Hello,
I've been on this site for a while. I'm finally getting my partial fundoplication (180 degree Dor) and HH repair done this Friday. Between waiting for tests, tests being cancelled on me by my hospital, having those tests, picking a surgeon, etc., I've waited a long time. Even the days up until the surgery, I continue to have really bad reflux. I guess I can keep this thread as a journal of mine, and talk about
how things go...Maybe I'll be up for it, maybe I won't. I suppose we'll see how I feel.
Like everyone, I'm very nervous about
surgery day...Thinking about
both short and longterm effects - whether it will fix the problem, whether I'll have other horrible side effects, etc. I'm also a little nervous because I woke up from my last surgery/appendectomy short of breath (I think I was back to normal after 5-10 minutes though). I had a previous surgery (Septoplasty) where I didn't have this problem.
Anyway, hopefully it all goes well, and I come out of it better than I came in.
Also, just as an FYI, my doctor wants me to drink 12 ounces of gatorade/apple juice 4 hours before the surgery (still no eating obviously after midnight). Said it would lessen the nausea afterwards...Never heard of this before.
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Day 1:
It was a beautiful, breezy day on the day of my surgery. I drank about 8 ounces of gatorade that morning, and went to get checked in at the hospital. We went to the pre-surgical waiting area to get prepped. Not surprisingly, I was having some reflux symptoms while just laying in the hospital bed. Even when the hospital bed's have been elevated, I've almost always had reflux laying on them, and this has been true for various manometries, endoscopies, etc. Once the anesthesiologist came along and was almost ready to take me, I told him about this, and he said not to worry. He gave me a prokinetic through my IV - I think that helped. He also said that he would do a procedure in the OR that would prevent anything from getting into my airways (had to do with placing a finger/thumb on my adam's apple). I also told him that I didn't want to wake up short of breath, and he said it wouldn't be a problem.
At the point where they were wheeling me into the OR, I was definitely having regrets and wondering if I should be doing this. I read that many people feel that at this point, and I see why. In the OR, I heard various things as they were positioning me...Apparently, there was a resident there watching. Someone put the thumb on my throat (as they said), and it was actually a bit uncomfortable. I was just trying to close my eyes, and zone out...
I don't remember when they put me out, I just remember waking up. It was hard to breath - partly because I was short of breath and partly because my chest hurt when I tried to breathe. A nurse had an oxygen mask on me, and I remember trying to fight her off, but she kept it on. Eventually, she gave me morphine, and I settled on taking slow, shallow breaths. Make no mistake about it, I was feeling absolutely horrible. Anyway, they eventually wheeled me off to my hospital bed. I was lucky, in that I got a nice, big room. I was still in a lot of pain - really just all over, and especially in my chest area. They made me walk 8 feet to get into my new bed, and that made me very nauseous, of which they gave me zofran through my IV. Parents eventually came to the room, and I remember not wanting to do much. I was given morphine from time to time...I just remember that the pain management really wasnt enough the first night. I remember they brought me some food/liquids...I just had a little at a time, but everything was really good. The soup was the broth of a french onion soup, and it really tasted good - I found that I could take down liquids, but that I would have the urge to burp in the middle of drinking them. The burps themselves were successful every one out of three tries, and were wimpy. Anyway, throughout the night, I ended up getting some sleep here and there.
Day 2:
As usual, there were nurses coming to me throughout the night...giving pain meds and also checking my BP. As an aside, my underarms were really starting to stink, and I felt embarrassed. I just remember them saying no to deoderant for the surgery itself, and so I didn't put any on, and wasn't even thinking about afterwards. Like I said before, the pain meds didn't seem to be enough. The next morning, I got my liquid breakfast - It was chicken broth, italian ice, jello and juice - Again, the broth was really good - had a very homemade taste to it. As someone who has cooked for 20 years, I can pick up on these things. So, I saw a doctor in the morning - I talked with her a bit, told her that the pain management wasn't that great. She said that she wanted me on full liquids later in the day. I started taking pills that day - Was definitely nervous at first, but they went down Ok. Overall, to start the day my pain wasnt that bad - was taking norco's. I did some walking around. Later on, though, I had really bad pain in my lower abdomen, about where my highest incision was/is, and a bit higher than that also. The narcotics didn't seem to help, and they also didn't want to give me more. I eventually accidentally found that icing my painful areas worked well, even better than the narcotic pain meds. Before going to bed, though, I had pain on the left and right sides of my torso - hurt to breathe. Eventually woke up at 1 AM out of breath and in pain, and so I eventually just decided to stay up that night and ice the pain. I figured I would make up the sleep another time. You can see in my post, that I'm up in the middle of the night - I actually used the time to make a couple of walks through the hospital ward in the middle of the night.
Day 3:
Kind of a non-descript hospital day. They were pretty much just wanting to get me discharged at that point, so most of the day was doing that. The only strange thing was that the nurse took out my line, and there was blood spilling everywhere. Went back to the house, with a decrease in pain - was still there, but just less. Had the usual water, gatorade, broths, etc. Sometimes notice some back pressure when burping or about to burp...Also maybe when drinking. No BM or gas passed to this point. I hear some sounds in my gut, so maybe that's a good thing. Most of this day, I was at home and sleeping.Post Edited (leo77) : 2/19/2018 7:44:55 AM (GMT-7)