First of all I am an ICU nurse of 30 years. I took care of patients coming right out of open heart surgery. This is where my idea came from.

My surgery was yesterday. When I woke up in the recovery room I had a lot of pain so they gave me Dilaudid which is a strong narcotic. The Dilaudid eased the pain but it still hurt. It just made me sleepy. I asked the doctor if he would order Toradol IV. We give it to open heart patients who are in a lot of pain because it doesn't make you sleepy and you are able to get up and starting moving right away.

(If you like the narcotic buzz, you will not like Toradol)!

Anyway, I got the Toradol. It was a miracle. I have had the smoothest recovery. I forget that I just had surgery!!

I wasn't going to post this because I don't want to give medical advice. But I also don't want to hold back on something that could help all of you that are about to have surgery. Just know that I am only giving you my experience.

The best part is that it completely took my pain away...I mean completely!!!

So I was up walking and taking deep breaths. I ate jello the first night ( last night) with no problem.

I hope I didn't just jinx myself !!!!

Anyway post op day one here! So far....So good! And I am loving that green jello! Why is it always green????

Kim

I had open surgery - 7 inch scar from great bone to navel. But the pain relief was magic! As they sewed me up, they sewed a thin perforated tube along the incision. This was connected to a wee pump and reservoir, on a waist belt. This pumped tiny bits of xylocaine into the wound for three days - so the incision was totally pain free! I has tramadol available on self med - only did one dose but realised I didn’t need it.

I didn’t even know they made such a thing. After the 3 days the reservoir was empty, and the tube just slid out painlessly.

Aren’t our med professionals wonderful?!

I had open surgery - 7 inch scar from great bone to navel. But the pain relief was magic! As they sewed me up, they sewed a thin perforated tube along the incision. This was connected to a wee pump and reservoir, on a waist belt. This pumped tiny bits of xylocaine into the wound for three days - so the incision was totally pain free! I has tramadol available on self med - only did one dose but realised I didn’t need it.
I didn’t even know they made such a thing. After the 3 days the reservoir was empty, and the tube just slid out painlessly.
Aren’t our med professionals wonderful?!

Wow! I gave not even heard of that and I am a nurse!