My Gastric Bypass: The Surgery

Well here I am, three weeks out from surgery and still amazed by how quickly the time is going by.  I kept meaning to do a big update here on my blog but I think Facebook is getting in my way.  I blab so much on there about everything that is going on and when it comes time to blog I think “Naw, I already said it all on Facebook”, completely forgetting that only a portion of my readers are able to see it.   I’ve gotten a few messages from people asking how it was, what my experience was like and what is going on with me now, so I am going to try to catch up and then write more regularly about the process.

FIRST: THE JOURNEY & CHECKING IN

Xander and I left Rotterdam in the early in the evening on Tuesday January 17th to head for Brugge, Belgium.  We decided that instead of doing the 2.5 hour drive the morning of my surgery to check in at the hospital at 10:30am, that we would take our time and drive down the evening before, spend the night in the hotel where he would be staying and then take our time in the morning. This was the best decision we could have made because it gave me a chance to just relax.  Had we gotten up and been trying to navigate our way through Antwerp during rush hour, we both would have been stressed and that wouldn’t have done me any good going into the surgery.  We got to the hotel that evening, curled up in bed and watched a movie and just took it easy.

The next morning we got up and took our time.  The hospital was only a few minutes away so I laid in bed with my laptop watching some shows while trying not to think about things too much.  Then we got up and took my “before” photos (which I will share at some point, but not quite yet) and got ready to head out.  I was nervous but not nearly as nervous as I was expecting to be.  I was actually a little excited as I would be meeting two other women for the first time after communicating on our clinic’s forums and Facebook messages.  We were all there for the same surgery and were glad that we had new friends to go through the experience with.

They had both arrived before we did so their numbers were called first.  Each of them told me their room numbers before heading up and when my number was called to check in, I was thrilled to find out that I would be sharing a room with one of them!  I was, however, a bit confused as we were on the 7th floor and from what I’ve heard all bariatric patients stay either on the 3rd or 11th floor.

When I got to the room I realized what was going on, and what a pleasant surprise it was!  Due to the hospital being so busy, myself and Martine were placed in the maternity ward in one of the most beautiful with lots of space and even our own kitchenettes!

You’ll have to forgive the quality of the photos, I had only my mobile phone with me.

This was my bed for the duration of my stay.  At the bottom of the photo you can see the dining table that was a part of my kitchenette.  My roommate’s side of the room was a mirror image of mine, with her bed facing me on the opposite side of the room and her kitchenette to the left of my bed (and mine to the left of hers).  It was such a great setup and with a long curtain to section off the room we had the choice of having it open and chatting or being able to close it to have a bit of privacy during the night or times when we just weren’t particularly in the mood to be social (which didn’t happen much at all really, we quite enjoyed each other’s company!)

This was my kitchenette and closet area.  There was a small fridge, sink with cold water, coffee maker and microwave.  You can see my TV above but I didn’t use that a lot as I had my laptop with TV shows I’d downloaded and saved to watch while I was there.   I specifically saved shows that I loved most so that it would help me pass the time.  Xander loved having the kitchenette while he was there as he could make himself coffee and keep stuff he swiped from the hotel buffet in my little fridge.

This little glass room was just to the right of my bed, which ordinarily is used for keeping the babies in.  Apparently that’s not how it is done in the Netherlands. According to Martine they are kept by your bed after giving birth, but maybe this is meant to give the mothers a chance to have some quiet and get some rest… I’m not sure.

Martine and I both took the fact that we were placed in the maternity ward together as a sign, as we both were having the surgery to lose weight because we were having difficulty getting pregnant.  We liked to think that the universe was trying to tell us something.

As you can see we also had a very comfortable reclining chair next to our beds, which our husbands made good use of!

I didn’t take photos of the room in its entirety because Martine and her family were on the other side and I wanted to respect their privacy.  It was a beautiful, big room though and we were both so happy to have it all to ourselves!

We also had our own big private bathroom, which a lot of rooms don’t have. On other floors there are shared showers in the hall, but we had our own shower cabin with massage jets and the whole nine yards.  I’m wishing I’d taken photos of that now in hindsight.

This was the view out of our window.  As you can see the weather was rather crap for some of our stay, but we did see some sun.  Not that it mattered, neither one of us spent that much time hanging around looking out the window!

