Happy Band day to me, Happy Band day to me!!

I was banded this morning and they found a hiatal hernia and repaired that too. I don't feel too bad considering. I am sore. I have burning sensation near the port area and it is achy. I have a little shoulder pain and chest heaviness. It gets better after I get up and walk around and I have a heating pad as well. All in all I am happy. I am drinking fluids fine. My throat is REALLY sore from being intubated and I get cotton mouth when I take the liquid pain meds.

I had to be there at 5:30 am. I weighed in and I lost 4.3 lbs in the last week for a total of 18.3 since March 25. Not a whole lot of weight loss there but any loss is a loss.

After weigh in I went to my room and got into my gown. They took vitals and my blood sugar. Did you know the anesthesiologist prefers your sugar to be a little high? Mine was 133 and I am diabetic. They started the IV. A little later the anesthesiologist came in and talked to me and checked my teeth and mouth. I felt like they were inspecting a horse. After that the nurse came in to give me a Lovenox shot in my stomach. Ouch! It didn't hurt at first but them it started to burn. She put a nausea patch behind my ear. Then she gave me some meds in my IV and then some stuff to make me not care and relax. At about 7:15 they wheeled me to the OR. Seriously, can the tables be any more narrow? And really, making me scoot my own butt over from the bed to the OR table?
On goes the oxygen mask and out I go. I wake up in recovery and it was all over and I was THIRSTY!! I had some sips of water and the recovery nurse called me her dainty sipper. I have no problems swallowing. That is good news. After some waking up I was herded pretty quickly to get dressed and go home. I was on my home by 10:30am.

I think the hardest part right now is taking deep breaths. It is uncomfortable and hard but I force myself to do it.
My advice for the first day is sip liquids all day and get up and move around. Keep a heating pad handy as well. It really is soothing to have that heating pad on my back/shoulder.

Let's see what tomorrow brings...