3 day post op catch-up

Ok, I was sleeved on Friday, and didn't really feel like blogging in the hospital, so I will try to include as many details as I can here.

Friday, March 8 - wife drove me to the hospital at 6 am. Nurses brought me in to empty my bladder, get changed into the gow, sign some paperwork, and get the IV started. I kissed my wife, and got wheeled into the OR at around 7:30. The next thing I can remember is the nurses calling out my name trying to wake me up in the recovery room. I opened my eyes and saw a clock on the wall said 11:30. I was struggling to determine if I was dreaming or if it was real. I started trying to determine if I was in any pain, and noticed it was hard to take a deep breath. They wheeled me up to my room about a half hour later. I was so tired, and all I wanted to do was sleep. They gave me a button to push for Morphine, and told me to use it as often as I needed. The morphine made me nauseous whenever I would use it, only temporarily, but enough to make me not want to use it too much. I had some belly pain, but mostly what I would describe as "tightness" in the belly. Worse than the belly was the gas pain I felt in my chest, and a pain in my left shoulder which I am reading now was also from the gas. The doctor repaired a fairly large hiatal hernia while he was in there, so I think that compounded the chest pain and gas pain. Sleeping at night was hard - basically every hour was 45 minutes of sleeping and 15 minutes of being awake. I used the morphine about once an hour throughout the night, just to get some sleep. Also, another thing that was hard was the cotton mouth. I wasn't able to drink anything at all for the first 24 hours, but was able to swab the inside of my mouth with water. It helped some, but was annoying. The first day was pretty much Hell, and I was praying that it would all be worth it.

Saturday, March 9 - I awoke in the morning, and was told that the doctor would be in at some point to do an X-ray to make sure there was no leakage. One thing I forgot to mention about Friday was that they would give me a heparin shot every 8 hours or so, and that would continue for the whole hospital stay. The doctor showed up, and they brought me down in a wheelchair to do the X-ray. I had to stand there and drink a few sips of barium solution, the first fluid I had drank in about 36 hours. Doctor said everything looked great, no leaks, and the hiatal hernia looked like it was healing nicely. I got back to my room, and was given a 'food' tray, clear liquid bariatric diet. I tried to get some liquid in, but it was very hard. They disconnected the morphine, and switched me to Tylenol with codeine in pill form, which had to be crushed and put into liquid. It was so bitter and hard to drink. I only ended up taking 2 doses, and haven't taken any pain medication since 6:45 Saturday night. Overall, it was a much better day than day 1. I got up to walk and to urinate a few times, and it did help with the gas pain. Sleep on Saturday night was much better than Friday night. I was still a bit uncomfortable, especially the constant burping and the pain in my left shoulder. It was hard to stay on my back all night, but slept pretty good, only waking up one time to urinate and I walked the length of the hall a couple times while I was up.

Sunday, March 10 - was told I would probably be going home, which is what I was expecting. Felt even better than on Saturday. A lot of waiting, just wanting to go home. Around 11 am I realized that they had never brought me a breakfast tray. It was daylight savings, so the clock on the wall still said 10. I mentioned it to my nurse, and she couldn't believe it. She asked if I wanted them to send something now, or just wait until lunch. I had been sipping on water, and said I could just wait until lunch. They brought the lunch trays up, and mine wasn't included there either. The nurse had to call and have a tray sent up. They ended up sending a tray of clear liquid diet food, not clear liquid BARIATRIC diet food, which means that some of the things had sugar. Luckily, the only thing I was really interested in was the chicken broth, which was on both diets. This was the only issue I had with the entire hospital stay. The nurses were great. Probably around 1 pm, the doctor came to remove my Jackson Pratt drain, which was probably the most unpleasant second of the entire thing. He counted to 3 and yanked it out. I let out an audible yell, which is unusual for me. It wasn't so much that it hurt, but felt very strange. I'm not even sure I could describe it to someone who hasn't been through it, but I've replayed it in my mind several times since, feeling the same feeling again each time. I was released, and went home, it was good to be home.

I will try to add more later, just wanted to get these thoughts down before I forgot them.