1 week 2 days post-op

Feb 13, 2013

Over a week ago today I was sleeved. Surgery went well, though the recovery room was very fuzzy. I did not want to wake up and while in and out of consciousness I remember hearing the nurse yelling at me to take deep breaths. I also remember them shoving an inhaler in my mouth. Scary thinking about that now but at the time all I wanted to do was sleep. Hours later I started coming out of it and was looking for my husband. They told me I couldn't see him while I was in the recovery room and they can't find me a bed. Another couple of hours go by and I am getting upset because I want to see my husband and the nurse told me they still don't have a room for mebut she will try to sneak him in for me for a few mminutes. Mark, my husband, came in and the relief we both felt from seeing each other was immense. 9 hours in recovery I finally made it to a room. It was nice, private and on a small step down from ICU. I was hooked up to oxygen, heart monitor and morphine that you push the button when your in pain. I was in a lot of pain and pushed the button frequently. I had two type of pains, a cramping in my chest and ripping, burning painthe biggest incision. I have 5 incisions the one that hurts is an inch all the others are much smaller with no pain. I was extremely nauseousand was given mmedicine but it didn't do much to help. Two days later when I found out the morphine was causing the nausuea I stopped pushing the button and was sufferingthrough the ppain. They started giving me pain pills instead. Day 2 I was thirsty/hungry and you can't have anything till after the leak test. Late morning I went for the test and passed. So now of course I want to eat and no one feels my urgency in this. So now with my frustration of being hungry and in pain and the nurses bad attitude we clash and clash hard. I yelled at her she yelled at me then we cooled off and both apologized. I finally got 1oz of jello at 3pm. Started eating it slowly and it instantly started bubbling back up. Tried some more and the same thing, tried water and that bubbled back up. The next morning they brought me jello again and I couldn't eat it. Finally lunch they brought me broth and I did better. I couldn't finish it all but I did at least half of 1oz. Because of the difficulty eating they kept me at the hospital another 2 nights. So at home I have no problem with keeping my food/liguids down. But!!!!! I am hungry and the clear liquid diet is not cutting it. So I start the full liquid diet a day earlyand it helped a little for the first day but hhere I am hungry again. I am still in pain but just in that 1 incision and hurts really bad when the pain medication wears off. I had my Dr appointment yesterday and found out I lost a total of 34lbs. 14lbs since surgery! Yay me!!! Hearing that definitely makes it all worth it. My only wish would have been to had the knowledge of how much pain there was going to be and how hungry I was going to feel. I think when you mentally prepare yourself for the worse it's not as bad. All my support group meeting they all seemed to say the same thing either they had no pain at all or very minimal pain and no one complained about being hungry. I think maybe like giving birth you forget how bad it actually was or they are holding back trying not to discourage future patients. I spoke to my NUT and she said starting tomorrow I can add 1 pureed meal to help with the hunger. I walk in the mall everyday I increase my water intake everyday and the pain gets a little easier to tolerate everyday. Bottom line I am still very happy I had this done.

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