Operation Story

Hello blog Land,



I am back! I am going to try to give you as many details as I can about the last 3 days because it could give a fair ideas to thos undergoing surgery soon of what to expect.



Monday 22nd : operation day



6.30am: I left the hotel with Jenni and Karen the 2 other girls having surgery as well to go to the hospital. On the trip I was stressing more and more.





7.00 am : I arrived in the hospital got my bracelet on, and was brought to my room. I shared my room with a lovely belgian lady who was getting a gastric sleeve operation.



8 am: 3 nurses struggled to get as much blood as they needed for the blood tests so had to try in different places. I have massive bruises on my arms (will post a picture of that in the next post)

8.30am: the surgeon visited me in the room to explain all the procedure, he also said my operation should be just before 12.

9am: i decided to go in the girls' room next door to chat while I was waiting. we started chatting.

9.30 am: one of the nurses comes in the room and start moving Karen's bed. Karen thinks its her turn so goes in the bathroom. and another nurse comes in and says actually it's in the next room first: ME!! surprise! I wasn't even in my sexy gown yet so went to the bathroom and go changed and was wheeled down to the operating theatre.

9.40 am : I was brought to a first room where there was several people waiting on their bed there. they put contension bandages on my legs. put the IV in.

10.00 am : they brought me into the operating theatre, it was freezing. i remember walking to the table, it looked like a big gingerbread man shape to me. it was narrow and uncomfortable. one of the nurses put an oxygen mask on my face, she strapped me to the table and I hated the fact that I could see my reflection in the big lamp above me. the surgeon's assistant asked ho i was feeling i said I was scared so he asked me if I would like some music on. and explained the anesthesiologist would come now. It was a lovely lady with fashinable glasses and a nice necklace. she said that she would now inject the anesthetics and it would hurt a lot in my arm. IT DID HURT A LOT but lasted 2 seconds.

I woke up in the recovery room. I don't know what time it was. my throat was hurting a lot. and my nose was itchy, i scratched it and i had a lot of dried blood under it the nurses came several time to ask how i was. it took me a little while to wake up.

12 am : I was wheeled back to my room. The lady in the room was back too and asleep on her bed. James was not in the room yet. I was feeling very sleepy. James arrived in the room I was really happy to see him.

The afternoon I slept, then felt very sick, had some vomitting episodes, walked a bit, slept again, vomitted again... then James left, the surgeon visited me twice after the operation to see how i was getting on.

During the night I was sleeping 2 hours then waking up for an hour then slept again and waking up again.

tuesday 23rd : why did I do this to myself???

6.00 am : The nurse came to remove my IV. It left a very nasty and sore bruise.

7.00 am : X-ray with barium swallow. Barium is probably one of the most disgusting things I have ever drunk. but it was nice to see that Sammy was finally there hidden in the middle of a lot of white patches which I was told was Gas.

7.30 am: I was given some orange juice it went down fine in the beginning. Then I got dressed and I could not put trousers on my belly was so swollen (see picture below) and I could not put my bra on either so put my pj's bottoms on with a very loose shirt.

I went back to sleep for a while and when I woke up the nightmare started. I was feeling so sick and it's the type of moments when you know the only thing that is going to relieve you is to actually be sick. I could not control it except nothing was coming out and it was hurting like hell. Eventually up came some of the orange juice.

10.00 am : the taxi driver came to pick us up. we were all feeling so sick. the trip in the car felt so long. we stopped by the pharmacy to get our prescriptions. Up came more of the orange juice. And finally arrived at the hotel. up came the end of the orange juice.

I went to sleep for a few hours and was feeling better but then started suffering really bad gas pains. This feeling is so painful. just slept on and off.

wednesday 24th : a long trip back.

I managed to sleep a bit more so feel a bit better. Spent a lot of time resting in bed.

1pm: i had a shower and it felt so good! I have waterproof dressings on the incisions so im allowed showers.

2pm: went to say goodbye to Jenni who was going home. Karen has gone early in the morning.

I stayed in bed watching French TV all afternoon. I had a slim fast shake over a few hours.

6pm: the taxi driver came to collect us at the hotel.

6.30 pm : we arrived at the airport and waited around until boarding.

9.25pm : flight finally took off, a bit late. The flight went fine I had my pillow against my tummy during the turbulences and it was very helpful.

10.05 pm: (local time) the flight landed in Dublin but we had to wait until 11.20 to get the bus to Belfast. So we sat at a coffee shop and I had a latte.

11.20 pm: we took the bus to Belfast and I managed to get a bit of sleep.

1.45 am : we arrived in Belfast and took a taxi home.

2.00 am : HOME SWEET HOME!!! I've never been so happy to see my house ever.

Thursday 25th : now I know what shoulder tip pain is!

I overall felt better today until shoulder tip pain started, i thought I was done with gas pain but this was just horrible. the only thing that calms it down is to put some heat on my left shoulder and walking around a bit. How long is this going to last??

My friend Yuna visited me and stayed with me on the couch with a quilt on and chatted it was nice. She also brought me some flowers and nesquick powder :)

I received a few get well soon cards too its so nice to have people thinking of you and supporting you in a moment like that. It is probably one of the moment in my life I will remember forever as this will change my life forever ( I hope).

Tomorrow my friend Sam is arriving from France and I'm so happy I haven't seen him for such a long time!

I have so much reading to do on your blogs. I will do that over the next week. Thank you so much for your support it really helps me a lot.

Could you tell me how long it took for the gas pain to go? do you have any tips on how to ease it?

I hope you haven't fallen asleep in the middle of this post. I hope you have a nice friday.