I have finally been discharged from the hospital and arrived home on Friday, June 22 around 2:00 pm. The last four days have been a real adventure.
Tuesday, June 19 - Surgery day
I had packed all my bags the night before and though I was ready to go, I was still very frightened. If you were to ask me if I wanted to do this, I would have told you No. If you were to ask me if was going to do this, I would have answered Yes. The fear never left me and in all honesty, I don’t think that it leaves anybody.
Anyway, my husband Chris, my parents and I arrived at the Humber River Regional Hospital at 10:00am. I had expected to have some waiting time but that was not the case. Immediately I was taken in to the registration room where I was questioned about all the data I had given from all previous visits. They put an IV line in and it was at this time that they finally allowed Chris to see me again. I was feeling a bit shaky, but having Chris there to tell me jokes really helped.
My friend Jane had arrived while I was registering and since the nurses only allowed one person in the waiting area at a time, Chris left and she came in to say hi. It was really good to see her. Jane is one of those people that has an amazing outlook on life. She has the ability to laugh and carry you with that laughter.
My parents then came through, reassuring me and went back to the waiting room with Jane. I had been really worried about my parents being at the hospital. I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to put on a strong front for them and I certainly did not want them to worry more than they already were. But it turns out my concerns were for nothing. Jane was able to keep them company and chat with them while Chris and I waited to be called down to the operating room.
When the doctor called me in, I did cry as I left Chris. I was afraid but at the same time sure that I needed to do this.
The operating room was cold, I guess mostly because I was dressed in a flimsy hospital gown, but the staff was great. I reminded them that I was the only one to be asleep during the surgery; an attempt at humor, one that, I’m sure, comforted me alone. They quickly put me out and I don’t remember anything until I realized that somebody had taken all the moisture out of my body and stuffed my mouth with cotton.
Apparently the first thing I asked for was “Ice”. I remember being very hot too. Later I found out that Jane and my Mom spent the next 4 hours cooling me down with cold face cloths.
I remember bits of conversation, me saying something and then Chris saying “Your right. That didn’t make any sense”. Apparently, after I responded to the conversation around me I realized that I was actually responding to something that was going on in my head and started making funny faces in response to my own comment. Chris, with his great sense of humor, was actually putting me at ease with his jokes. It may sound really weird, but the little jokes helped. I knew that people were around me and that they were listening to me.
I remember Jane kept saying that “You don’t have to talk with your eyes open”: Again, every time I tried to say something I would open my eyes and loll my head around because my eyes could not focus on anything.
Eventually everybody left and I continued to sleep. At 11:00pm I finally woke up enough to phone Chris and tell him I was okay. Then back to sleep I went. I slept solidly through the night except, of course, for the nurses waking me up every two hours to check my vitals.
Wednesday, June 20
Basically, I had two goals. One was to walk and the other to eat & drink water.
Walking does two things; it prevents blood clots and helps move the gas that they pump into the abdomen for the surgery out of the muscles. Once my family arrived, Chris took me on short walks about every 1- 2 hours. My body was sore but the painkillers helped. In fact walking itself didn’t feel to bad, standing up to start walking was the killer. There are five holes in my abdomen that they used to insert the tools, camera, light and gas. Two of the holes are about ½ inch long. The other three are about 1 inch long and heavily bruised. These were the areas that hurt the most when trying to stand.
I was given broth for breakfast, cream of chicken soup for lunch and cream of broccoli soup for dinner. I had absolutely no appetite, but I was able to eat about ½ cup of everything. The food was not too difficult to eat, but drinking water was a completely different story. Every time I drank water, whether it was cold, room temperature, or hot, I would experience pain just at the end of the esophagus and began burping water and then minutes later that would progress to hiccups. Hiccups hurt! That is all I have to say about that.
Dr. Hagen decided to keep me in for an extra day, until I could drink water without ill effects.
My friend Shelna came for a visit. Shelna is one of my closest friends. I have known her for over 10 years now. She has a great sense of humor and loves teasing me about my foibles. We have a lot of common interests; knitting, gardening, and cooking to name a few. We really work on having an honest and supporting relationship.
Shelna brought me a few gifts and then she too, took me on walks.
At around 8:30pm everybody left for home.
Another patient joined me in my room late in the evening, around 7:30 pm. She had had the same procedure done four weeks prior. However, she had developed a stricture at the bottom of her pouch and anything she ate or drank would cause her to vomit. When the doctors tried to widen the stricture, the pouch tore and she had to be operated on a second time. She was saddened by what was happening, but she, her sister and her husband were able to maintain a good attitude about it.
