I have a teeny little sleeve

Hey, y'all! It's a new day and a new me! I was sleeved on Wednesday and aside from some bumps along the road, it's gone really well so far!

Here's what I remember. My surgery was scheduled for 2 p.m. and we were told to be there by 10 a.m. We arrived at 9:40 p.m. (traffic was light, for a change!) We didn't have to wait too long until we were brought back to the room. I got changed out of all of my clothes (except I was given permission to wear some of those oh-so-stylin' fancy granny panties because my TOM had of course decided to make an appearance. *eyeroll* They had given me a typical hospital gown, along with littleAnswered about a billion questions. Got my IV line in (and was very pleased that they used lidocaine to numb the area so it didn't hurt at all. The surgeon popped in at about 11 to say he was ahead of schedule and we would probably get into surgery earlier than scheduled. Yay! I had had NOTHING AT ALL by mouth after I had a drink of water at 11 p.m. Tuesday night, so this was great news.

So, we waited. I kept applying chapstick becase my lips were so dry. And we waited some more. Finally, at about 3 p.m., the nurse came in to start my IV antibiotics and said it would be about an hour until they were ready for me! Argh! My husband and I made the decision that he would leave immediately and go pick up our daughter at school, and hopefully get back not long after I went into surgery. I have to tell you, it sucked to have my support person leave, but we had no choice. My daugher had to be picked up, and no one else could do it on such short notice. So, I spent the last hour waiting by myself, driven to distraction by thirst.

Finally, they came to get me. I was wheeled into the operating room and asked to scoot over onto the actual operating table. And...the next thing I remember is waking up to a nurse's voice.

"Mrs. B., wake up; your surgery is over and it went well." I cracked open my eyes and looked around. And that's when the nausea started.

I'm not talking about "hmm, I wonder if I should take some Tums" kind of nausea. I'm talking about the "oh, God, I'm going to puke and I can't puke because I'll pull out my staples, but I can't stop it, so I'm going to puke!" kind of nausea. At that point, I could barely speak. The nurse kept asking if I was in pain, which I was, but the most pressing need at the moment was to NOT PUKE. I guess I finally was able to articulate that I needed something for nausea. They injected something into my IV line, and I felt a SLIGHT relief that lasted about 15 seconds, after which I started begging for something else.

Meanwhile, they had had to turn off my pacemaker/defibrillator during the surgery, and I could hear the heart monitor alarming almost constantly. I could hear them talking quietly to each other about needing to get someone down here to get my pacemaker/defib started up again. They gave me something else for the nausea, which worked about as well as the first one. By this time, I was dry-heaving almost constantly, and OMG it did hurt. "We're going to give you something for the nausea," someone said, and the next thing I remember, I was waking up in recovery AGAIN. There was much less nausea at this point, though it didn't completely stop until Friday night.

Finally, they started to take me to my room. Hubby was there waiting for me. I found out that it was after 9:30 p.m. -- I had been in Recovery for THREE HOURS. Hubby had to leave almost immediately to get home before the kids' bedtime. I was given sweet, blessed pain killers and more anti-nausea medication.

I slept about three hours and then insisted the floor nurses get me up and let me walk. Yow, the gas pains were awful! One would think there might be a way to expand the abdoment without needing to blow us up like a balloon and wait for the gas to dissipate by now! And I asked for something to drink. A lot. "Nothing by mouth for the first 18 hours" is my surgeon's policy. I asked to be able to brush my teeth. Nope. I asked if I could just gargle and spit. No. Ice chips? Nope. I just had to tough it out.

Thursday at mid-day, I finally got to drink some watered-down Crystal Light and apple juice...and it kinda hurt. I had my leak/swallow test. Aside from another bout with nausea, it was okay. Everything looked great!

Back to the room, and back to trying to drink something. The nurse brought me some sort of tomato cream soup, which irritated my throat and burned in my stomach. Vanilla milk went down a bit easier.

Friday was the day I was supposed to go home, but I still wasn't able to get down four ounces every hour, so they kept me another day. Frankly, I'm glad they did. I had the opportunity to walk more, practice sipping and  be sure I could tolerate enough liquids to keep from becoming dehydrated.

Okay, getting tired now, so to make a long story a little bit shorter, I got to come home today. Yay!

I hope y'all are all well! :)