My Surgery Day

[Jenn L]

My surgery Day

Just thought I would share my experience from getting the gastric bypass on 2/14/2020.

• I couldn’t sleep the night before at all!! My mind was going in a million places.
• We arrived at the hospital to register at 8:30.
• Once registered we went to the prep area. They took a urine sample, inserted an iv line and I answered the same questions from multiple people about three or four times. I met every person who was going to be in the surgery room and each one explained their role.
• Surgery was scheduled for 10:30, however they were running late and I went into the OR at 11:30. My husband, daughter and I played games to pass the time.
• I was taken into recovery sometime between 4:00 and 4:30. The surgery took a little longer than expected. They accidentally “nicked “my spleen. It started bleeding and they had to fix that. The surgeon told my family this is not unusual.
• When I woke up in recovery, I felt nauseous. The only pain I felt I was in my eye. Turns out something happened when they taped my eyes shut. They put eyedrops in and put an ointment in my eye. I have to continue using the ointment and they told me to follow up with an ophthalmologist. It was feeling much better by the next day.
• I was in recovery for several hours and was moved to a private room around 8:30. The room was big enough for both my husband and daughter to spend the night.
• There was no sleeping being had at all. Different people came in at all times to put medicine into the iv, take stats, measure urine output or other misc. reasons.
• They put these cool things around my legs during surgery and the time I was in my room that would inflate and deflate to keep circulation moving in my legs. It felt really good. I would love to have them at home.
• When I woke up, my left hand (which had two iv lines) was swollen. It was swollen from my fingers past my wrists and a little up my arm. It was so badly swollen you couldn’t see any lines on m fingers or hands. They had to cut the hospital bracelets off me because it was swollen so bad. They wrapped my arm/hand and I had to keep it elevated.
• The swelling was gone by Monday morning.
• My pain level was low the whole time I was there (other than my eye..lol). The only other pain I really felt was when I had to stand up or sit down. I had to walk every hour. Once I could show them I could drink 32 ounces of liquid in a four hour period, they released me.
• I was sent home with seven prescriptions. One of them in a blood thinner that I have to self inject twice a day for the next 30 days. My body has tons of pretty purple bruises.
• I left the hospital around 1:30 the day after my surgery. The made me leave the hospital via wheelchair.

Let me know if you have any specific questions you would like me to address.

 

[HBOO]

Hi Jenn! Thanks for sharing your experience. Sounds a lot like mine. (RYGB on 1/28) I wonder what happened to your eye? The bruises darkened up, spread out, and pretty much went away within the first week. I'm getting a few big bruises from the daily blood thinner injections. Hope your recovery goes smoothly!

 

[Brenda2010]

I love the leg compression garment things too! Got to have them again for my latest surgery.

 

[on the horizon]

My surgery Day

Just thought I would share my experience from getting the gastric bypass on 2/14/2020.

• I couldn’t sleep the night before at all!! My mind was going in a million places.
• We arrived at the hospital to register at 8:30.
• Once registered we went to the prep area. They took a urine sample, inserted an iv line and I answered the same questions from multiple people about three or four times. I met every person who was going to be in the surgery room and each one explained their role.
• Surgery was scheduled for 10:30, however they were running late and I went into the OR at 11:30. My husband, daughter and I played games to pass the time.
• I was taken into recovery sometime between 4:00 and 4:30. The surgery took a little longer than expected. They accidentally “nicked “my spleen. It started bleeding and they had to fix that. The surgeon told my family this is not unusual.
• When I woke up in recovery, I felt nauseous. The only pain I felt I was in my eye. Turns out something happened when they taped my eyes shut. They put eyedrops in and put an ointment in my eye. I have to continue using the ointment and they told me to follow up with an ophthalmologist. It was feeling much better by the next day.
• I was in recovery for several hours and was moved to a private room around 8:30. The room was big enough for both my husband and daughter to spend the night.
• There was no sleeping being had at all. Different people came in at all times to put medicine into the iv, take stats, measure urine output or other misc. reasons.
• They put these cool things around my legs during surgery and the time I was in my room that would inflate and deflate to keep circulation moving in my legs. It felt really good. I would love to have them at home.
• When I woke up, my left hand (which had two iv lines) was swollen. It was swollen from my fingers past my wrists and a little up my arm. It was so badly swollen you couldn’t see any lines on m fingers or hands. They had to cut the hospital bracelets off me because it was swollen so bad. They wrapped my arm/hand and I had to keep it elevated.
• The swelling was gone by Monday morning.
• My pain level was low the whole time I was there (other than my eye..lol). The only other pain I really felt was when I had to stand up or sit down. I had to walk every hour. Once I could show them I could drink 32 ounces of liquid in a four hour period, they released me.
• I was sent home with seven prescriptions. One of them in a blood thinner that I have to self inject twice a day for the next 30 days. My body has tons of pretty purple bruises.
• I left the hospital around 1:30 the day after my surgery. The made me leave the hospital via wheelchair.

Let me know if you have any specific questions you would like me to address.

Jen, ty so much for your post. It has really helped me. I have my pre-op visit 2/27/2020, endoscopy on 2/25 , surgery not scheduled yet. I am nervous. How are you doing with swallowing pills?

 

[Jenn L]

Jen, ty so much for your post. It has really helped me. I have my pre-op visit 2/27/2020, endoscopy on 2/25 , surgery not scheduled yet. I am nervous. How are you doing with swallowing pills?

I’m glad you found it helpful. I’m not “allowed” to swallow pills for six weeks. All meds and vitamins need to be liquid, chewable, injected or crushed. I had to use a special compound pharamacy to turn my thyroid medicine Into liquid. Evidently not all pharmacies can do that. I had ever heard of that before.

Hopefully you’ll get your surgery date at your pre-op visit.

Good Luck!!

 

[Jenn L]

Hi Jenn! Thanks for sharing your experience. Sounds a lot like mine. (RYGB on 1/28) I wonder what happened to your eye? The bruises darkened up, spread out, and pretty much went away within the first week. I'm getting a few big bruises from the daily blood thinner injections. Hope your recovery goes smoothly!

They said they think my eye was not taped properly so part of it stayed open during the procedure. Evidently you don’t blink under anethesia. That created a “dry eye”. My injection site bruises are spreading out too. I feel like a purple pin cushion. At least purple is my favorite color.