Thursday, June 21
In the early hours of the morning, my roommate began crying. I couldn’t blame her; in fact I was surprised that she had held out so long. She was in a tremendous amount of pain and knowing what she was going through, I would have been crying hours ago.
I am not one to sit with a “wait and see” attitude. So I got myself out of bed and told her I was keeping her company. That I would talk about my family to help her keep her mind off things. Now I don’t consider myself to be any kind of story teller. Shelna is much better at it then me, but I blathered on about my siblings, my parents, and life in general. She too, began to chat and soon the pain medication began taking effect and the nurses bustled around her and I went back to bed.
At 10:30am her family arrived with a small teddy bear for me and a card from the gastric by-pass support group that she belonged to.
My day progressed normally. My family returned to visit, I walked and tried to eat and drink, and even tried to play a couple of games of crazy eights. By 7:30pm I was exhausted and told my family to go home. I was so tired. I just wanted to sleep. However this was not to be.
By 8:00pm my roommate’s blood pressure had dropped and her temperature was going up. The doctor came in and increased her fluids. An hour later her blood pressure was still very low and her pulse thready. The doctor then opened the incision and tried to see if there was any leaking of the pouch into the abdomen. She was repacked with gauze and more fluid was pumped into her. An hour later, she had still not responded. The doctor then decided to take her into the operating room to open her up and see what was going on. At 1:30am she was wheeled away, and I only heard later that she was out of surgery and in ICU.
Friday, June 22
By 7:00am I was a wreck. I had not slept a wink and was emotionally devastated by what had happened to my roommate. I could not calm myself down and I just wanted to go home. Visiting hours were not until 11:00am, but I called Chris and asked him to come to the hospital and just sit with me. When he arrived, I just broke down and cried. Fear, doubt and abject terror filled me. I couldn’t do anything else but cry.
After I calmed down, Chris and I talked, walked, and I tried to eat – but I could only focus on waiting (impatiently) for Dr. Hagen to come in to discharge me so I could get the heck out of there. The irony of the situation was that every other morning Dr. Hagen had made his rounds by 7:30am. Today this would not be the case. Since he had been called in early in the morning to tend to my roommate’s problems, he would not return until 12:30pm. Finally he did give the go-ahead for me to be discharged, and then everybody who I had been waiting to talk to showed up at once. The Nutritionist arrived, as did the nurse who was to check my blood sugar, as did the nurse who was to check my vitals, as did my lunch. It took me another hour to get out of the hospital and I was ever so happy to leave.
I was to make an appointment to see Dr. Hagen two weeks later in his office. The Nutritionist was going to call me in two weeks to discuss moving my diet to pureed foods and my blood sugar was within normal ranges.
The drive home was hell. Take notice, if you every have this procedure done, ½ hour before you leave the hospital have the nurse give you painkillers for the ride home. There is just no way to get home without extreme pain if you don’t take something. (Oh, and a special tip of the hat to the city of Toronto for their extremely bumpy roads).
Once home, I took a bath and slept for an hour.
My parents were busy in the kitchen cooking all the food (soups) I would need for the next two weeks. It was a relief to know that I would not have to worry about it. The rest of the evening was spent chatting and discussing the best procedure to pound my medication into powders.
Saturday, June 23
I took my parents to see the community garden that Shelna and I work at. We didn’t do any work; I really just wanted to show off how big my garlic had grown. We returned home by 11:00am and my parents left immediately. Chris and I napped.
The day went well. I was in little pain and felt fine.
We had been invited to a party that evening but I was not in any shape to handle the ride or the late hour, so I gave Chris the cell phone and told him to go. He left at 5:00pm.
I watched my recorded episodes of Coronation Street and around 9:00pm I went upstairs to check my email. At 9:30pm I was overcome with chills and the shakes. I decide to go to bed and hoped that everything would calm down. By 9:45pm I was not any better and decide to call Chris and ask him to come home. He said no problem; he would be home in 45 minutes. About 10 minutes later I heard somebody in the house. I knew that it couldn’t be Chris and to my surprise, my next door neighbor Anneke shows up! Chris, realizing that it would take him a while to get home, had called our neighbors, Anneke and Neil, who are very good friends of ours, and had Anneke come over to check on me until he arrived home.
Once Anneke left, Chris ground up my painkiller medication and I took it with applesauce. I then started feeling too hot, so we began tracking my temperature. I had been given instructions that if my temperature went to 100° F I was to go to the emergency room at Humber River Hospital. My temperature fluctuated between 98°F and 99.7°F over the next few hours and when it finally dropped back around normal at 4:00am Chris went to bed in the spare room and I slept through the night.
