The big day

I'm actually writing this on Saturday the 20th, 3 days after it happened, but it's the first time I've felt the physical ability to sit in front of my computer and do it. I wrote down some notes a couple of days ago so I wouldn't forget and I'll try to build from there. It's pretty jumbled and probably the least coherent thing I've ever written, but I'll try to clean it up over the next couple of days. Just don't have the energy to spend any more time trying to sort through it now.

I'll preface by saying that the operation itself was a breeze. I cannot believe how comfortable I was from my arrival at the hospital all the way through the surgery. I got to meet a few people on the anesthesia team including this adorable cute little woman from Taiwan named Katharine Douglas. She said there was a long story to her name and that she always gets questioned at the dentist if she *is* actually Katharine Douglas - well - because she speaks with a pretty thick Taiwanese accent and though her English is respectable and understandable, she is most definitely not a native speaker. Anyway, I don't have much to report in the beginning except that I felt very well taken care of and confident that my surgery would be fine. Which it turned out to be. Oh, but if only I had known how the day would go downhill from there!

When I came back to the world of the living I was in a recovery room with a nurse (?) named Kathy or Katherine. I thought it was funny that I'd already been put with 2 Katherines that day (and still another would be present later.) But I was drunk on anesthesia and don't really remember anything at all. The wheeled me up to my room - 417 - where Steve was waiting and I guess I was there for a bit as I awoke from anesthesia. I really don't remember anything about the beginning except that was around 10:50 am. They were telling me that at 12 noon I would go down to radiology to drink some crap under an xray so they could make sure the band was positioned correctly. They also mentioned sometime in here that I'd be given anti-nausea drugs so that I didn't puke when I drank aforementioned crap and mess up the band.

I remembered a few things from my preop teaching class. 1. We'd be getting a patient controlled analgesic (one of those things you click for more pain killer every few minutes.) 2. Don't get up to use the bathroom for the fist time without a nurse to help you. I learned very soon that I would not be getting a PCA and that no nurse really cared to help me up to the bathroom either.

I waited for a long time, it was past noon, when I was told I had an appointment to be in radiology, but still no nursing staff. About 12:30, I had to pee so badly that I pressed the nurse button and told them I needed help getting out of bed to use the bathroom. They said they'd be right over and 30 minutes later, still nothing. I called again and someone did come pretty soon, so I guess I got lucky there because I've since heard from others who had surgery at this hospital that they went hours without getting someone after pressing the call button. So I was using the bathroom and then walking around the floor by 1pm. I definitely felt good and thought I was off to a great start in my recovery.

Around this point, a nurse informed me that my appointment with radiology had been moved to 1:30 and I couldn't be given anything to drink before that. My biggest problem soon because a feeling of thirst like nothing imaginable. I really thought I might be dying of dehydration if it weren't for the fluids being pumped into me. But try telling my mouth and throat that. I was so dry I started lisping. My mom called and I talked to her on the phone in my new-found "gay lisp." I know it sounds horrible but I can't even imitate it, and it was pretty funny. Except for how uncomfortable it really is to be so dry you can barely speak...and then breathing became a problem. I never would have imagined that without saliva I'd have trouble breathing but it's true. It was as if any air I breathed in through my nose or mouth got caught on the prickly, dry surface of my tongue, cheeks, or nostrils. Without the lubrication of saliva, air crackled instead of going down smoothly. I've never heard anyone else speak of this so I don't know if it's just me, but that's what it was like. They kept giving me these ridiculous little q-tips dipped in something that supposedly would help with thirst if I swabbed them around my mouth. Nothing...not even close to helping.

Finally, it was time to go to radiology to drink the magnesium crap, or maybe it was barium or something. Whatever it was, radioactive material, blech! And oh yeah, wasn't I supposed to get some anti-nausea drugs beforehand? Turns out, there was no "order" for them - a phrase I should have gotten used to hearing because it was going to be the excuse for all the trouble that day. No painkiller? Sorry, no order for it. Can't drink anything? Sorry, no order for it.

So, I'm being taken down to radiology but knowing I'd get no anti-nausea stuff put me into a panic cause I have a very sensitive gag reflex when it comes to things of odd taste and texture so I knew I would puke. I thought having anti-nausea meds in me would at least minimize my ability to puke up my guts and hurt the band. I hate puking anyway, I mean who likes it? But I mean, I really hate it. Like if I had to choose between breaking a bone and having a stomach flu, I'd take breaking a bone. I'd do nearly anything to not vomit if I ever had the choice. But now with the band, I'm even more paranoid that if I do puke I'm going to cause damage to my stomach, or my pouch, or the band, and it's going to slip and I'm going to have to have more surgery. So I was really worried about what was going to happen to me when I drank this crap.

Somehow, I made it through the test without puking, no thanks to the radiology people. They were very mean, callous, and uncaring. I wanted to curse them out. They told me that I didn't have to do the test without nausea meds but that if I didn't do it then (2pm) they couldn't promise I'd be able to before 5 and then it would be the next day before I could drink anything. This was too much for me to imagine. I guess my fear of not getting anything to drink overcame my fear of puking, so I did the test. Luckily, I completed it, but then the taste left in my mouth was so bad that I was begging the radiology people for a sip of water. Finally they agreed I could have a little water if I'd just rinse my mouth out and spit. Which I did but gagged a couple of times and spat out this nasty mix of water, spit, mucous, and barium (?) It was really nasty and I hope it didn't actually do anything to hurt the band.

Things started getting better once I was allowed to drink but that was actually much later. Around 3:00 I got notice that I was allowed to drink and asked if I wanted hot tea. Of course I did...but it was after 4:00 before any was brought. Finally I got it and also told I could be given pain meds, which is a whole other story. Didn't end up getting those till much later because they wanted to give me the wrong thing and I objected and then she looked at my chart and realized I really should have been getting something else and had to go get an order for it cause the order had been written incorrectly.

What did I learn? Who the hell was writing these orders that didn't align with what I was actually supposed to be getting? Preop class needs to get things straight with the hospital and not tell us things like we'll be getting a PCA for pain if we're not (I was told once on the floor that no lap band patients got it even though we were all told that.)

I suppose the most important part - the surgery - did come out well. So in the end if I am successful, I will forget about this horrible day at the hospital. But now, less than 12 hours out from all the horror, it's still pretty strong in my mind.