Surgery day

It is here! What you thought would never come finally arrived. A dream come true. You are half scared and half excited. Your new life is starting to count from today on. 

Again, the same as many times before during your preparation time, you did your homework and you did it well this time. The crucial questions range from what to bring to the hospital, to what is the surgery like, and what is an absolute must to have for when you return home. 

So let’s start one by one 

What to bring to the hospital

That is pretty straightforward. It is a surgery, so the thing you normally use in the morning for example a toothbrush with the rest of your oral hygiene would be a good idea. I am adding here one little thing that I appreciated a lot, and it is a chopstick to moisturize your lips. They will likely become a little dry from the time in the operating theatre and the anesthesia. It is pretty annoying to have your lips dry. At least for me. 

I had also a deodorant and winter socks 🙂 I am always cold in hospitals, not sure why. So good socks are a must for me. I had my pajama, a nice loose one, but I didn’t use it in the end. They put me in the classical hospital pajamas and I can only agree because I didn’t want to have anything on my belly afterward.

And some kind of slippers to walk in. If I could give you a little hint here, you will need something that you can put on easily without bending yourself, but that is sufficiently closed to stay on your feet when you walk. If you like it or not, you will be walking almost at once after the surgery. (Don’t worry, it is not easy but doable.) More on this later.

I had also my gown/robe but it was useless as I had an IV in my arm and I couldn’t put it inside the sleeve. Who cares anyway? You will be walking around the corridors and pushing the stand with your IV like anyone else. I was in a bariatric unit and we almost all had the same surgery. It was a mix of right after the surgery and the second or third day after patients. 

How many days you will stay in the hospital after the surgery depends on the decision of the surgeon. I had the sleeve and I was good to go home pretty fast. I had the surgery in the evening, I spent there the next day and I went home in the morning after. 

What is important as well are your technical gadgets with respective chargers. You don’t want to see a beeping battery the second day in the morning. you would like to tell the world how you are going. So double-check. Your cell phone is essential. Here in Spain, you are asked to come accompanied, so you are never alone after the surgery. It comes quite in handy. I had my partner with me and it was nice to have him there, I have to admit. Some people say they have time to read a book or watch TV. I didn’t. I was completely exhausted in bed or walking. Nothing in between.

What is the surgery like

I was scheduled for the afternoon, for 4 o´clock/16.00. So we came there a little before. I was a somewhat confused because they sent us the the floor with operation theatres, not where the patients´ rooms were. Most likely this is a local specialty. They gave me a bracelet with my name and medical information. We found the place to go, registered our arrival there, and waited. I thought they would call me and send me to the room where I would stay after the surgery, but no. We were waiting and realized that the surgeries were running a little late, so instead of 4 pm, they called me at 6. Never mind, I was not hungry nor thirsty at all. 

I was instructed not to eat nor drink for 12 hours before the surgery, so something like 4 in the morning. I only took the thyroid pill at home and sipped a little bit of water with it. I explicitly asked and I was allowed to do that. No supplements, no vitamins, nothing at all. Important here! If you are taking any medications, take them with you to the hospital. Once you can swallow them, you will continue taking them as usual. The thyroid pill is small, but still, it was an ordeal to get it inside the next day. It is a fact. It is important but if I skipped one day, the world would not have ended. If you take something more seriously, talk to your doctor about this. They might even give it to you in IV if you can’t stomach it. You are in hospital in the end 🙂

Then they called me in. My partner stayed outside waiting for me. I entered, they gave me the green hospital surgery gown to change myself in and I was told to put all my clothes into a plastic bag. So I was wearing the gown, no bra, but I could have my panties (or however you call ladies’ underwear). I read that sometimes they give you a special hospital one, like for single use. I was lucky, I could keep my ones. It felt like a small secure thing for me 🙂

Then I walked into the preparation room. They put me on a bed and gave me an IV entrance into both hands – one near the elbow and into the other hand near the wrist. Then a nurse came and put me in those compressing stockings. It felt really weird, I never had them on before. They were indeed compressing. It is because they are preventing blood clots in your legs, in the long veins. Still, it was doable, only a little inconvenient.

Then they pinched me something to calm me down. Thank you, I was starting to be nervous, as expected. They checked my medical details and all the medications I was taking – if I can give you another piece of advice here, if you take more medication regularly, make a little list on a piece of paper including doses. You will be a little sedated and quite nervous, and this is an important thing to have right. Your memory is not working at its best at this point. So, just in case, you will have it all written down and you can give it to the personnel. If you don’t need it, tell them to throw it away for you. Easy. 