Tuesday, June 19 - Surgery day
I had packed all my bags the night before and though I was ready to go, I was still very frightened. If you were to ask me if I wanted to do this, I would have told you No. If you were to ask me if was going to do this, I would have answered Yes. The fear never left me and in all honesty, I don’t think that it leaves anybody.
Anyway, my husband Chris, my parents and I arrived at the Humber River Regional Hospital at 10:00am. I had expected to have some waiting time but that was not the case. Immediately I was taken in to the registration room where I was questioned about all the data I had given from all previous visits. They put an IV line in and it was at this time that they finally allowed Chris to see me again. I was feeling a bit shaky, but having Chris there to tell me jokes really helped.
My friend Jane had arrived while I was registering and since the nurses only allowed one person in the waiting area at a time, Chris left and she came in to say hi. It was really good to see her. Jane is one of those people that has an amazing outlook on life. She has the ability to laugh and carry you with that laughter.
My parents then came through, reassuring me and went back to the waiting room with Jane. I had been really worried about my parents being at the hospital. I was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to put on a strong front for them and I certainly did not want them to worry more than they already were. But it turns out my concerns were for nothing. Jane was able to keep them company and chat with them while Chris and I waited to be called down to the operating room.
When the doctor called me in, I did cry as I left Chris. I was afraid but at the same time sure that I needed to do this.
The operating room was cold, I guess mostly because I was dressed in a flimsy hospital gown, but the staff was great. I reminded them that I was the only one to be asleep during the surgery; an attempt at humor, one that, I’m sure, comforted me alone. They quickly put me out and I don’t remember anything until I realized that somebody had taken all the moisture out of my body and stuffed my mouth with cotton.
Apparently the first thing I asked for was “Ice”. I remember being very hot too. Later I found out that Jane and my Mom spent the next 4 hours cooling me down with cold face cloths.
I remember bits of conversation, me saying something and then Chris saying “Your right. That didn’t make any sense”. Apparently, after I responded to the conversation around me I realized that I was actually responding to something that was going on in my head and started making funny faces in response to my own comment. Chris, with his great sense of humor, was actually putting me at ease with his jokes. It may sound really weird, but the little jokes helped. I knew that people were around me and that they were listening to me.
I remember Jane kept saying that “You don’t have to talk with your eyes open”: Again, every time I tried to say something I would open my eyes and loll my head around because my eyes could not focus on anything.
Eventually everybody left and I continued to sleep. At 11:00pm I finally woke up enough to phone Chris and tell him I was okay. Then back to sleep I went. I slept solidly through the night except, of course, for the nurses waking me up every two hours to check my vitals.
Wednesday, June 20
Basically, I had two goals. One was to walk and the other to eat & drink water.
Walking does two things; it prevents blood clots and helps move the gas that they pump into the abdomen for the surgery out of the muscles. Once my family arrived, Chris took me on short walks about every 1- 2 hours. My body was sore but the painkillers helped. In fact walking itself didn’t feel to bad, standing up to start walking was the killer. There are five holes in my abdomen that they used to insert the tools, camera, light and gas. Two of the holes are about ½ inch long. The other three are about 1 inch long and heavily bruised. These were the areas that hurt the most when trying to stand.
I was given broth for breakfast, cream of chicken soup for lunch and cream of broccoli soup for dinner. I had absolutely no appetite, but I was able to eat about ½ cup of everything. The food was not too difficult to eat, but drinking water was a completely different story. Every time I drank water, whether it was cold, room temperature, or hot, I would experience pain just at the end of the esophagus and began burping water and then minutes later that would progress to hiccups. Hiccups hurt! That is all I have to say about that.
Dr. Hagen decided to keep me in for an extra day, until I could drink water without ill effects.
My friend Shelna came for a visit. Shelna is one of my closest friends. I have known her for over 10 years now. She has a great sense of humor and loves teasing me about my foibles. We have a lot of common interests; knitting, gardening, and cooking to name a few. We really work on having an honest and supporting relationship.
Shelna brought me a few gifts and then she too, took me on walks.
At around 8:30pm everybody left for home.
Another patient joined me in my room late in the evening, around 7:30 pm. She had had the same procedure done four weeks prior. However, she had developed a stricture at the bottom of her pouch and anything she ate or drank would cause her to vomit. When the doctors tried to widen the stricture, the pouch tore and she had to be operated on a second time. She was saddened by what was happening, but she, her sister and her husband were able to maintain a good attitude about it.
