chilljill

I am not a doctor and it does seem that people have a pretty wide range of experiences- but, if all experiences were like mine then I would say...
The healing is no problem, your body will take care of things.
The pain is annoying but not excruciating-- My advice is to ask your doctor before the surgery how much pain he allows his patients to be in for the day or two after surgery. My doctor unfortunately (I wish I had asked beforehand) wants his patients to feel pain as an extra precaution in case there is something wrong. My understanding though is that most Doctors know that pain is pretty easy to control and there are plenty of other ways they monitor for problems.
Assuming your doctor does not want you to be in pain-- the pain medication is stronger than the pain-- so it can be controlled. After the first 2-3 days Tylenol and GasX if anything is all you will need.
Vomitting- everytime I've been under anesthesia- I have vommitted for hours afterwards. In this case though- no vomitting and I think particularly while you're not eating food those first few days-- its not an issue. I have vommited twice since adding food back in to my diet (I'm 3 weeks post-op now) but it hasn't been scary or painful.
And for possible leakage- its such a tiny percentage of people that have that. And before anything is put in to your stomach that could leak (food or drink)-- you get the leak test done (the morning after surgery) so, god forbid there was anything wrong-- the doctors would see it right away. After that- as long as you follow your doctors eating plan-- you are not putting stress on the new seem of your stomach and shouldn't have an issue. And by 2 weeks post surgery- your stomach does a pretty good job of seeling the seem
I also was comforted to learn that if there was a leak-- I wouldn't keel over dead immediately (which I kinda thought). There will be signs and symptoms and enough clues to get you back to the hospital to have it fixed before you are in a life threatening situation.
You are going to be fine! And I think it can only help the process if you go in to the surgery confident that you will be fine. A lot of us- including me- seem to have those panicky thoughts the first day or two after surgery of 'what have I done???' but just tell yourself those feelings are normal and by the time you get home- the excitement for the changes ahead will be back.
Good Luck and Congratulations! You will be sound asleep for the worst of it- and feel better and better every day afterwards.