Being put under

Gwen I copy pasted this, rockstar of an answer!

Yay! Glad it was useful.

I know that surgery can be SUPER intimidating. Even now, having had 10 anesthesia experiences of my own, it can still be a bit nerve-wracking. I try to keep as busy as possible pre-op to distract myself. And then I try to prepare as much as possible. In a way, surgery itself is the easy part. The hard part is recovery. (At least for some surgeries. Some surgeries have been a cakewalk in terms of recovery!)

It was such a thorough answer and, I'm sure, exactly what she was looking for. I've had many surgeries and your "novel" took me right back to all of them. Thank you for being such a good advocate for everyone who is a member of OH.

ALL I CAN SAY IS THANK YOU! Yes the caps are on for I was excited to read this and all the info! Thank you ! As a pre-op I appreciate this so much!

Haha! You're very welcome. Clearly I'm working on the "stay distracted" before surgery thing myself today. Good time for long answers to questions like this. I'm glad it was helpful. Surgery isn't an every day experience so it's good for all of us to have a place to ask about it.

I can't add much to Gwen's excellent post.

Mine have all been uneventful. I've had abdominal surgery about 5 times. The last time I had surgery was my WLS, and they had to move the IV while I was under.

Here's a funny story: I woke up and my whole arm had a giant black bruise...apparently they decided to move my IV whilst I was under. I bruise horribly due to autoimmune issues, so he result was this. I have notoriously awful veins that are apparently "wiggly" and move when a needle is getting inserted. To be fair, if I saw a giant needle coming at me, I'd freaking move out of the way, too. :P

No serious damage, but apparently when anesthesia wears off I get absurd. I kept waving my arm around in recovery and making zombie noises at nurses due to my arm bruises, saying I was a White Walker. The bariatric surgeon found this hilarious. Of course I remember nothing!

A White Walker, LOL!

I too was terrified of going under. It was so bad that I literally wrote goodbye letters to my family members, saved them in my email inbox, and put the password to my account on the fridge for my husband to use "just in case."

My experience was a bit scary, though fortunately everything came out OK. I was on a CPAP for over a year prior to surgery, and my surgeon told me to bring my mask and machine to the hospital on surgery day. I brought it as asked, handed it to a nurse before going back to the OR, and didn't think twice about it.

Apparently, once they hit the "go button" to knock me out, I stopped breathing and they couldn't get my lungs going. It took them almost an hour to get my breathing back to normal, and they also had a hard time waking me up after because of respiratory issues. In recovery, I had to wear a nose-piece to get oxygen and the respiratory therapist was concerned because my oxygen was so low.

Turns out, NOBODY ever bothered to hook me up to the CPAP, either in the OR or in recovery. Small wonder I wasn't breathing! I was too far out of it to figure it out, it never occurred to my husband to ask about it, and the nurses didn't have a clue.

So if you use a CPAP, make absolutely sure they have it on you before going under.

I'm on CPAP and appreciate your advice. Thank you!

It's nerve wracking, but literally they put you under and then you're waking up in recovery all loopy. I always ask for something to relax me as soon as I'm on the pre surgical unit. That will take the edge off while they're working on you.