my hospital experience (long, sorry)
Yeah! Got my a/c back!! Now I can be a little more comfortable. Well I promised to come back here today and tell y'all a little more about my experience and now I can also tell you how it's been going the last few days. To sum it all up: Not bad!!!!
I truly have very little recollection of the day of my surgery but I keep trying. I passed out before they ever got me out of the holding area. God is good. 
I do remember that I got excellent and very compassionate care. Had one problem and we're not sure what caused it but everytime I would fall asleep I'd stop breathing so they put a nasal cannula in with just a little oxygen and I was fine for the most part. Sometimes the alarm went off but I would take a deep breath when I heard it after I figured out what was going on.
I've got to be the luckiest person in the world who has ever had this procedure.....knock on wood. I would pray that every soul who has this done could have my same experience right up through this very moment.
My surgery was at 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday and if they got me up to walk that day I do not remember it. I don't recall standing up until I went from the bed to the wheelchair to go down for my leak test. I'm sure I didn't.....I never walked with my pain pump and I had that until I was moved to the ward.
Leak test. Nooooo problem. I already knew that after I passed it I'd be getting 30 ml of water to sip from a little medicine cup and could have one of those every half hour at first. That told me TINY sips. So I sipped that pineapple crap (the thick clearish stuff) just like that and found that he told me to quit long before I thought I'd have to. Same story on the liquid chalk....barely let it pass my lips.
When I went to the ward for the next level of care I heard the words....walk walk walk and sip sip sip and made that a mission. When the corpsman said, "Now the first time we usually come to the end of this hall and turn around and go back and then later you can go farther." I said, "What's wrong with farther now?" He said, "Do you feel like it?" I said, "Heck no but I didn't feel like it last week and I won't two hours from now either....let's just git er duuuun and see where the route goes." So we did....we walked "around the block" as I called it. After that I expect I drove them crazy calling them so often to come get me out of that bariatric bed or back in it. It converts to a chair but somebody has to do it for you. I walked around the block 13 times but sometimes I did it twice...not back to back but within the same "up" period. That means I called on those poor people a minimum of 20 times to get me in and out of that bed during the 12 hours I was in there.
I had shy bladder. TMI, I know but I could feel that measuring thing under me and I'm one of those people who can't even go in a bedpan. They were getting upset because I had not peed enough. BUT...my fluids were accidently turned off at the beginning of the time I had my leak test....and they were not discovered until about 3 hours later....AFTER they had drained my bladder and dc'd my Foley. So what I lacked in regular **** I made up for in attitude about the one guy's threatening nature. 
I knew I was OK. I pushed for more fluids so they brought an extra bag and opened it up almost wide open. Later I had to go and still couldn't so I said the hell with it and I just let myself do that first Niagara pee into the toilet. 
They were horrified that they couldn't measure it. I had been a very bad girl.
BUT.....they got to measure it from there on out. I know they have to make sure you "go".....I just think that one Corpsman Wannabee was a little anxious to practice his catheter technique. 
The jello was naaasteee! It was like orange rubber....I swear if I had scooped it out I could have rolled it into one of those super balls that bounces real high. And it tasted like it had been sitting around in the refrigerator next to something that had been made with green peppers. Gross. I figured, "Oh no. This is what they mean by your tastes change." The scrambled yellow stuff was also nasty but the applesauce was divine. I ate some of the "egg" just to prove I could. The drain was pulled shortly after that and there was nothing to that either. I had very little drainage the entire time.
At home I've been able to eat three meals of at least a tablespoon of each thing and everything tastes fabulous and is well tolerated. I still love all the protein choices that I had found before surgery and found a new use for one of them....vanilla. I mixed a scoop of it (17g) into dry sugar free, fat free white chocolate pudding mix and made sure all the lumps were broken up. Then whisked in two cups of skim milk. It makes four 4oz. servings and is a real treat. Getting all my fluids in and my protein level is now up to about 40g a day and should be up to 60 by my week one appointment. I don't count my food protein...too complicated. I count the supplemental protein and consider the food protein to be "gravy."
I can't even begin to express how much all the individual posts of encouragement and congratulations have done to help me. It made me SO well prepared going into this that now it is mainly a matter of putting what I know and rehearsed into action and watching it work. If I had one other suggestion to pre-ops it would be this: Do what they say and pound that protein and start your walking NOW. The stronger your legs and arms are the better you'll be able to help yourself and the protein makes a huge difference in healing. 
Other than that I can't say enough wonderful things about Dr. Chastenet and NMCP....over all I thought everything was first class. Ok that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.
Amy
I do remember that I got excellent and very compassionate care. Had one problem and we're not sure what caused it but everytime I would fall asleep I'd stop breathing so they put a nasal cannula in with just a little oxygen and I was fine for the most part. Sometimes the alarm went off but I would take a deep breath when I heard it after I figured out what was going on.
