hours and was being sustained on a drip.
I also had the handy dandy button for the intravenous pain pump that I was told I could use when I needed it.
Actually, I decided before surgery to use as little pain meds aa my body would let me get away with.
Wednesday night was a blurr of people poking and prodding me. People looking at the six incisions on my body and taken my temperature, blood pressure, blood sugar and just plain blood.
They tell me that I slept some on Wednesday night but I could not vouch for that. I actually kept dozing off and wondering when I was going to have my surgery. I could not tell you the name of my nurse or even the time anything happened. Every once in a while the pain would be sufficient for me to click the button for the pain pump, and I would hear a chirp and feel relief. Actually is was not until Thursday that it struck me that my surgery was done.
It is good to be home and I will be posting about the rest of my hospital stay and beginning my adventure soon. Thanks to everyone for their comments and good thoughts.
