My Bariatric Surgery III

Warning, there is some graphic description below.  If you don’t have the stomach for it (pun intended), surf away…

At 17:20 the surgery was over.  When I woke up, about twenty minutes later, my first thought was “son of a bitch, I’m still alive”.  I know it may sound cliche, but I did have some thought about not being back.  My wife Dorit was there.  So I’m told, as I have no recollection whatsoever.  I have no clue what happened in the next hour either except flashes and short flickers of memory.  I don’t remember being hauled back to the ward.  I do remember opening my eyes in the ward room, with Dorit next to me.  I was hooked up to an IV line, an oxygen mask, and there were two little drain pipes coming out of my belly into and into two pomegranate like plastic containers, my two new buddies, with whom I was about to live for a couple of days.  Studies show that the presence of the drainers following surgery, significantly reduce the risk of infection.

I wanted to do nothing but sleep, and so I did.

This would be a good time to mention, if I haven’t before, that the surgery ward at Meir Medical Center has a very strict schedule.  The nurses shift changes three times a day (the doctors’ shift never seem to change at all).  At 7:00 AM, at 15:00 PM, and at 23:00 PM.  In order to transfer the ward in an orderly manner, wake up time is 5:00 AM.  Vital sign are taken and recorded before the new shift arrives.  When the new shift starts, another round is started in order to report at bedside what the status is of each patient.  Then there’s the doctors round (twice a day), the medicine rounds (three times per day), the cleaning and showering rounds.  And since there are no official visiting hours, at least not firm ones that are actually enforced, tons of friends and family members come in and out merrily all day long.  I fail to see the social benefit of gathering next to a patient bedside for many hours, I fail to see the purpose of bringing children along, I fail to see why certain families show up at full strength – all the way to third cousin twice removed – to spend time with some distant and apparently not very well family member.  Food is distributed, jokes are told.  The patient is the only one who doesn’t enjoy the jokes.  People after surgery cannot really laugh.  It’s damn painful.  Coughing, sneezing, blowing noses is considered high risk sports activities.

My phone was stolen a little before 7:00 AM.  It was an old clunker I didn’t care much about, still it took me a few hours to get a replacement (which proved a blessing, as nobody had its number except the absolutely closest people in the world).  In any case, out of my kind heart, I wish upon the thief, to be using this phone well, mainly for calling emergency assistance frequently.

At about 7:00, a nurse showed up and told me to get out of bed.  I said I was pretty comfortable lying down.  She said so was she, but she can’t afford it and neither can I.  With her help and supervision, I got up and walked around.  I was sore, it was painful.  But I was on my feet.  And that felt good.  I was holding my tall friend the IV pole, and the two little ones, the drainers, were in my robe pockets.  Superman.

I started to learn the routine of the ward.  My mother showed up early in the morning and stayed till late afternoon.  I can only imagine that she was thinking to herself while strolling the hallway back and forth with me: “I taught him to walk already, forty six years ago”.  This may be a good opportunity to thank my parents, my siblings, and my wife for being there for me every step (literally) of the way.  Between the strolls, the nurses and the doctors rounds, the medicine rounds and the pains and aches, I learned that staying in a hospital is not a relaxing experience.  It’s in fact very tiring.  In my condition, there was an additional problem.  I never sleep on my back.  But I couldn’t sleep any other way, so I basically woke up every ten minutes.  Horrific.

On Wednesday, I realized that I’m cool with the routine.  I learned how to live with the drains and the IV.  I learned how to wear the hospital issued robes, to keep a watch on the IV line and call the nurses when pain was present.  And then I had a strange thought.  I was adjusting.  I couldn’t believe that in two days I actually changed my surroundings, my clothes, my routine, my sleep, and I wasn’t particularly suffering.  If I was asked for an advice how to live in a hospital for a few days, that would be it.  Adjust.  It makes life a little easier.  Then again, it does outside of hospitals as well…

I was still not eating nor drinking, and then later that day I realized that something was missing from my life.  Hunger was gone.  I wasn’t hungry at all.  Truth is, I still am not and we’re one full week later.