Obsessively thinking about my upcoming surgery

[Suzycue 4]

Hello everyone
I hope all are well and keeping safe.
So I have RNY surgery coming up on august 19th and I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s driving me nuts. I’m looking forward to losing weight because I have a lot of health problems and I have also put on a lot of weight recently I can barely walk. So I know I have no choice but to do this surgery but I’m scared AF I’m like am I going to die? I’m terrified of being put to sleep. I also have been online reading people’s horror stories about regret after wls. I’m going bananas

[Massfit 3]

Suzycue,

I am in the beggining stages, no surgery scheduled yet but I feel the same way. I want to lose weight, I NEED to lose weight but I am also scared. I would try to stay away from the horror stories. I can say that since starting this journey I have heard from a lot of people who had it done and are doing fine, have lost a lot and are happy with the process. I had one woman tell me to ”trust the process” and I try to remind myself of that. Goodluck!

Edited July 26, 2020 by Massfit

[perfektlynrml 185]

1 minute ago, Suzycue said:

Hello everyone
I hope all are well and keeping safe.
So I have RNY surgery coming up on august 19th and I can’t stop thinking about it. It’s driving me nuts. I’m looking forward to losing weight because I have a lot of health problems and I have also put on a lot of weight recently I can barely walk. So I know I have no choice but to do this surgery but I’m scared AF I’m like am I going to die? I’m terrified of being put to sleep. I also have been online reading people’s horror stories about regret after wls. I’m going bananas

I used to be very afraid of anesthesia. So much so that I jumped off the table in the operating room. Of course being obese is a higher risk for undergoing anesthesia but I assume you have had all your pre-op testing and your team is aware of what concerns they need to stay on top of during your surgery. You can ask the anesthesiologist to give you something for anxiety. They put it right in the intravenous and it works in minutes. You will be wheeled into the Operating Room which will be a bit cold, brightly lit and it will have a slight echo. There will be a flurry of activity around you. I find it helpful to shut my eyes at this point and pretend as if I am going to bed for the night. Practice this if you need to. Visually see yourself in the operating room and feel the coolness, hear the slight echo but you will shut your eyes and breath in and out slowly. Another thing I do is start naming fruits and vegetables starting at the beginning of the alphabet in my head. You will likely only get to G for grapefruit. The next thing that will happen is you will wake up in recovery. You will feel a bit disoriented, nauseous possibly and you will hear the sounds of the machine beeps very loudly. Ask for something for nausea if you need it. Keeping your eyes closed and just focusing on breathing helps to get the anesthesia out of your system. Within an hour you should feel much better and then you’ll work on pain management. You can do this and you will be healthier and stronger before you know it.

[Suzycue 4]

I can totally see myself jumping off the table lol

[perfektlynrml 185]

5 minutes ago, Suzycue said:

I can totally see myself jumping off the table lol

If you think that’s possible then ask for something for anxiety. They will give it to you while you’re still waiting to be wheeled back. You want this surgery very much to give you the ability to get back on your feet. I’m going in on the 7th. I certainly don’t like the idea of being under for a few hours versus thirty minutes for a endoscopy but most likely the worst of it will be when you wake up and still have the anesthesia working it’s way out of your body. Last procedure I started singing in recovery to myself along to the hum of the machines. Anything to distract helps me. I will be sending you good vibes on your special day.

[Suzycue 4]

Thank you I will ask for something

[Suzi_the_Q 257]

This thread brought me some comfort. Hope it helps.

[New&Improved 1,780]

I had RNY it was the best choice ever no issues no complications and lost weight really quickly 😁

[JordanKylie 83]

Ask for the Versed. It's the one that makes you forget so you don't remember jumping off the OR table(kidding kidding) but really, it's the good stuff. I'm also SUPER anxious about it, and the worse part is that I work in the surgery center that I'm having my surgery.[emoji849] Anyway, I'm just going to try to focus on the positives that will happen post surgery, and yes keep my eyes closed once I get in there!

Sent from my SM-G981U using BariatricPal mobile app

[NovaLuna 710]

I wasn't scared of the surgery or being put under but mostly because I'd had brain surgery in 2017 so this was like a walk in the park by comparison... Your mind makes things out to be worse than they actually are. I think it's just human nature to stress about the worst possible outcome. Your chances of not making it through the surgery are 1 in 1000. Chances of major complications are like 4%. It's slim. Just trust that you're in good hands and try not to stress yourself out more by reading about the worst things that can happen or you'll just stress yourself out more!

In my own experience when I went into the operating room I was talking to the anesthesiologist after they got me situated and he asked me a few questions and the next thing I know I'm being wheeled into a room. I'm going to be honest... when I woke up I felt like I got hit by a bus! But they gave me pain meds when I mentioned that and then I was good. My worst experience about my surgery is that I vomited old blood for the first two days... and it HURT! It scared my mom, but the nurse said that sometimes that happens and it's normal. I had those blue puke bags on hand just in case lol. But I had the Loop DS and that's different then Gastric Bypass so you likely won't have that issue.

Just try and stay away from reading about the worst possible outcomes and just think positive. Think about how much better you'll feel as you hit each milestone!

I wish you the best in your upcoming surgery!

[BigSue 1,394]

I'm probably weird, but before I made the decision to have surgery, I looked for WLS horror stories because I like to be prepared for the worst-case scenario and it kind of helps me to know what that is. I was surprised by how difficult it was to find horror stories and people who regretted their WLS. Even some people who had horrible complications still said they would do it again! The reality is that the overwhelming majority of people have few complications (or none) and the surgery drastically changes their lives for the better. Also, it is a lot safer than it used to be, so some of the horror stories from 10 or 20 years ago are about complications that are incredibly rare now.

I still thought, "Yeah, but what if I'm the unlucky one out of hundreds who has horrible complications or dies?" I took some steps to make sure my affairs were in order just in case (like updating my beneficiaries and calling my mom, who didn't and still doesn't know I had surgery), but you can't spend all your time worrying about everything bad that could possibly happen, because bad things can happen no matter what choices you make.

I do not remember going under at all. I don't remember being in the OR or seeing the anesthesiologist or counting backwards from 100 or anything. The last thing I remember was being wide awake in the surgery staging area, and the nurse said she was going to give me a heparin shot in my stomach but she would wait until the Versed kicked in. Next thing I knew, I was waking up after surgery.

[Suzycue 4]

Thank you everyone for replying my fears are being eased a bit.
You guys are the best

[catwoman7 11,221]

you are not going to die. Gastric bypass has a 0.3% mortality rate, VSG is even less. So that means you have a 99.7% chance or better that you're going to get through it just fine. And you will. Those odds are excellent. My surgeon has been doing these surgeries for 30+ years and has never lost a patient. They'll put you through all sorts of medical clearances (if they haven't already) to make sure you're healthy enough for surgery. YOU WILL BE FINE!

on the continuum of surgeries, VSG and RNY are among the safest surgeries there are. They're much safer than hip replacement surgeries, for example, and you know they do hip replacements every day, so...

for that matter, people have died during tonsillectomies or wisdom tooth extractions. How often does that happen? Almost never. Same with weight loss surgeries. It's not going to happen.

as for horror stories, quit reading them. Now. Major complications are very rare. Almost all of us have had either no complications at all, or very minor ones that are easy fixable (like a stricture). You will be fine. I know it's hard not to be afraid, but these are very safe surgeries with very little chance of major complications.