Thursday, June 21
In the early hours of the morning, my roommate began crying. I couldn’t blame her; in fact I was surprised that she had held out so long. She was in a tremendous amount of pain and knowing what she was going through, I would have been crying hours ago.
I am not one to sit with a “wait and see” attitude. So I got myself out of bed and told her I was keeping her company. That I would talk about my family to help her keep her mind off things. Now I don’t consider myself to be any kind of story teller. Shelna is much better at it then me, but I blathered on about my siblings, my parents, and life in general. She too, began to chat and soon the pain medication began taking effect and the nurses bustled around her and I went back to bed.
At 10:30am her family arrived with a small teddy bear for me and a card from the gastric by-pass support group that she belonged to.
My day progressed normally. My family returned to visit, I walked and tried to eat and drink, and even tried to play a couple of games of crazy eights. By 7:30pm I was exhausted and told my family to go home. I was so tired. I just wanted to sleep. However this was not to be.
By 8:00pm my roommate’s blood pressure had dropped and her temperature was going up. The doctor came in and increased her fluids. An hour later her blood pressure was still very low and her pulse thready. The doctor then opened the incision and tried to see if there was any leaking of the pouch into the abdomen. She was repacked with gauze and more fluid was pumped into her. An hour later, she had still not responded. The doctor then decided to take her into the operating room to open her up and see what was going on. At 1:30am she was wheeled away, and I only heard later that she was out of surgery and in ICU.
Friday, June 22
By 7:00am I was a wreck. I had not slept a wink and was emotionally devastated by what had happened to my roommate. I could not calm myself down and I just wanted to go home. Visiting hours were not until 11:00am, but I called Chris and asked him to come to the hospital and just sit with me. When he arrived, I just broke down and cried. Fear, doubt and abject terror filled me. I couldn’t do anything else but cry.
After I calmed down, Chris and I talked, walked, and I tried to eat – but I could only focus on waiting (impatiently) for Dr. Hagen to come in to discharge me so I could get the heck out of there. The irony of the situation was that every other morning Dr. Hagen had made his rounds by 7:30am. Today this would not be the case. Since he had been called in early in the morning to tend to my roommate’s problems, he would not return until 12:30pm. Finally he did give the go-ahead for me to be discharged, and then everybody who I had been waiting to talk to showed up at once. The Nutritionist arrived, as did the nurse who was to check my blood sugar, as did the nurse who was to check my vitals, as did my lunch. It took me another hour to get out of the hospital and I was ever so happy to leave.
I was to make an appointment to see Dr. Hagen two weeks later in his office. The Nutritionist was going to call me in two weeks to discuss moving my diet to pureed foods and my blood sugar was within normal ranges.
The drive home was hell. Take notice, if you every have this procedure done, ½ hour before you leave the hospital have the nurse give you painkillers for the ride home. There is just no way to get home without extreme pain if you don’t take something. (Oh, and a special tip of the hat to the city of Toronto for their extremely bumpy roads).
Once home, I took a bath and slept for an hour.
My parents were busy in the kitchen cooking all the food (soups) I would need for the next two weeks. It was a relief to know that I would not have to worry about it. The rest of the evening was spent chatting and discussing the best procedure to pound my medication into powders.
Saturday, June 23
I took my parents to see the community garden that Shelna and I work at. We didn’t do any work; I really just wanted to show off how big my garlic had grown. We returned home by 11:00am and my parents left immediately. Chris and I napped.
The day went well. I was in little pain and felt fine.
We had been invited to a party that evening but I was not in any shape to handle the ride or the late hour, so I gave Chris the cell phone and told him to go. He left at 5:00pm.
I watched my recorded episodes of Coronation Street and around 9:00pm I went upstairs to check my email. At 9:30pm I was overcome with chills and the shakes. I decide to go to bed and hoped that everything would calm down. By 9:45pm I was not any better and decide to call Chris and ask him to come home. He said no problem; he would be home in 45 minutes. About 10 minutes later I heard somebody in the house. I knew that it couldn’t be Chris and to my surprise, my next door neighbor Anneke shows up! Chris, realizing that it would take him a while to get home, had called our neighbors, Anneke and Neil, who are very good friends of ours, and had Anneke come over to check on me until he arrived home.
Once Anneke left, Chris ground up my painkiller medication and I took it with applesauce. I then started feeling too hot, so we began tracking my temperature. I had been given instructions that if my temperature went to 100° F I was to go to the emergency room at Humber River Hospital. My temperature fluctuated between 98°F and 99.7°F over the next few hours and when it finally dropped back around normal at 4:00am Chris went to bed in the spare room and I slept through the night.
