Surreal...

It's so weird getting my head around the fact that 9 days ago I had surgery. Surgery which will (hopefully) change my life for the better ... but it all seems so surreal. It's like yesterday that I had surgery ... yet in another way it feels like a lifetime. So much and so little has happened in 9 days.

On the 19th July, I had an adjustable gastric band inserted via laproscopic surgery (with a general aneasthetic to boot! Ugh!) in Brugge, Belguim. The days leading up to the op were kind of strange. My feelings about the surgery fluctuated ... sometimes, in a very adult way, I pretended it wasn't going to happen .... but then the reality would hit me in the gut and all I could do was cry.

I travelled to Belguim (on the 17th July), alone (as my partner could not be with me due to work commitments). Scared stiff about what was about to happen. My head begun a war. It was like the proverbial devil and angel on each shoulder. It really sucked second guessing myself. The dialogue went something like this:

"Dee, just think ... this is such waste of money."

"It's not a waste of money, it's an investment in my health and my future."

"Pfft! I believe an investment is defined as something like a house or stocks & shares whereby you make money ... not a rubber band whacked around your gut, you nut!"

"Well, I need help .... "

"May I suggest just keeping your mouth shut, eat less and exercise more"

"I think we both know I can't do that"

"You're just looking for an easy way out!"

"I CAN'T do this by myself ... and this is hardly the easy way out. I have to re-learn how to eat and not be a glutton .... hence, the band for a little help knowing when to stop eating."

"It won't work ... you know it, I know it"

"FOR THE LOVE OF ALL THINGS HOLY ... SHUT UP!"

...... many other head discussions plagued me but all of them were just variations of the above!

Sooo, when surgery day arrived I was panic stricken. It didn't help that all the surgery times were delayed ... it also didn't help that I was kept waiting in the prep room for 40 mins waiting on my final consult with the surgeon. At one point, I sat up after hyperventilating for a good five minutes and declared: "I'm sorry but I've changed my mind!". There were a lot of sorry looks from the staff who gently patted me and said: "It's a little late for that now." All I could think was: "Crap! Crap! Crap! I actually have to go through with this now. Nice going, Dee. Shut up." (Once again a little head war ensued). It was also around this time that I realised I hadn't waxed the 'ole bikini line ... and well, the surgeon performs the surgery with you having no clothes on and standing ... well, standing between your open legs. Yeah, my thoughts exactly!

I don't really remember much after that as the prep nurse decided to give me a pre-med to calm me down. I vaguely remember the doctor saying: "Don't worry, we'll look after you .. you'll be out in 35 minutes". Yeah, right.

I woke up with an excruciating pain in my left shoulder and the feeling like I'd been sliced in half (oh! yeah ... I HAD been!). Recovery from anaesthetic took a little longer than the average bear. I was taken back to my room and slept ... and slept. I awoke to the feeling of a bursting bladder (tends to happen when they pump 3 litres of fluid into you via IV over a 3 1/2 hour period!). It was at this point, as I sat on the edge of the bed as dizzy and nauseated as a sick dog that I realised I had a drain hanging from my left side. That just made me ill. I walked to the toilet with an IV stand and two nurses (one holding me, the other holding the drain bottle). I sat on the loo and looked down at my drainage bottle ... and in a rather graceful act, I passed out momentarily (which wasn't pretty cosidering I was wearing a hospital gown, no knickers, gorgeous medical stockings and sporting an assortment of tubes from various areas of my body!). Needless to say, I was man-handled back to bed and tilted almost upside down in bed and just for a good time, they shoved nasal prongs up my nose to give me a supply of continuous oxygen. Very nice work!

The day of the 20th, I was still suffering dizziness and nausea but determined not to let it get the better of me. I stood. I sat. I took baby steps. I tentatively showered while holding onto the cubicle wall - white knuckling! It worked. What it also precipitated was the movement of some wicked gas! OH. MY. GOSH! The pain. I can now appreciate why babies scream when they've got wind trapped!! I felt like a human pin ball machine. Gas bubbles colliding. Congregating. Having a few "how's your father"s. But NONE of it leaving my body! I could not burp or pass wind ... this had to be a joke but alas it lasted two days and then a mild version of the above hung around for three more days.

The train journey home to London on the 21st July .... well, let's just say it was memorable but for all the wrong reasons!

But now, recovery is grooving along nicely. I'm able to do most things without feeling any discomfort ... except lying on my left side for an extended period of time. I can finally sneeze and cough without feeling like my abdominal wall is being ripped out of me. It still hurts, mind you but not in the I'm-terrified-to-sneeze type way. The dressings have come off ... the incision sites are still quite itchy at times. They're rather lumpy too but I imagine it's just the stitches needing to be absorbed by the body. They don't look too bad. As far as incisions and scars go. I can still sleep 15 hours a day if given the choice. At times I'm hungry and others I have no real appetite. I managed to bend and shave my legs yesterday ... gosh, that really was a highlight and an achievement ... I was turning into one furry critter!

Soooo, my friends ... the journey begins!