After the surgery...

When they woke me up after surgery, but before I was brought to my room, I was thirsty and asked for something to drink. A nurse brought me a spoon of ice and it was wonderful. I immediately fell back to sleep and when I next woke up was in my room. I asked for more ice but the new nurse said it could hurt my pouch and brought me water and some medicine cups.

They came in periodically to check on me, gave me the thing I had to breathe into, took my blood pressure, did blood work, checked my temp, my oxygen levels, and brought me meds. My oxygen levels were low so they put me on oxygen for 2 days, but I have asthma and had a cold for 2 weeks before surgery that was triggering my asthma.

The surgeon came in to talk to me, told me how it went, checked my incisions. That's it. They didn't monitor or even ask if I was drinking my water, although they did measure my urine output.

They check you for leaks in the OR before you are closed up and when you are still sleeping like a lamb! Just after surgery you stay in recovery until they feel you are stable and then they take you to your hospital room. Once you are in your room try sitting on the edge of your bed as soon as you can and with the help of your nurse and from then on you will want to walk as much as possible to get rid of the dreaded balloon gas! You will get some juice and/or bouillion but mostly you will get a little wee plastic cup and you want to be able to drink that in an hour and keep increasing the amount of cups each hour. If you are like me at some point you gag and cough and pee your pants(IV fluids what a good timelol) and then you go home with prescriptions for some meds which if you are lucky you will need for only a couple of days! good luck!