And then they pushed me onto the bed to the operating theatre. I crawled onto the real operating table, they helped me and I opened my arms like an angel on some supports and they started to put some tubes wherever they saw fit. They introduced themselves – the surgeon, the anesthetist, and two nurses. And after that came the famous: count from ten to zero. So it was ten, niiiiii…. And nothing 😀

The next thing I remember is that I was waking up, and there was a male nurse over me smiling and saying: “You have just been operated on!” and my silly answer: “It is done already?” he was laughing, so it seemed to me it went all ok. I had a tube blowing oxygen into my nose, it was quite strong and ugly, so I tried to put it a little lower, but the nurse saw me and put it back. Never mind, it was like 15 minutes maybe. They made it much less strong after and I had the oxygen only as a support for the next few hours and then completely removed for the night. 

The surgery took about an hour, so nothing horrendous. Technically it seemed quite easy to do – the bypass is more complex and takes longer. I knew that I might feel a pinching pain under my claviculas and in the shoulders, but it is perfectly normal. It is the gas that gets trapped in your abdomen when they blow it in to have space to perform the surgery. I was pleasantly surprised that I barely felt this. But some people complain about this quite a lot. Probably depends on the surgeon or on how your body handles this. I was lucky. 

The anesthesia was ok, I didn’t feel nauseous after, I woke up perfectly well, and didn’t fall asleep or anything like that at all. I just felt tired. As expected. I was not in any pain at all, the anesthesia was still working a little and they must have given me some painkillers in the IV, so it was all good. At this point, I had nothing to complain about. 

Hospital stay

They sent me to the room where my partner was already waiting with all the things and the plastic bag with my clothes I had to put off before the surgery. They pushed me in with the bed and parked me there. It was about 10 in the evening, so I had time to rest till the morning. It was great because I could sleep a little during the effect of the rest of the anesthesia and was not dizzy while getting up in the morning. I slept quite well during the night. And I was still having the compressing stockings. I could take them off the second day in the afternoon.

They were monitoring my heartbeat, breathing, blood pressure, and body temperature. The basics. As everything was ok, I could get out of bed in the morning. Only a nurse came and pinched me heparin into my tummy to prevent blood clots. What I had no idea about at this point was that I would have to pinch this myself at home for the next 10 days. No worries, it comes in automatic syringes, you only pinch yourself in the tummy and it administers the dosis itself. It is a tiny needle and you barely feel it. As scary as it seems, it is nothing. And you pick this up from the pharmacy.

I started walking. Uff! No fun at all. I was still having an IV in my arm, with the long tube, so I had to push it everywhere with me. I was not dizzy, nothing like that. I just felt tired, almost exhausted after 30 meters. But I had to keep walking. It is great for you because you are releasing the trapped gas from your body. So you toot 😀 and you burp. It took me about three days to get rid of it all 😀 but it is also perfectly normal. 

So the second day I was dedicating myself to walking there and back in the corridor. I couldn’t get anywhere else, it was too far for me and I had to rest quite often. But I tried. Apart from this, they kept measuring my basics, paying attention to my body temperature, and checking the incisions for infection. All was perfect, there was no fever, incisions were nice and clean.

I was given my first food. Yuck… I was doing my best but all I could do was to send down about a small glass of some apple juice diluted in water. Nothing more. They brought me plain white yogurt, but it was a no, and a bottle of water. It didn’t want to go down either. So they kept hydrating me through the IVs. It seemed reasonable. 

And the third day in the morning a doctor came to check me thoroughly and decided that I could go home. I could swallow reasonably and bit by bit I could sip liquids, so there was no problem with hydration at home. We packed out things and off we went. In the car, I had a nice fluffy pillow to put between my tummy and the seat belt. It was about an hour to get home, but my partner was driving slower than usual so that he didn’t have to jump on breaks or something just in case. 

A must-have after you get home

No matter what they say, what you have read, or anything you find online, all I needed were my that time hated (and forever hated) protein shakes, the same ones I had for my liquid diet before the surgery, and some fruit juices without added sugar. Water obviously and we were recommended broth, which went down nicely, and half-skimmed milk, which almost sent me back to the hospital. My stomach was opposing strongly against this one. 

They prohibited us drinking from straws so that we wouldn’t swallow air with the liquids. Apart from that, I used things I normally have at home – glasses, and cups. We were allowed to have herbal infusions, not very hot. So I didn’t buy anything super special for the first part after coming back home from the hospital. And I have to say I didn’t need it. 

So this was my surgery day and the hospital stay. It went all very reasonably. I didn’t have any complications at all. No pain, no trouble, nothing negative. All I can say is a huge thank you to all the doctors and nurses who took care of me. They were excellent and made it all as easy as possible.