Fundlopication done! My road to recovery.

Hi Rosie,

Glad to hear you have had your surgery and are on your road of recovery. The anticipation of this surgery was very nerve racking for me and once it was behind me there are always SO many questions of things popping up on a day to day basis. I am about 3 1/2 week post surgery. I can tell you that swallowing gets worse before it gets better. The first week I had no swallowing issues. Pills and liquids went down great. That's because the wrap is not at it's peak swelling yet. For me, the swallowing harder started about 12 days after surgery. When I started introducing blended foods is when I felt like it was harder to get them down. I drank nothing but liquid for the first 10 days. For the first week I had heartburn but after that it has subsided alot. It can be normal to have heartburn while the healing process is going on.

Now I am eating soft foods and some go down ok and others not so much. Pasta is not my friend. I consider that a soft food and eventho I chew it really well it still seems to get bunched up. You can feel when food is not going down. You take a sip of water and it makes it worse for me. It bunches up and feels like a huge lump in there and finally I can burp a bit and it will go down. It definitely is a slow healing process. Just don't overdue. I am a mail carrier and I tried to go back to work on day 12 and my chest ached so bad from the reaching, twisting and turning that I could not do it. I went back at 3 weeks and I feel fine now doing my job, but still very careful not to lift to much and overdue.

I wish you the best of luck with your recovery and as you know, you are in the right place for questions/answers with this forum. I wish I had found this before my surgery as it has helped me immensely with my recovery so far. Take good care and welcome to the wrap club! So glad your doing well!

Shanon

Hi Rosie!
Welcome to the 😊Wrapped Club!😊Glad to heat you surgery went well! Now you’re on the other side—ready to heal and look forward to a better quality of life!

Like you, I’m a retired teacher. I had the surgery 10 years ago this February. Here’s a link to my early recovery journal—hopefully it will answer a few of your questions. Keep asking them! I found this forum a short time before my surgery, and it was a godsend.
https://www.healingwell.com/community/default.aspx?f=45&m=4097753

Happy healing,
Denise

Day 5:
Well although I’ve had a few minor problems over the last few days as far as swallowing, burping and eating goes all is good. I’ve been very careful to sip and go slowly eating everything with a teaspoon! I’ve lost 2.5 Kg in 5 days but expect that, you can’t live on half cups of shakes, yogurt, custard and soup and not lose weight!
My biggest issue has been pain in my ribs and shoulders, taking deep breaths and a banging heart, so much so I headed back to the hopspital. Across my shoulder was so sore to touch I felt like I’d overdone a gym workout. The hospital checked me out very thoroughly and a lovely doctor reassured me that gas and work on the diaphragm can cause sore muscles, stitch and shoulder pain to go on for a while. On the advice of my doctor who couldn’t get in to see me they also gave me anti inflammatory suppositories which helped a lot and avoided my stomach. My doctor has me going to him tomorrow just to double check everything.
On a very positive note I have not had any feelings of reflux and heartburn!! This is such a joy and I now realise how much reflux was part of my life and how I accepted it as ‘Normal!’ My doctor has me on somac 40mg once a day ( 1/2 of my previous dose ) for 3 weeks then alternate days for two weeks and all being we’ll I’ll cease taking any!
Rufus I’m so pleased you’re getting closer to your Op date! Hang in there not long now!
Denise thanks for you support you are doing a great job here!