THE WAIT

We arrived in the room at I guess between 11:00 – 11:30 am and we were both a bit nervous.  When the nurses came in to check our blood pressure and everything I made sure to tell them how dreadfully nauseated I was after my gallbladder surgery.  They marked it down and told me they would make sure to let them know so that they could try to prevent it this time around.  When they came back around noon I also asked if they knew when I’d be operated on and they said I would be going in at 3:50pm in the afternoon.  I groaned because I was already starving and dying of thirst, having not eaten since 6pm the night before and not being able to even drink water after 8am that morning.   I can’t even imagine how Martine felt when they told her she wouldn’t be operated on until 7:30pm that evening!  Well, no I could imagine because she groaned loudly and said exactly how she felt about it! haha

I had over three hours to kill in that hospital room before my surgery and I tried my best to keep my nerves at bay.  I unpacked my suitcase, took some photos and sat on my bed doing some deep breathing.  I really wanted to go into this with a positive attitude and made a point of reminding myself again and again that it was all temporary, that it was all going to go by in a flash and it was just a tiny blip in this entire process.  This really did help from keeping that agonizing fear of the pain and unknown from sending me into a total tailspin.

TIME TO GO

As luck would have it, I didn’t end up spending over three hours trying to calm myself at all because no sooner did the nurses leave, but then they were right back again with a gown telling me to get changed and get in the bed, because my time had come!  The nerves came over me like a tidal wave but I had no time to worry about it… I went in the bathroom and stripped off to get into my gown.  What the heck was going on?  Why was I being taken down a half hour later rather than 3.5 hours like they said?  When I asked later I was told it was because the surgeon’s plans often change due to people not realizing things like they can’t smoke or drink before the surgery.

I got in the bed and the two young nurses came to wheel me out.  I could tell that Xander was trying not to cry but after a quick kiss they wheeled me out of there before either of us really had a chance to get emotional.  They were very sweet on the way down to the surgery, making small talk and trying to keep my mind off things.  I was feeling surprisingly calm at that point though as I knew it was too late to turn back and was trying to keep a steady stream of positive thoughts going through my head.  I was happy to be going in sooner rather than later, as it was less time for me to sit around letting the tension build.

They took me down to what I can only assume was the basement and left my bed in a corner.  I was all by myself in this weird space with a TV and some children’s DVD’s, a door that had plastic and orange construction tape all around it.  Definitely a change from the beautifully modern hospital that sat above it… and I must admit, not the best view when waiting to go into surgery.  It felt more like I was being taken down to a dungeon somewhere rather than a surgery theater.

A woman came along and spoke very quickly with a mask over her mouth, which was a bit of a problem for me.  I can get by decently in Dutch but in Belgium the language is different and it takes a massive amount more concentration for me to follow, especially in a situation like that where my mind has so many thoughts going through it at once.  She asked me (the same as 3-4 people before her) my name, what I was there for and if I’d eaten or had anything to drink that day.  She seemed to be in a bit of a hurry and a real no nonsense type so I just answered and then hoped she’d go away.

Soon after another lady arrived with a different bed and asked me to scoot over to that one.  The first lady said something to her and then I heard (like the sound of angels singing!!) the second lady exclaiming in a British accent “Oh you speak English!!”.  HAAAAALLELUJAH!!  Turns out she is British and an expat like me.  I could have kissed her!   She explained that she was the anesthetic nurse and would be assisting in my surgery.  She did all of the prep work, asked me a lot of questions and got me ready for when the anesthetist showed up.  We chatted a lot which, again, did a lot to help settle my nerves.   She asked if Dr. Dillemans (my surgeon) had been to see me yet and I told her he hadn’t, so she got on the phone and told him to get his butt down there.  The nurses had already explained his insane schedule so I wasn’t all that surprised.

It wasn’t long after that the anesthetist showed up and asked me the same round of questions.  I figured if I was going to keep answering their questions repeatedly I’d repeatedly tell them about how sick I was at my last surgery.  He told me that I would be given something before I woke up and that it would all be good.  He also agreed that the amount of pain meds that I was given after my gallbladder surgery may have attributed to the amount of nausea I had.  I was determined that when I woke up this time that I would take a beat and give myself time to come to my senses before giving any indication of my pain levels.  When I had my gallbladder surgery it was my first ever, so when I woke up I was terrified of the pain I was feeling and kept asking for more and more pain relief… to the point of them having to all the anesthetist back as they’d already surpassed what the nurses were allowed to give me.

