Saturday, April 11, 2009

I actually had lap band surgery!

Boy, that sounds weird!  

It feels weird to read because I feel good, too.  Well, not normal good, but good considering my innards were messed with a few days ago.

All in all, my hospital experience was very good.  After waiting on pins and needles for my parents to show up, we headed to Vandy.  At some point they said they changed my surgery time from 9:30 to 7:30.  But I never got that message.  DOH!  They were able to take me back immediately, though and get things rolling.  

My IV was relatively painless, I enjoyed my fluffy hospital socks and the giant paper gown. They have these new gizmo gowns called Bear Air or something like that.  You can plug a wall mounted hairdryer thingie into it to warm you if you are cold.  I never got to get plugged in.  I bet it's funny looking--you poof up like the Stay Puff't Marshmallow Man.

My nurses were nice, as was the anesthesiologist.  I like my surgeon, he's loosened up a bit after multiple meetings.  By the end of the day he was pretty much ready to shove me out the door.  I tend to be an amusing patient.  Goofy.  Which I would think staff would like much more than the bitchy, complaining ones.  Ya know?

I've only had one surgery before--that was on my sinuses in October of 2007.  They pushed the happy juice into my IV before we headed to the OR, so I never saw the inside.  They didn't give me the knockout meds this time until I was on the OR table, so I got to see inside the room.  Lots of big screen TVs (playing how to videos?  ha ha!) where they displayed information about you, what they're gonna do and so on.   And unlike most TV operating rooms it was . . . how you say . . . well LIT!

I was scootched over to the operating table after a roller coaster ride from my room.  I can tell it was a Vandy design job.  They have really bad architects.  They prefer form over function.  It took a 20 point turn to maneuver my bed out of the preop room.  I give the nurses an A for effort!  Pretty much once I got on the table, I got the mask and the knock out juice and was out of it.

From there, I remember waking up in the recovery room.  There was a chick nurse there who was humming to the piped in radio.  I remember her putting on my elastic binder garment--the distinct sound of velcro.  I think they wheeled me in the bed to a second room where my parents were chilling out.  Remarkably, they weren't arguing!

Once I got in the room, things pretty much went back to normal.  My pain wasn't too bad, but I was pretty thirsty.  I got to suck on some ice chips, sat up and chatted, then in short order got up and walked the halls.  They won't let you leave until you can get up and move around.

Funny thing:  a few weeks ago I was in the hospital tunnels running to my pre-op appointment.  I ran into this gurney guy.  He was pushing a bed through the halls back to the hospital.  He asked me where he knew me from.  I said probably from 18 years of hall wandering.  We chatted for a bit before we took separate halls.  Turns out he was doing his thing in Day Surgery that day and we ended up chatting again.  Ha--I just chatted with you in the tunnel last week!  Small world!

I remember being very chatty and humming a lot.  The doc was cracking up at me and figured I was competent (relative term) enough to go home.  Since it was pushing 3 pm and traffic was about to start getting thick, we made a break for it after picking up some prescriptions at the world's worst pharmacy.

I'm still half contemplating if he did anything aside from cutting me open and sewing me straight shut again!  I can't feel anything lumpy up in there, and I have no nausea or vomiting or problems getting stuff down.  So far, so good.

1 comment:

Fastlass said...

And most of the time you have to pass gas before they let you leave...I hope you did. ;D