Cut along the dotted line…

I spent the day before surgery day fasting, only broth and clear liquids in preparation for surgery. I started my first dose of antibiotics in the morning and continued in the afternoon and evening. I started the McMargarita (magnesium citrate) late in afternoon and it wasn’t long before I was dancing the quick step to the bathroom. The prep was similar to colonoscopy prep except for the antibiotics. However later in the evening I began vomiting and it continued throughout the night. I got to the hospital about 8:00 AM and surgery was scheduled for 10:30 AM, which according to Dr. Oz turns out to be the optimal time of day for having surgery. The idea being that the surgeon has been awake for a while, has already preformed a procedure or two and is starting to hit their stride.

I mentioned to the admitting nurse that I had been vomiting all night and she wasn’t surprised since taking metronidazole on an empty stomach frequently causes nausea and vomiting. Now you tell me, I said. Apparently they don’t like to tell patients about the side effects out of concern that they won’t take the antibiotics prior to surgery.  While the bowel prep was successful it still wasn’t as clear and pristine as the colonoscopy prep and I was concerned about peritonitis. I mentioned this to my surgeon and he wasn’t alarmed at all. He said not to worry and that all would be well. They rolled me into the surgical room and all I could see was a bright white room with an array of large surgical lights above. I had to scoot from the gurney to the adjacent narrow operating table. The anesthesia began to flow and that was the last thing I recall before waking up in recovery.

I remember feeling pretty groggy in recovery, but it wasn’t too long before they moved me upstairs to my room. I made it too my room and began to settle in for the rest of the afternoon. They hooked me up to a patient controlled analgesia (PCA) pump with morphine and soon all was well. I used it sparingly since opiates decrease peristalsis (contractions of smooth muscle in the gastrointestinal tract that moves along its journey through the body). Abdominal surgery and especially gastrointestinal surgery also causes decreased peristalsis. This coupled with the use of opiates can cause traffic to come to a standstill. The nursing staff wanted me to get up and start moving around as soon as possible for two reasons: (1) to keep blood circulation flowing well so as to prevent blood clots from forming and (2) to help keep things moving in the GI tract. I was up and walking around this evening about 7:00 PM. I made a lap around the nurses station and it was back to bed. The nurses strapped compression sleeves on my legs to prevent blood clots from forming while I was in bed. My wife fixed up the chair next to my bed and we settled in for the night.