Hi there. Please don't be afraid to ask questions -- here or with your doctor. If they get annoyed then they aren't doing their jobs!
As for my experience: The day before surgery I was on a clear liquid diet and had to take an awful laxative solution. So gross! But I was so excited for surgery that the day passed quickly.
Yes, I had a cathetar for a few hours, which I was grateful for. That might be strange to hear, but for the first couple of hours you don't want to have to worry about bathroom or anything. You're mostly falling asleep every few minutes in the first hours. They put it in when I was already knocked out in surgery. Getting it taken out is not fun, but very fast.
I did not have any drains. I was up walking probably 4 hours after surgery and kept getting up to walk every few hours until I left 2 days later. I received shots of blood thinner regularly the whole time. And strangely, though I've never been diabetic, they tested my blood sugar regularly and I even received a shot of insulin right after surgery and from what I remember (was very woozy) the nurse said sometimes surgery throws your blood sugar off
Other things going on was having my vitals taken all the time, and having to manage my pain. From what I hear on the forum here, many people have very, very little pain post-op. I was not quite so lucky. My surgery was done laproscopically. On the left side of my abdomen, where my doctor went through the muscle with all the big tools, he pulled it tight with a stitch putting it back together. This ended up being very painful for me. I had a morphine pump at first, and then later the nurse injected a pain med into my IV when I would request it (and belive me, I did). They sent me home with liquid Tylenol, which did nothing for me, so later they gave me a script for liquid Vicodin, which was much better.
As for the IV, the nurse put it into my forearm so it didn't get in the way on my hand or in the crease of my elbow. I've had IVs many, many times before, but that was my favorite location I've ever had one. I also had those round sticky circles all over my body where I was hooked up to wires connected to the vital monitoring machines, and a thing over my finger measuring my blood oxygen, I think?
Immediately post-op, I had bad nausea my first day back home, and then just mild nausea sometimes after eating. It is only now that I am on almost all solids that I am finding more things that make me sick, but we all go through that as we advance our diets.
I know you are scared, and this experience is not a walk in the park. There are annoyances, soreness, strange emotions, nausea, sometimes the nurses are great and sometimes less so, and weird needles and tubes. But none of it is something you won't be able to handle. Just wait and see! You might surprise yourself with your inner strength. And the weight loss results are
definitely worth it! I feel so much better already!