PenelopePink
New Member
Hi, I've been a bit quiet lately but I just thought I'd report my surgery experience.
I had my sleeve done on Sunday night with Dr El Hasani at BMI Chelsfield Park in Kent. Privately funded, just under £10k.
I followed his pre surgery diet for just over 2 weeks, which was 2 small meals a day of protein and green veg, plus unlimited broth, sugar free jelly, sugar free squash, and 3 small pieces of fruit a day. I stopped eating the Friday before my surgery and went onto clear liquids only (squash or coffee, basically, no broth) and then on the Saturday continued on clear liquids and took 2 satchets of laxative stuff 5 hours apart which completely cleared me out and I mean completely.
On the Sunday of surgery it was water only until 4pm. I checked into the Chelsfield Park hospital at 2pm, they took me to my room which was very nice and quite hotel-ish (no WIFI though!) I just wafted around until about 7pm when they told me to shower with surgical scrub, put on the net pants and gown, and I sat there waiting for them. Then a jolly nurse came and got me and chatted to me to distract me. We went to a room outside the theatre and had some banter with the anaethetist's assistant who put my cannula in ("wow, that was good, I barely felt it" "yeah that's what my wife says!") etc. I went in, positioned myself on the table, and lay down (at this point I was thinking oh hell, what am I doing!) The anethetist said "I'll give you a little something nice to get you on your way" and put something in my cannula which made me feel at one with the world, my limbs like lead, and my eyes like slits, but I still had the energy to grin like a cheshire cat. At that point the consultant arrived and he said "I'll put you out now" and the next thing I knew I woke up and I was all done.
I was in pain, I won't lie, sort of like intense acid pain in the tummy I guess, is how I'd describe it, and they were hovering over me asking if I'd like some morphine (um, duh!) so they gave me some then they said how are you now and I wangled some more, basically I wangled the maximum dose then slept for about 12 hours!
So, you are on a catheter, and a drip, and you have a mainline to your heart just under your collarbone so they can inject fine opiates straight to your blood and through your body, mmm. So you don't have to get up, you just sleep. The drugs make you very sleepy and comfortable. You don't feel hungry or thirsty or anything. Just tired and comfortable. They come and top you up with things before you need it, as such, so at no point do you have to really do anything.
In the morning they wanted to change my bed and get me on a chair for a while for my circulation, so I got on the chair (which hurt but fine once I sat down) and they gave me more morphine so I just slept in this chair for 3 hours (felt like 5 minutes) and went back to bed and slept all day! Later that day they took my catheter out, dosed me up on pain killers and made me go for a walk - but that was fine, its all about pain management at first, so you can get moving.
So back to bed then, nearly night time, this was probably the worst night in terms of sleep simply because I was un-cathetered so needed to go to the loo as and when, but was still on a drip, so not only did I have to drag my IV pole with me but obviously the drip was making these visits fairly frequent - every 2 or 3 hours I guess. But it was no big deal and to be honest, it was probably a good time to get moving more regularly.
Around midday the next day they gave me my final drip bag, detached me from the IV pole (yay!) and removed my mainline, kept my cannula in though. I was then able to start sipping water. With a flaming teaspoon! But they are the size of mouthfulls I need to be taking. I then had some "lunch" which was a chocolate milkshake, which took me all afternoon to drink. By now I was on mainly just paracetamol and nurofen for pain relief, with the occasional tramadol before they wanted me to walk about.
So the drip was replaced with water and "meals", I had some tomato soup that night, which was lovely. That night was very comfortable, as I was in control of my own fluid intake which was reasonable but nothing like drips which equate to about 4 litres a day I think.
Then today, I got up and dressed and my husband came to pick me up. I have Clexane to inject for 4 weeks (no big deal, I've done this before when I had my babies), I have to wear surgical stockings for 4 weeks (groan but hey its winter) and I'm on liquids for 4 weeks, but no restrictions, so they can be soup or milk or whatever (no clear liquids luckily).
In 4 weeks I can move onto puree, then 4 weeks after that mashed, then normal food.
That's about it. I love my consultant, he's great. The nursing care team at Chelsfield Park were brilliant, particularly Sheila and Eichin. Fantastic.
In terms of me, I don't feel at all hungry, I've lost loads of weight already, and the future is looking bright.
Oh, I had a hiatus hernia apparently, and Mr El Hasani sorted that out for me while I was under the knife, which was nice - 2 for 1!
