Hi all! I decided I want to document my journey for myself to keep track of how I do and what I run into as pros and cons. With this I hope I can help others with their anxiety pre and post surgery. Mine was off the charts and my guess is many of you are experiencing the same.
So here we go...I was so very scared the day before and the day of that I almost cancelled. I literally almost bolted from the surgery center! HA! I kept telling all the staff how scared I was. I had never been put out before, and it is (was) literally one of my biggest fears (next to spiders, of course), so I was terrified something awful could happen. I kept informing all involved I had a 15-year old I still needed to take care of. I think my thought process was to guilt anyone and everyone into taking extra special care of me. Silly, but true. Then, when the anesthesiologist (who was as lively as burnt toast) came to visit me for all of three second before surgery he informed me I had a much greater possibility of dying in a car crash than on the table. I'm not sure that was helpful! I was literally on the table and asked if I can back out. The sweet nurse said you can do anything until you are asleep. Well, then I was asleep. I think she tricked me! At any rate, if any of you haven't been put out before, the falling asleep process was quite amazing. The ceiling got wavy, I got giddy and then the next thing I know I was waking up in recovery.
I woke up chipper and chatty. The nurse asked if I remembered talking to my Doctor. Ummmm....nope! I sure hope I didn't say anything absolutely and utterly embarrassing. I guess I'll never know. Then my husband was there and I was giggly and chatty and apparently talking with my hands like a crazy woman. I swear I was 'kicked-out' of the surgery center in about 15 minutes. I'm told it wasn't quite that fast, but it sure felt like it.
Getting up, going home and getting in to bed was easy as I was hopped up on drugs, I'm sure. I did much sleeping that day. By the time evening rolled around I began to feel the pain. EVERYONE'S journey is different and I've read everything from hardly any pain to whole bunches. Well, I got the whole bunch scenario. I hate to tell anyone reading this that was the case, but I want to be upfront with you. It was difficult to sit up with out excruciating pain and getting to the bathroom was a nightmare. The good news is I could sleep very well as long as I was on my back. No moving, no sitting up and I was fine. So, just so you know, it's not a constant pain. Then the shoulder pain started. AWFUL! Worse than anything. Apparently you have air pumped into your body so they can see what they are doing. Well, when they stitch you back up, the air has no where to go and it will sometimes settle somewhere. Mine went to my shoulders and it was mortifying. So much so I called to doc to make sure I wasn't dying. She said it's 'normal' for some. In addition I had a hiatal hernia, so I had a little added bonus. My understanding is this can cause them to adjust/move/touch (not sure) your diaphragm, which can also add to the shoulder pain. Not sure why. The strange thing was if I was laying down the shoulders didn't hurt anywhere near as much. It was tolerable. The second I tried to get up, it wasn't cool. I spent the first two days in bed (Thursday and Friday) and then decided to painfully drag myself to the living room where we have a reclining sofa. If you have one, use it! Not only can you sit in a better position, you can get out of it easier than a bed. I did some research on the shoulder pain and found the best way to get rid of it is to walk and do some arm exercises such as windmills. Like I wanted to get up! I forced myself and it wasn't pretty. But it IS necessary. I started to walk back and forth between rooms for a very few minutes and do the movements. The windmills helped the most. It would get a tad better while I was on my feet. Getting up from the sofa was still rough, but I slowly worked my way up to 5-minutes, then 10. By the time Monday rolled around (approximately 3-days) it was very tolerable.
I hope I didn't scare you! Looking back, three days of pain to lose 16 pounds in two weeks was well worth it. It. Goes. Away. Looking back I have absolutely no regrets. I've not one problem since and I'm excited for the future. Here I come SKINNY! It will be nice to see you again!
YOU. CAN. DO. THIS.
Please know, my intent is not to scare you here. My intent is to give you a look in to one person's journey. Sometimes going into
something with the knowledge of possibilities makes it that much easier before and after. Knowledge is Power!
NEXT POST: food -- Not as bad as I thought.
