Hey everybody! I'm banded!
I had to be at the hospital yesterday at 0715 for a 0915 surgery time. I was #2 on my surgeon's schedule. Apparently, his first surgery ran long, so I didn't go in until almost 1030.
Staff at my hospital were so nice ... they could see that I was having extreme anxiety so they kept coming into my pre-op room to check on me. When my doc came in to talk to me it calmed me down so much. He has such kind and compassionate vibes, but at the same time he comes across extremely self-confident and knowledgeable. While he was talking to me, the nurse was digging around in my arm trying to find a vein for my IV. He stayed a little longer talking to me to detract me from the ordeal (which is actually normal for me, so I'm used to it). I thought that was nice of him, though. I had meant to ask him about what I'd get to combat blood clotting and verify that I was still getting the AP band. However, when he asked me if I had any questions, they all seemed to evaporate. With my goofy self, all I could think to ask him is if the window in the room would open. He said no and left the room laughing. Did I mention that he is one HOT, good-looking man? Anyways ...
I woke up in recovery a couple of different times with the nurse asking me about my pain. It was pretty significant, so she'd give me something for it. She really stayed on top of it and was soooo nice. I gather from my son that I was only in surgery for a little over an hour (I also had a hiatal hernia repair), but was in recovery for a good while. Finally, I started to come around enough to hear a couple of the nurses teasing my nurse about how hot my son is and if she wanted them to run and hold him down for her. I wanted to go, "HEY! That's my baby you're talking about."
Shortly thereafter, I was rolled over to radiology where I had a barium swallow to make sure the band was placed correctly and that it wasn't too tight. Before surgery, I wondered how the heck a person just out of surgery would be able to stand up for a barium swallow and xray. Wellllll, the table that you lie on has these footrest thingies at the bottom. After you're on the table, they rotate it forward to get you somewhat vertical.They hold the cup of barium to the side and you drink it down via a straw. And believe me, it doesn't taste any better under the influence of drugs. The radiology doc pronounced me good to go, and the nurse took me back to a day surgery room. I was dying for something to drink so she brought me some Water. I had to hang around for about 5 minutes to see if I'd get nauseous ... I didn't, so I got dressed and went home. At this point it was around 3:00pm.
After dropping me off at home, my son went and got my Loratab elixer Rx filled. The documentation says that it's not as effective for existing pain, and that you should take it as directed in order to stay ahead of the pain (if that makes sense). I didn't wake up to take it last night, so when I woke up this morning I was in some pretty significant pain in the area around my port incision. All in all, though, I'm doing pretty good. I've been walking around the house to help with the gas pain (it travels from my shoulder to my chest) and when I get tired of that I put the heating pad on it. I've had broth, gatorade and water, so my Clear Liquids are going down just fine.
I've tried to include the stuff that I wondered about before in my surgery story; so forgive me if I've rambled. Hey! I'm on drugs over here . If anyone has specific questions, feel free to ask.
Oh yeah. Good luck to the 8th crew ... it's a piece of cake.