Highly recommended.
I had my sleeve done on Sunday night with Dr El Hasani at BMI Chelsfield Park in Kent. Privately funded, just under £10k.
I followed his pre surgery diet for just over 2 weeks, which was 2 small meals a day of protein and green veg, plus unlimited broth, sugar free jelly, sugar free squash, and 3 small pieces of fruit a day. I stopped eating the Friday before my surgery and went onto clear liquids only (squash or coffee, basically, no broth) and then on the Saturday continued on clear liquids and took 2 satchets of laxative stuff 5 hours apart which completely cleared me out and I mean completely.
On the Sunday of surgery it was water only until 4pm. I checked into the Chelsfield Park hospital at 2pm, they took me to my room which was very nice and quite hotel-ish (no WIFI though!) I just wafted around until about 7pm when they told me to shower with surgical scrub, put on the net pants and gown, and I sat there waiting for them. Then a jolly nurse came and got me and chatted to me to distract me. We went to a room outside the theatre and had some banter with the anaethetist's assistant who put my cannula in ("wow, that was good, I barely felt it" "yeah that's what my wife says!") etc. I went in, positioned myself on the table, and lay down (at this point I was thinking oh hell, what am I doing!) The anethetist said "I'll give you a little something nice to get you on your way" and put something in my cannula which made me feel at one with the world, my limbs like lead, and my eyes like slits, but I still had the energy to grin like a cheshire cat. At that point the consultant arrived and he said "I'll put you out now" and the next thing I knew I woke up and I was all done.
I was in pain, I won't lie, sort of like intense acid pain in the tummy I guess, is how I'd describe it, and they were hovering over me asking if I'd like some morphine (um, duh!) so they gave me some then they said how are you now and I wangled some more, basically I wangled the maximum dose then slept for about 12 hours!
So, you are on a catheter, and a drip, and you have a mainline to your heart just under your collarbone so they can inject fine opiates straight to your blood and through your body, mmm. So you don't have to get up, you just sleep. The drugs make you very sleepy and comfortable. You don't feel hungry or thirsty or anything. Just tired and comfortable. They come and top you up with things before you need it, as such, so at no point do you have to really do anything.
In the morning they wanted to change my bed and get me on a chair for a while for my circulation, so I got on the chair (which hurt but fine once I sat down) and they gave me more morphine so I just slept in this chair for 3 hours (felt like 5 minutes) and went back to bed and slept all day! Later that day they took my catheter out, dosed me up on pain killers and made me go for a walk - but that was fine, its all about pain management at first, so you can get moving.
So back to bed then, nearly night time, this was probably the worst night in terms of sleep simply because I was un-cathetered so needed to go to the loo as and when, but was still on a drip, so not only did I have to drag my IV pole with me but obviously the drip was making these visits fairly frequent - every 2 or 3 hours I guess. But it was no big deal and to be honest, it was probably a good time to get moving more regularly.
Around midday the next day they gave me my final drip bag, detached me from the IV pole (yay!) and removed my mainline, kept my cannula in though. I was then able to start sipping water. With a flaming teaspoon! But they are the size of mouthfulls I need to be taking. I then had some "lunch" which was a chocolate milkshake, which took me all afternoon to drink. By now I was on mainly just paracetamol and nurofen for pain relief, with the occasional tramadol before they wanted me to walk about.
So the drip was replaced with water and "meals", I had some tomato soup that night, which was lovely. That night was very comfortable, as I was in control of my own fluid intake which was reasonable but nothing like drips which equate to about 4 litres a day I think.
Then today, I got up and dressed and my husband came to pick me up. I have Clexane to inject for 4 weeks (no big deal, I've done this before when I had my babies), I have to wear surgical stockings for 4 weeks (groan but hey its winter) and I'm on liquids for 4 weeks, but no restrictions, so they can be soup or milk or whatever (no clear liquids luckily).
In 4 weeks I can move onto puree, then 4 weeks after that mashed, then normal food.
That's about it. I love my consultant, he's great. The nursing care team at Chelsfield Park were brilliant, particularly Sheila and Eichin. Fantastic.
In terms of me, I don't feel at all hungry, I've lost loads of weight already, and the future is looking bright.
Oh, I had a hiatus hernia apparently, and Mr El Hasani sorted that out for me while I was under the knife, which was nice - 2 for 1!
Highly recommended.
xxx