I've got to be the luckiest person in the world who has ever had this procedure.....knock on wood. I would pray that every soul who has this done could have my same experience right up through this very moment.
My surgery was at 7:30 a.m. on Wednesday and if they got me up to walk that day I do not remember it. I don't recall standing up until I went from the bed to the wheelchair to go down for my leak test. I'm sure I didn't.....I never walked with my pain pump and I had that until I was moved to the ward.
Leak test. Nooooo problem. I already knew that after I passed it I'd be getting 30 ml of water to sip from a little medicine cup and could have one of those every half hour at first. That told me TINY sips. So I sipped that pineapple crap (the thick clearish stuff) just like that and found that he told me to quit long before I thought I'd have to. Same story on the liquid chalk....barely let it pass my lips.
When I went to the ward for the next level of care I heard the words....walk walk walk and sip sip sip and made that a mission. When the corpsman said, "Now the first time we usually come to the end of this hall and turn around and go back and then later you can go farther." I said, "What's wrong with farther now?" He said, "Do you feel like it?" I said, "Heck no but I didn't feel like it last week and I won't two hours from now either....let's just git er duuuun and see where the route goes." So we did....we walked "around the block" as I called it. After that I expect I drove them crazy calling them so often to come get me out of that bariatric bed or back in it. It converts to a chair but somebody has to do it for you. I walked around the block 13 times but sometimes I did it twice...not back to back but within the same "up" period. That means I called on those poor people a minimum of 20 times to get me in and out of that bed during the 12 hours I was in there.
I had shy bladder. TMI, I know but I could feel that measuring thing under me and I'm one of those people who can't even go in a bedpan. They were getting upset because I had not peed enough. BUT...my fluids were accidently turned off at the beginning of the time I had my leak test....and they were not discovered until about 3 hours later....AFTER they had drained my bladder and dc'd my Foley. So what I lacked in regular **** I made up for in attitude about the one guy's threatening nature. I knew I was OK. I pushed for more fluids so they brought an extra bag and opened it up almost wide open. Later I had to go and still couldn't so I said the hell with it and I just let myself do that first Niagara pee into the toilet. They were horrified that they couldn't measure it. I had been a very bad girl. BUT.....they got to measure it from there on out. I know they have to make sure you "go".....I just think that one Corpsman Wannabee was a little anxious to practice his catheter technique.
The jello was naaasteee! It was like orange rubber....I swear if I had scooped it out I could have rolled it into one of those super balls that bounces real high. And it tasted like it had been sitting around in the refrigerator next to something that had been made with green peppers. Gross. I figured, "Oh no. This is what they mean by your tastes change." The scrambled yellow stuff was also nasty but the applesauce was divine. I ate some of the "egg" just to prove I could. The drain was pulled shortly after that and there was nothing to that either. I had very little drainage the entire time.
At home I've been able to eat three meals of at least a tablespoon of each thing and everything tastes fabulous and is well tolerated. I still love all the protein choices that I had found before surgery and found a new use for one of them....vanilla. I mixed a scoop of it (17g) into dry sugar free, fat free white chocolate pudding mix and made sure all the lumps were broken up. Then whisked in two cups of skim milk. It makes four 4oz. servings and is a real treat. Getting all my fluids in and my protein level is now up to about 40g a day and should be up to 60 by my week one appointment. I don't count my food protein...too complicated. I count the supplemental protein and consider the food protein to be "gravy."
I can't even begin to express how much all the individual posts of encouragement and congratulations have done to help me. It made me SO well prepared going into this that now it is mainly a matter of putting what I know and rehearsed into action and watching it work. If I had one other suggestion to pre-ops it would be this: Do what they say and pound that protein and start your walking NOW. The stronger your legs and arms are the better you'll be able to help yourself and the protein makes a huge difference in healing. Other than that I can't say enough wonderful things about Dr. Chastenet and NMCP....over all I thought everything was first class. Ok that's my story and I'm stickin' to it.
Amy 
Amy,
I'm so glad things came out so well. I had the same experience with not enough urine after they took the catheter out. I tried to tell them that before this surgery, I used to drink up to 4 gallons of water a day and they were only pumping in a fraction of that, so my body was holding onto it. But Dr. C was adament about making sure they hadn't nicked my bladder, etc, so they went back in and discovered everything was fine. They then upped the liquid bags and finally! I was able to pee normally. LOL.
Dr. Chastanet said he'd never seen anything like it. LOL. Guess I was the guinea pig way back then in August 2005. LOL.
I'm so happy things went so well for you though. I love Portsmouth and so far, all their staff has been marvelous. I have my final appt, my one year follow up, coming up in 4 weeks as we're transferring to FL in August.
Keep up the good work and keep us posted on your progress.
Hugs,
Tonya
405/379/242/180 (high/surgery/current/goal) 5'5" tall
-137 lbs from surgery
-163 lbs from highest
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