After surgery hospital stay lenghty???

cmacinga · May 14, 2007

Last week Friday, I went to see my pulmonary doctor, and he read the tests I took, asked me about my sleep apena, told him I had surgery for that like 3 years ago, and he said that he wanted me in the sleep lab that night. So I called my work, told them I was not coming in, went to the sleep lab last Friday night and took the sleep study. Did real bad until the cpap machine at 2 a.m. then I slept like a baby. Am on cpap machine now until surgery. Was told patients who use cpap machine up until surgery come out of surgery and recover more quickly because of all the oxegen in the blood. So then the next morning, I had the scoop down the throat test, and threw up all over the table. Luckily, I had no food in my stomach for over 15 hours, so it was dry throwing up, but it as awful. Not like I remember having when I was a teenager. So they found the dredded hiatal hernia and said something about taking a biopsy of it??? !!! When I was leaving the hospital Saturday afternoon, I asked if I was gonna be seeing them (the great nurses in the same day surgery unit) and they said, Yes, you will start out here and then go to recovery, and then to your room for a few days 3-4 days! I thought this lap-band was same day surgery then you go home. So my question is this: Does anyone else have the hiatal hernia before surgery, and did anyone else stay a few days in the hospital before being released? How was it? My surgery is May 29.

Alexandra · May 14, 2007

I don't know, that sounds like an awfully long time to expect to be in the hospital. Honestly, I've never heard of someone spending more than 2 nights after banding surgery, and even that's rare. Most people do have it now, I think, as outpatient surgery and probably a bit fewer stay overnight one night.

Many people have hernias repaired at the same time as banding surgery, too. I wonder why they mentioned such a long stay. Maybe they were thinking of gastric bypass surgery?

beachgirl · May 15, 2007

I'm with Alex, 16 hours for me.

Chris_NJ · May 15, 2007

Had my surgery and went home the next day. The guy in my room next to me had gastric bypass and he had to stay at least 1 more night. Like stated it sounds like they have the two surgeries confused.

GayleTX · May 15, 2007

Hmmmmm......I stayed about 2 hours after surgery.......

cyndilou29 · May 26, 2007

My doc keeps everyone in 1 night but I ended up staying two because I had a lot of swelling in my stomach from the surgery so I couldn't get any liquid in.

The usual rule is outpatient for most but if they keep you overnight, you have to be able to get liquid down and pee. When you do both, they will send you home. I'm glad they kept me. I was NOT at all ready to go home the first day. I had a few sips of Water and a 1/4 tsp of Jello and I started frothing something awful. I'm fine today though

Just a side note - I think the thing that scared me the most pre-op was the thought of frothing. I can tell you, it's not as bad as I thought. Don't get me wrong, I don't love it - it's not pleasant at all. But it's not as horrible as I anticipated either.

beachgirl · May 26, 2007

I stayed about 12 hours in Mexico then went to the Surgeon's guesthouse for a day.

Ses · October 24, 2007

I had the surgery at 8am and checked myself out around 6pm... but I was stubborn about getting the hell out of there, even when I was muddled with the drugs, I was trying to get the nurses out so I could dress again. hehe.

Well... if you feel you'll heal better at home, you could do what I did and say you'd rather go home. They might just being careful.