Planned icu stay post-op question

I am scheduled to have surgery about 1 1/2 weeks from now. My clearance from my pulmonologist puts me at high risk and recommends ICU care post op due to a lot of risk associated with my breathing. What can I expect care wise in the icu?What are the visitor policies for icu? Will this effect the length of my stay? Are there any things I should prepare for being icu bound that are different? What all should I bring or not bring with me? Any other advice for post op would also be appreciated.

Thanks in advance for taking the time to respond.

I was a scheduled ICU admit as well. It was great. My nurse had 2 patients. I was on a monitor. I had a private room. My sister could stay in the room.

The next day I was moved to the floor and was discharged that afternoon.

Good luck to you.

You will need to ask some of these at your pre-op visit, either to the nursing staff or the Doctor. Ever hospital has different rules on visitors. I am sure you can find their policy on the hospital website.

Since this is a precautionary visit to ICU, unless you have complications, I am sure as Deb said, you will get lots of attention.

That's right. You may not get to have visitors. My sister was so annoying I sent her back to the hotel. She asked me one too many times "are you ok?"

HAHAHAHAHA. I thought I was the only one who did this.

I was in ICU not long ago after cancer surgery. They removed my kidney but accidentally cut open my spline.

Aside from being in the most amount of pain I have ever been in and getting pneumonia - it was great! I was in for 6 days and the nurses have a limited amount of patients so they were always there for me. I became more coherent around day 3 so they would hang out in my room at night and chat. (I normally work graveyard and sleep during the day)

The rooms are larger, have a large walk-in shower, and have a place for family to sleep. When I hit the button for a nurse they were there in seconds and were so caring.

The bad: they take your blood sugar regularly. I thought this was interesting at first and was curious what my blood sugar level was each time. That **** got old quick as my little fingers and toes were being poked constantly. I don't know how diabetics stand it!

They come in every 20 mins to take your blood pressure and O2 sats. You never get good sleep.

For my WLS I felt that my nurses were not as caring and even rude at times. It could be that I just got stuck with the B team but I took it personal for the type of surgery I had.

Best of luck to you and I hope you have great nurses on your stay.

You never wanna hear they accidentally hit your spine. Glad you made it through that.

I also find it funny patients expect to get any kind of rest the first night after surgery. If you were that well it would be outpatient.

ICU's have ventilators. Im assuming that's probably why your pulmonologist wants you there. Just in case.

Probably not. Doctor's love their patients in the ICU because of the close monitoring.

The ICU can keep her off the vent.

Oh I'm not saying she'll need it. It's just about minimizing risk.

I spent my first night in post-op because there wasn't a "telemetry bed" available. My surgery ended well into the PM. In hindsight I would have been better off resting in a regular room but in post op I pretty much shared a nurse with just 1 other guy (also a bariatric case) and I was fully monitored. Post op was my version of "ICU-lite" ... Doctors orders.

I freaked the nurse out when at 3am after she gave me 2mg of dilaudid I announced that I was ready for a walk to the bathroom. I assured her that was I fine and she scolded me "Everybody says that!"