Vanishing Velez

Highest Weight: 263 lbs
Weight at Surgery: 253 lbs.

Monday, June 24th was my surgery day. It is now a few days later, so I’m going to start from the beginning.

Day Before Surgery

The day before surgery was Sunday, June 23rd. Per Doctors orders, liquids only for the whole day. This wasn’t all that bad. I had a lot of water, I had soup, zero calorie juice, etc. and didn’t feel miserably hungry. It definitely wasn’t fun though.

Also on Sunday, I packed my hospital bag. It was pretty unnecessary though, because I didn’t use 98% of it.

Day of Surgery

Per doctors instructions, npo after midnight. The tiny exception was taking my stomach acid pill with the tiniest sip of water. Albert ate breakfast ahead of time, and I stayed in bed for as long as I could. Then, I got dressed in loose clothes, and put on my compression socks.

Around 9:10, we left for the hospital. It’s a 35-40 min drive, and I needed to be there at 10:15. We ended up arriving around 10am. After checking in, I was given a hospital bracelet, and asked some questions about my surgery. Not even five minutes later, I got called into the prep area.

Pre-Op

Once I got into my room in pre-op, I was given a number of things. A paper/plastic gown, a cap, a packet of antibacterial wipes, and a cup.

I was told that I needed to give a urine sample even though I was on my period. So I did that, undressed, and used the antibacterial wipes to wipe down my entire body-except my legs (socks were on), privates and my face. Then I put the silly purple gown which was annoyingly hot because it was lined with plastic.

Once that was all done, I was given a few medications for nausea, vertigo, blood thinner. I spoke with the anesthesiologist who told me that I had to take out my nose ring even if it was plastic (annoying but understandable-he said it could still get ripped out), I spoke with Dr. Shetty, and spoke with one of the nurses (her nane was Hannah and she was lovely). After that, I just waited.

And waited

And waited

Dr. Shetty was running quite a bit behind in terms of actually doing the surgeries. My surgery time was scheduled initially for 10:45, then it got pushed back to 11:45, then 12:00, then 12:15. Eventually I stopped asking. I ended up being brought back to the operating room around 12:30 by the anesthesiologist. The operating room was small. There was a DaVinci robot in the corner that was going to be being used for my surgery. I didn’t realize that it was going to be robotic, so that was pretty cool.

The nurse helped me onto the table in the OR. I put both of my arms out like a T onto boards, they put a mask on my face that was just “oxygen”, and then I woke up in recovery. Normally I feel anesthesia going through my IV, but I didn’t here, so I think that the medication was through the mask. But who knows. Regardless, I remember nothing.

This was probably a good thing though because I was very nervous at that point. But I digress…

Recovery

When I woke up in the recovery ward, I had absolutely 0 concept of what time it was. I could not see a clock, and it was difficult to turn around. I’m guessing it was approximately 2:00pm when I woke up. I remember asking if it was over, but was still pretty out of it. I was definitely groggy, but feeling good. I didn’t have much pain, my throat didn’t hurt, but I was alone, and that was frustrating.

Time seemed to pass very quickly, especially once I was able to drink some water and start walking. I walked lap upon lap of that ward, all while waiting for a room on the floor to open up. It was a whole ordeal. The person in the room they assigned me needed to be discharged, but the discharge nurse was new and didn’t know something, which pushed it back, and then they had to wait for their ride, and I basically was in recovery from 2pm-ish to 10pm-ish.

While I was waiting, I put my nose ring back in, and then at maybe 6:30, Albert called for the second time to check on me, since they wouldn’t let him into the ward. He had called earlier for an update and they said i was sleeping. That was not true because i remember them telling me that he had called…anyways…I was able to convince the nurses to let him come visit me, because he had been there ALL DAY and had my things and needed to go home.

Albert came back and told me about all of the crap that he was dealing with when I was in surgery. It was obviously very frustrating. And I get it. There is no reason why he shouldn’t have been able to be with me in recovery. But he gave me my backpack, gave me a kiss and went to get the baby.

From there, it was just a lot of waiting. But eventually I was brought into a room.

Overnight

I am slightly frustrated that the systems at St. Mary’s doesn’t seem to talk to each other. For example, in recovery I was allowed to drink water and walk independently. Then when I got up to my room I was told I was not allowed to drink anything and needed assistance to walk. That was resolved quickly though.

They also didn’t do a great job of following up. I think there weren’t enough nurses to go around so I don’t fault them. But when I got back into bed after my walk someone was supposed to come and hook my legs back up. That didn’t happen. Eventually they showed me how to do it all myself so I was able to connect and disconnect myself as needed.

The hardest part was getting from lying down to sitting to standing. You don’t realize how much you use your core until you have surgery on it. But once I figured it out I was fine. I tried to sleep but kept getting woken up so It was not restful. So instead, I walked laps and drank water.

In the morning I needed to see Dr. Shetty before I was released. They also did bloodwork and it turns out my potassium was low, so I needed that too. At this point, it was a waiting game. I did laps, watched TV, drank water. At around noon I thought I was going to be almost done. Dr. Shetty said everything looked good, Hannah came in and checked on me. But I needed 2 more bags of potassium. So I ended up getting discharged at approximately 4:45pm.

Home

Going home was uncomfortable. Potholes and bumps hurt. I had to keep the seatbelt low. I should have brought a pillow.

Stopping at CVS, getting out of the car was painful because I hadn’t figured out our yet. Then, my insurance did not want to cover my Tylenol-annoying but whatever. Finally got home, had some baby cuddles, and was very tired so I went to sleep.

So that’s it for surgery. I’ll be putting another post together about the first week, which should go live maybe Sunday?

I have a follow up appointment on Monday, but that will be a different post entirely.