Thought I would share my post op experience... - ThinnerTimes

LarryB · 11-16-2005, 06:18 AM

I thought I would take a minute to sit down and share what I went thru the first couple of days @ the hospital after my surgery. I had my surgery performed by Dr. Phillip Price @ Mount Carmel West hospital. He is a general surgeon that spends 85% of his cases on gastric bypass. Anyhow.

I woke up after the surgery with very little pain so I was happy. As pain creeped up I started using the pain pump that I was given. Loved it. At 4 hours they expect you to get out of bed and sit in a chair for 30-45 minutes. That time came and it was perfect timing as my pain pump had died shortly before. I would hit the nurse call button. They would come in and look at it and fiddle then leave the room. No sooner did they leave the room I would try and use it and it would beep again. Still no meds. 45 mins later it was still not working and I was in so much pain I was in tears, when the nurse comes in and says, "We can give you something in your IV until we can get this fixed." I'm like where were you an hour ago. Please do. This is a process that takes another 20 minutes. So here I am almost an hour and a half with out any pain meds when I have a pain pump that I can disperse meds every 8 minutes. Needless to say I was in so much pain I couldn't believe it. After that point they finally got the pain pump working and I got back in bed. Now in bed everytime I fell asleep my oxygen stats would drop below 70% and alarms would sound and my wife would have to wake me up and get me to breathe because I wasn't breathing when I fell asleep. So we put my CPAP on. This did not help at all. I was still dropping my stats. 4 hours later of fighting with this they finally got respiratory down with thier cpap machine and was adjusting it for me. They left and I started having troubles again. 45 minutes later they came back and had an oxygen adapter. Finally I was able to sleep with the influx of oxygen in to the CPAP. Around 10 that evening I was awoken to my wife going who are you and what are you doing in this room. I open my eyes and see this man with a visitors pass standing in my room looking at me. I have never seen this person in my life. Turns out that my grandparents had sent thier reverend(note that I'm not really a religous person). He comes to me and asks if I am a christian man and attend church. I try to explain thru the cpap that I'm not all that religous to which he replies. Well to make sure you don't go to hell I'm here to pray with you and goes off in to this long prayer session. Talk about a crazy first day.

The next morning I start liquids and taking some of my meds via mouth. Every time I try to drink something or take a pill I get this strange heaving and horrible feeling going on in my neck and throat like I can't breathe. I have this for like 6 hours before the nurses get concerned. Finally they call my dr's office and one of the other surgeons sends me down for a scan. Turns out that I had a lot of swelling around the anastenosis and it was closed. So I was taken off everything and was not allowed any liquids or solids for 24 hours. That was horrible.

The next 2 days went fine and I was in perfect comfort due to finally getting nursing staff that actually knew how to deal with GB patients.

I am now going on 6 weeks post-op. @ 17 days I had lost 30 pounds, but due to my weight I have been unable to weigh myself, so I have to wait until Dec 2nd to find out my weight loss.

Sorry this is so long, but I thought I would share with people that would actually understand what I have went through.

Bypassingme619 · 11-16-2005, 06:29 AM

Welcome to the Family Larry. Welcome to the losing side as well. You had a rough Journey but you pulled through it. Congrats on your 30 pounds gone forever

. I think the first day is everyones busiest day but your first day was beyound busy, as well as draining. Glad you made it through and came by to share your story. Keep us posted Larry.

Mavisavis · 11-16-2005, 08:40 AM

Hey Larry......welcome to the board. This is a great place for advice, encouragement, and a few ornery laughs! Great job on your weight loss.

Alleusion · 11-16-2005, 08:45 AM

What a crazy first day! Welcome to the forums and to the losing side Larry!

Qweets · 11-16-2005, 08:46 AM

Lol wow sounds like my experience... i had mine done open so i had a fair amount of pain when moving in an out of bed.. not too bad.. i had an epidural in my spine though WORST PAIN EVER when they were putting it in before surgery.. took them like a half an hour to get it in... so much pain i passed out a couple times during it.. but anyways with the breathing thing.. i was never on a CPAP machine before surgery or anything but my oxygen levels would drop alot while i tried to sleep then the stupid machine would go beep crazy so i got hardly any sleep at all for like a week in the hospital it sucked..they asked me before i went in if i wanted a reverend or whatever to come in and I said no im not religious so that kinda sucks they forced that on you.. but congrats on coming through!! Good luck with the weight loss

Gladitsme · 11-16-2005, 09:47 AM

Larry,
Sorry you had that experience! Glad you're home and doing better now.