The Road to Surgery and the Surgery

Okay so once you have completed seeing the dietitian, the social worker, the surgeon, going to the class, and seeing the internist, and your given the all clear for surgery.

You will then be given a fasting start date, It will depend on how obese you are, how fatty your liver is and other factors as well. But once your given the fasting date. You will then go to the surgeons office and buy what is called Opti-Fast. It is a meal replacement drink that you take 4 times a day. While on this drink you can't eat anything at all, well the odd piece of lettuce or celery. Now I will admit that I did cheat a few times and had a piece of bread or a bit of my husbands dinner, but I didn't do it every day and I was on the fast for 3 full weeks. Your also not allowed to drink coffee, juice, alcohol. You really are only allowed water, they say if your desperate for something different you can have a glass of tea but only one and again not every day.

Now one of the things I will say about the opti-fast is make sure you drink a shit load of water while your doing the fast because if not you will get constipated and my word it will hurt big big big time. I know this from experience. It is because without the water to keep your system in check your body can't expel what little fiber you have from the drinks. I know most likely more you really could do without but I am just telling you it really is what happened to me and so if I can prevent someone else feeling my pain I will.

The three weeks before my surgery while I was on the fast was the most exciting time for me and it really showed me that I could do this  I could succeed and I would succeed.

The night before the surgery I was so tired but at the same time super excited because something I dreamed of was finally here and I was finally achieving. I was also scared because once they get inside if the fast hasn't shrunk your liver enough they will just close you up and you have to start all over with the fasting part to shrink your liver enough to do the surgery. I was afraid that was what would happen as 4 years prior to the surgery I had been told my liver was 5 times the normal healthy size. I prayed that they would get me in the operating room and get inside and find my liver shrunk enough to preform the surgery.

The surgery day, depending on what time your surgery is scheduled for. You have to be at the hospital 2.5 hours before the surgery. So for me since my surgery was at 8:30am I had to be at the hospital at 6am. Plus you are not allowed to drink or eat anything after midnight. They will let you take any medications your on but only with a sip of water no more, and while they are admitting you to the hospital they give you a pain reliever with a sip of water no more. Your then shot with heparin which is to thin the blood out for surgery. Your then asked to change into a gown and booties and a hair cap and nothing else, and you wait till your name is called and your taken downstairs to the surgery wing. Where you wait some more and you talk to the nurse who will be with you the whole time your in the operating room and then the anesthesiologist who will be putting you under, then you talk to the surgeon who is preforming the surgery and then your name is called and your taken into the operating room and asked to step up and lay down on the table. where they strip you naked, put an iv in and start the process of knocking you out for the surgery.

Now my husband and I were told that the surgery would be 2 hours at the most and the doctor would go find my husband in the waiting room and tell him how everything went. Now my surgery ended up taking almost 5 hours because the staples they use when making the new pouch (as your new stomach will be forever called by the medical field) didn't want to stay in so they had to go back in and suture over all the staples to ensure a tight non leaking line. But they never went to say to my husband that there were complications. So he sat in the waiting room not knowing what the heck was going on. Once the surgery was complete I was wheeled to recovery where you stay for 4 hours. Your put on oxygen and your not allowed anything to drink but if you ask for ice chips they will give you as many ice chips as you want, but not till after like the first hour so for that first hour your mouth is going to taste and feel horrible from the anesthetic. You will most likely throw up too and yes it is scary but they expect it. Now it may even be during this time in recovery that your incision sites start to bleed. I had one that didn't start bleeding till 30 minutes before they were getting ready to move me to my semi private room. But once it bleed it bleed. Now I have always been a bleeder and it was one of my fears that I would hemorrhage as it seemed I always did after surgeries. They got me cleaned up and a new gown put on and sent to my room. where by the time i got there I had to have another new gown and clean blankets because it had bleed through yet again.

Next post I will talk about the days in the hospital and what to expect once your in your room and your out of surgery and what the coming days will be like. Eventually this blog will follow my daily or weekly living with gastric bypass. As of today I am 50lbs less then I was when I started the fasting on November 18th 2009 and today is January 9th 2010. I know this will work I just have to be dedicated and committed.