How long should I stick around?

I would stay 2 weeks if you can.  Most complications show up in that time frame. I traveled to Brazil and Dr. M required 2 weeks, a lot of the docs want you for 10 -14 days.

Good luck,
Michele

Since I am rather acquainted with your local hospital, through family members who've had issues there, my advice is to stay down there till your postop checkup.

And if you run into trouble that is not an ER-type emergency, go to Bozeman.

I love having a vet DSer who is a local for points of view :) I am so lucky to have you giving me advice EN because you know exactly what I am talking about when it comes to certain hospitals, clinic, providers, etc. I really am banking on not having complications because I really don't wanna go to St. Patrick's. I just heard a horror story on them from a co-worker of what happened to one of his family members. I just couldn't believe my ears. Granted not all the doctors there are that way but I honestly don't know who I will get. I plan on heading to Missoula if I feel anything comes up that is not normal yet not an ER case. I have my PCP, endo, NUT, and pulminologist all there. They also have a bariatric program, granted it only offers RNY and lap-band but they are skilled surgeons. Sometimes I feel like you are the only DSer from Montana lol I doubt that, I bet there is some more out there but for right now I only know of you lol So watch out for future questions hehe

Oh that's right, I keep forgetting you're already nicely connected at Missoula. Yeah, the inlaws have some rather, um, impressive stories to tell about St. Pat's. My sis had her hystie there, too, and had one hell of a postop infection, in the dead of winter. Of course the Christmas (or was in New Year's?) blizzard struck, and there she was, snowed in on the ranch with a raging infection.

I don't recall where they managed to connect with the surgeon to get the damned thing opened and cleaned out, but I do not believe that was an OR visit. Then there was the ordeal of trying to get home care in, which kinda didn't work. BIL had to do his share of open wound packing. It was some seriously scary ****

There's at least one other DSer in MT, but trust me, you don't want any contact with her. Remind me to tell you that story sometime. There are some very nice RNYers, including one who's near you :-).

I don't know what it is about that place but they can't seem to get their **** together. I know of a teenage girl that just went there a few weeks ago who was throwing up badly for 24 hours straight. They sent her away saying she only had the flu. They came back the next day she is still throwing up. The hospital did no additional testing and just assumed she had to have her gall bladder out. A teenage girl with no weight problems or sever weight loss or family history of gallbladder.... I could have told them to do more searching just knowing that!

So they open her up and take out her gall bladder. During this time they don't even realize all the fluids they are pumping in her are not coming out. So she gets out of surgery and she is doing absolutly horrible. So they open her back up for exploritory surgery and find she has a twisted gut. Well its been days like that so now its gang green and they just start cutting it all out. They didn't do very good 'exploring' because they closed her up and she still had twisted insides. By this time her parents decided to life flight her to SLC to one of the best children's hospitals. Thank God they fixed all the things wrong with her and fixed everything that was screwed up by the surgeons here. it was touch and go, she is very lucky to be alive.

So if they can't get that right... i don't want them anywhere near my insides. Next time you in Montana give me a jingle, hopefully I will be switched by then:)

As someone who travled for my DS, I say stick around until your 2 week check up is possible. I did NOT do this. I stayed for a week per my surgeon. I had surgery on Wednesday, went home the following Wednesday. Thursday I ended up in a local hospital with an inflamed bowel. Luckly I had an excellent surgeon who was familiar with the DS who worked closely with my surgeon via phone. He did say that if it became surgical I'd be on the first med flight back to Indy. I spent another week in our local hospital.

I just say better safe then sorry.  Good luck on your surgery!

Ruby

Ruby, thank you for sharing. I need to hear stuff like this so I am informed of why this 2 weeks post op is so important. Also so can educate my husband in what could be happening. I am glad you had a capable surgeon who helped you when complications arose. That is just scary because it could have been a lot worse. Thank you again for sharing that.

Are you flying back to Helena or driving?  If driving I would recommend staying at least another week after you are discharged from the hospital.  I base this on my 3 hour drive home after I was released, it was miserable and I had to stop at least 2 or 3 times for various reasons.   

-shelly

Thank you all for your reply's you really got me thinking of stay time and better way of transportation. I am going to have to really brainstorm when I get my date set and all the figures. Lots and lots of planning right in the middle of the holidays.