SO I had the band removed on Friday the 13th
(spooky). I had a call time of 7:30AM to
be at the hospital. I got there at 7AM
and they wouldn’t take me for all the pre-op stuff until my actual appointment
time even though I was literally the only person there.
Once I got called into the back rooms of same day admitting
the waiting started. I did the usual
stuff like a urine sample, blood pressure etc but then just sat for a longggg
time. At around 8:30AM my surgeon came
in and said he hadn’t even started his first case of the day but was on his way
in. Ugh!
The waiting room they had me in was nice though and they gave me the
remote for the tv in the room. I just
sat with my mom talking through my nervousness.
I’m not sure why, but I was nervous.
I suppose it’s normal for anyone to be nervous before going in to
surgery.
Around 10AM, the anesthesiologist came in to do the run
down. He was nice enough but kept asking
me why I was having the band removed. At first I
laughed and was like “Uhm, because it obviously doesn’t work?” I received a
blank stare on that one so I elaborated a bit and he was just very stoic and
kept asking questions. I just wanted him
to get on with it. He also kept pointing
out things about my blood pressure and why I really need to lose weight. Yeah, no shit Sherlock! Thanks, Captain Obvious. After that, it was time to go back to the OR. I said bye to my mother and took the long walk
back to the OR which was small and cold.
I’m a hard stick which means I have bad veins. It took the doctor FOUR times to get me with
the needle for anesthesia and once they got it, I was OUT. They didn’t even tell me they were starting
the medication but all of a sudden things got a little woozy. For some strange reason, I think I had a
dream while I was under. When I came to,
I was extremely disoriented and WHAM the nausea hit. I’ve never had a bad experience with
anesthesia but this time was bad.
I also know that the tube in my throat causes discomfort but my throat
was on FIRE. The nausea plus the
fire in my throat plus the disorientation immediately made me cry. I’m a big baby when it comes to pain and
illness so crying was my immediate response.
The anesthesiologist was actually very nice at this point. He held my hand and told me it would be ok,
that he knew it was an emotional event.
Once in recovery, I also noticed my vision wasn’t clearing. Since I was a fire breathing dragon at this
point, I couldn’t express this to my nurse very clearly. I told her “blurry” and she immediately knew
what I was saying. Apparently they
rubbed Vaseline on my eyes to keep them moist (never had that done before) and
it would take a little while for them to clear. Well isn’t that just fun! The nausea or grogginess didn’t go away for a
while until they finally gave me a shot for it. I came out of surgery at a little after
11:30AM and stayed in recovery until 3:30PM. After that, they moved me upstairs to the
women’s ward in a smaller recovery room with 3 other women. Once up there, they got me out of bed and
moving around. I jumped through all the
hoops to get the hell out of there and go home and by 5PM I was on my way.
It was a long day and a hard recovery from anesthesia but I’m
doing better and better every day. I
forgot how hard/annoying it is to have wounds on the stomach but I’m becoming more
and more mobile. After surgery, I saw my
surgeon on the way out of the hospital. He said it took a little extra effort to get
my port out so I’ll be more sore in that area. I expected that anyway. He also mentioned the dreaded “scar tissue”
and said we have to talk more when I follow up with him. That follow up appointment is set for Monday
so we’ll just have to see how it goes.
Overall, I’m glad to finally have the band out and start the
process to get my sleeve. A friend asked
me if I’m having second thoughts after the bad anesthesia experience or the
soreness in my stomach area but I’m not. It will be a long road of recovery but I’m
ready and prepared to do it and do it right this time!
-D
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