I was released from the hospital this afternoon after having my hysterectomy yesterday morning. I’m going to recap the last few days, but I’m highly medicated right now so I'm going to put this update under a cut to save you from my rambling. I'll post a picture of my incisions once my On-Q bag is gone, but I did include a pic of that under the cut with an explanation of it. Feel free to message me if you have any questions :)
Dec. 4th: My doctor unfortunately required a bowel prep before surgery. This is apparently not very common, but my doc prefers to do it that way. The day before surgery I was only allowed clear liquids (includes Popsicles, Gatorade, etc) and had to drink a little over a gallon of this salty demon laxative over about 4 hours. It wasn’t as bad as expected, but not ideal.
Dec. 5th: The morning of surgery, we arrived at 7:45am for a 9:45 surgery time. I was given Zofran for nausea because anesthetics usually make me really sick, and had no issues whatsoever after surgery. I was wheeled into surgery around 9:40am and finished in about an hour and a half.
When I woke up, the first thing I noticed was that I had to piss SO BAD. The nurse explained to my groggy self that the catheter would make it feel like I had to go pretty much constantly but I could go anytime I needed to. Which was a very strange feeling haha. I was put on Dilauded for pain, as Vicodin makes me sick, and spent the entire day in bed sleeping or reading. I wasn’t allowed crackers until the evening once they were sure liquids were ok. I had an IV for pain meds and fluids, a heart monitor, an oxygen line, leg compression cuffs, the catheter, and finally my On-Q pain bag all attached to me the entire day and night. So movement was kind of restricted, but they made sure I walked around to get the gas moving around.
The cath was incredibly annoying, as the nurse mentioned that mine was not draining properly (they recently switched suppliers and have had issues recently) so we basically had to do it manually. Every hour I would have to stand up to let gravity help me out. It was good to move around, but incredibly painful when it needed drained. I had to keep it in through the night which was a nuisance, but I was surprised at how little it hurt to have it removed.
So this On-Q bag that I was prescribed, which is essentially a take home IV that delivers 2ccs/hour of numbing meds directly to my internal organs to keep pain down. I'll have it until tomorrow when the bag will be completely deflated, it's already about halfway gone at this point. The down side is that I have to pull the line out myself tomorrow, so I'm not looking forward to that! You can see 2 out of 4 incisions here on my freshly bald belly :P
So far, this has been considerably easier than top surgery in my opinion. I’m sure the extra day in the hospital made a huge difference, but I can already walk around and sit up on my own so I’m feeling a lot less useless than I did after top surgery. The pain isn’t too terrible-- overall it’s similar to a combo of cramping/spasming and a really intense ab workout. I am incredibly bloated though. It feels like I was pumped full of air and it has no where to go, but that has been getting better with time. I'm hopeful that tomorrow isn't too bad, but I have a feeling it may be a little rough. Keeping positive though! :)
First time swimming post-op :) it was so amazing finally feeling the water against my bare skin. I thought I was going to be more self conscious, but as soon as I was in the water all my anxiety melted away. 8 months post-op with Dr. Medalie and loving life finally.
