I do see a lot of lists going around as to what to bring to the hospital. With a thousands of posts its a bit hard to read all of them, so this question may have been posted before...

Is there any helpful items that people have found handy/desirable post-op that they wished they had known about (e.g., a special Water bottle with special crazy straw, medical supplies/gauze, journal for writing down questions to ask later, special known teas that are comforting/healthy, a pet buffalo, etc. etc.)?

I am still in the early throws of this process, although I have funding secured, psych eval out of the way, and my first surgeon and dietician appointments already scheduled for a week out. With that said, I wanted to start accumulating anything that might be useful/helpful/needed that I won't wish I had known before I was down for the count

Any advice or suggestions much appreciated.

Out of all the extras I brought I only used slippers, tablet, phone and chargers, lip gloss hand lotion and pen and pad. Oh and extra underwear...

measuring cups and spoons, plenty of cups with lids and NO STRAWS (drinking from straw post op can pull air into your gut and make it really painful), small bowls with lids to pack future meals for work.

plenty of variety of Protein shakes, your tastebuds may change post op and what was good now won't be anymore.

Excellent! Thank you!