The days leading up to my surgery were very stressful. My pre op was Friday 3/8. I thought I had done all the labs and gotten everything I needed for this appointment, but I was informed that I was missing a medical letter of clearance from my doctor. I asked why I was not made aware I needed one. The assistant then proceeded to talk to me like I was an idiot and kept explaining that I had to have one. I kept telling her that I had no problem understanding that the letter was needed, I just didn't understand why I was not made aware of the necessity sooner. She then proceeded to pull out the list showing everything I needed, and it was on there. Only do to a grammatical error on the letter I was lead to believe I didn't need it. I tried to call my doctor, who I haven't been able to get an appointment with because of the clinic being short staffed, to see if she could just fax over a letter. I was told I had to have an appointment to be seen in order to get said letter, and I could leave a message. Being as it was 4:30 on a Friday I had little hope of being called back promptly. So here it is four days before my surgery and once again the office staff has dropped the ball. I went ahead with the pre op appointment hoping that I would be able to get the letter from my doctor on Monday and not have to postpone my surgery. Next thing that we were waiting for was them to submit my info to the insurance to have the surgery approved. It was a long stressful weekend not being able to do anything to move the surgery forward and not knowing if it would have to be postponed. On Monday morning I decided to get up early and go to the hospital before going to work. I figured that I might be able to make something happen in the letter department by being there in the flesh rather then leaving messages that would probably be ignored. I was able to get an appointment for the next day. Score one for me! My husband also took some action on Monday calling our insurance to explain the situation to them and see if we could have the approval process expedited a little. Only to find out that the surgeons office staff STILL had not sent in the info!!! He then called the surgeons office told the our insurance had said to mark it urgent and get it sent in and they would expedite it. So far so good feeling confident that this surgery is actually going to happen. Tuesday I get a call from the surgeons office saying that my original referral was wrong and they were not even allowed to submit my info until it had been fixed. Once again a lot of frantic phone calls by my husband and I alleviated that situation. Then there was nothing to do but wait for the insurance to approve my surgery. We called them to check the progress and we were informed that it could actually take 3 to 5 days to get the surgery approved. Not what you want to hear the night before a surgery is scheduled. I didn't know what to do. Prepare for surgery like I was supposed to or live with the fact that I may have to postpone it? I decided to hope for the best and prepare, enema and all. I woke up the next day and immediately called the insurance company to find out if my surgery was approved or not. It wasn't. My stomach fell and I again had to decided head to the hospital and pray by some miracle that the surgery would still happen or just give up go to work and postpone it. My husband had already taken leave and so had I so we decided to just go to the hospital. At the hospital after sitting there for a little bit we were called back and told our insurance wasn't approved. We decided to wait a little longer. Called the doctors office to see if they had possibly called the insurance themselves. They told me they were still working on it. We waited another 45 mins and were called back again told that the insurance still hadn't approved. It was looking very bleak. We were asked if we wanted to postpone the surgery and I almost did, but my husband convinced me to call the insurance ourselves one more time. The surgery was APPROVED !!!! I was admitted and put into pre op room. As you can see I had so much stress leading up to my surgery that I really didn't have time to worry about the surgery itself.
The next thing I remember is waking up. Well trying to wake up. You know the groggy anesthesia cloud you have to fight to come out of, mine took 3 days to fully evaporate!! Anyways I woke up in recovery was there for a few hours, and then taken to my room. It is very weird to ride around a hospital half awake in a bed. I wasn't really in much pain, I think my first semi coherent thought was: "What just happened?". I wasn't sure that the surgery actually happened. Then nurses came in introducing themselves, giving me various medicines in my IV. I was asked lots of question to make sure that I hadn't become brain damaged. The person in the room next to me kept screaming for no discernible reason. After a few hours when I was able to keep my eyes open for more then 10 minuets, the nurse came in and took me for a walk. Walking after the surgery is very important. They do it laparoscopically, and to make sure they have room they fill your abdomen up with co2 gas. That's why you have to walk it breaks the gas down so that it can exit your body.
After my walk and asking if they could remove the catheter, I went back to sleep. I had a pretty uneventful hospital stay. I wanted to be able to update everyone and answer my phone messages I was just to groggy. I woke up briefly around 9 pm and was coherent enough to update my Facebook, and send a few messages. Then sleep claimed me again. I got up every few hours to walk, and complain about the catheter. The next day I really wasn't any better. I tried to stay awake it was a losing battle. They gave me some clear liquids to eat/ drink I couldn't stomach much. The nurses kept asking if I had passed gas yet, every time they saw me out walking. Apparently it's very important that you pass gas. I never did. I did when I got home so I guess crisis averted. I thought it was funny and had the thought that I should call the hospital and let them know since they were so curious about it! This post is long I am going to rush through the rest. I have had a good first week. No pain really, I am finally able to stay awake, I went back to work. Nothing really exciting to report other then the fact that I am on a liquid diet for the next 2 weeks, 3 weeks in total. It is driving me insane. It is hard not to eat when everyone around you is. Also food is literally everywhere. I drive down the street and pass like a million eateries. Watching television I see hundreds of food commercials, and even on the shows I watch people are eating. I can't get away from food and the only thing I am cleared to eat is sugar free jello. I can use baby applesauce to take pills. It sucks. However I have lost nearly 15 lbs in a week so hooray for that!!
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