Once they had my IV in and were done asking me all those questions for the millionth time, they hung around chatting and joking with me until Dr. Dillemans arrived.  I particularly liked their jokes about how if I found him handsome it was probably just the drugs!  You see, Dr. Dillemans has a bit of a reputation for being quite the charmer!

Next thing I knew, he had arrived… he called me Sarah which made me give a big inner “PFFF” (Sarah, Tammy… I guess all those North American names are the same to them), told me I was in good hands, patted my hand and then it was a total blur.  They were putting a mask over my face, telling me to breathe deeply and that it might make me dizzy, putting a needle in my arm, with stuff that burned like a mofo going in my hand and up to my elbow and then… LIGHTS OUT!!

WAKING UP

The next thing I remember is waking up in the recovery room.  Much like when I had my previous operation, I woke up feeling like I was under a truck.  I was very groggy, my entire body was trembling, like big huge shakes (especially my legs) and the first thought to go through my mind was “PAIN DRUGS PAIN GIVE ME DRUGS” but thankfully I remembered not to say it out loud.  The nurse was very friendly and told me that the surgery went great and asked me how I was feeling.  I responded that I didn’t know yet, that I would need a minute.  She pulled the blanket down and unfolded my arms which were crossed over my upper belly, explaining not to hold them there because the pressure would cause me pain.  I had just woken up and assumed someone had placed my arms there as I wasn’t able to really move them on my own yet.

She told me to try to take some nice deep breaths so I said I would and she went off to check on someone else.  As I laid there I slowly tried to inhale, remembering that I’d heard that the deep breaths will help work that dreadful gas (that they pump into you to blow up the cavity in your belly so they can work) out of your system.  It hurt like a SOB but I kept trying to make one deep breath after another.

I looked slowly from side to side, taking in what was going on around me.  I was in a long room filled with beds, which opened up into the hallway they wheeled me through from the dungeon corridor to the surgery.  The place was chalk full of patients, with beds even lined up along the hallway.  I was lucky and had the nurses station right at the foot of my bed so I at least had something to watch while getting myself together.

There was an older man on my left hand side who didn’t seem to be dealing with things very well. He kept trying to pull things out and move around and get up and there was a nurse with him constantly talking to him and trying to keep him calm.  My brain wasn’t together enough to even try to figure out what either of them were saying but I really wondered who he was and what he had done to him.  Whatever it was, he was not a happy camper at all.

After laying there a while and waking up a bit more, much as I suspected, the pain was bad but bearable.  Once I got over that initial shock after just waking up it was ok.  So when the nurse came back to check on me I told her I was fine and just continued to lay there.  It wasn’t long before I saw her pointing to me and the two young nurses were back again to take me back to my room.

When I arrived back in my room Xander was there and was eager to see me.  I think he was surprised at how alert I was because I was so out of it after my last surgery that I ended up just asking him to leave.  I noticed that Martine and her bed were gone and they told me that she was brought down shortly before and was being operated on just after me.  I was glad for her that she was also getting it over with because sitting there waiting until 7:30pm wasn’t going to be any fun at all.

I had a chance to lay there and really assess how I was feeling.  The most annoying pain after any laparoscopic surgery, from what I can tell from my two experiences with it, is the gas I mentioned.  As this gas is working its way up out of your body it irritates the CRAP out of the nerves in your shoulders.   So while I did have a fair amount of pain in my upper abdomen, what I remember being most painful was the jabbing pains in my shoulders.  My upper belly felt very sore and tight but it was more of a deep constant pain.  The shoulders didn’t hurt constantly but rather when I moved and then settled again it felt like someone was stabbing me in the shoulder and chest, and THAT was bloody annoying.

While I was laying there Xander took this photo of me to send to my mother to let her know I got out of surgery, was alert and doing fine.  Well first he took this one:

… but he said I looked psycho with my weird wave and green crap all over my face (apparently the green crap is stuff they put down into your stomach to check for leaks after the surgery).

He mom-thumbed (licking his thumb and trying to wipe the green stuff off) me before taking the non psycho wave photo, but I mean really… neither photo is anything to write home about.   I look pretty darn hideous in both… but hey, I’m trying to keep it real here.

So that was it, my surgery was over.  It was all said and done!!  Now the real fun was about to begin… starting with the rest of my hospital stay, more on that soon!