Life after RNY: the 1st month

Post-op bruising, 4 weeks out.

Just a small warning for my more sensitive readers: this post contains a frank description of the first month of recovery from my laproscopic RNY gastric bypass surgery, as well as photos of an open surgical site infection. This is also a very long post because, well, I'm long winded. Proceed with caution.

It's now been a little more than 2 months since I had weight loss surgery. I'm finally (FINALLY!) feeling back to normal. I can now say that I am so glad I did this. If you'd asked me last month, I would've burst into tears and told you it was my biggest regret to date.
Although I had taken the time to really research what RNY was all about, and had talked with many people about their experiences with WLS (weight loss surgery), nothing could truly prepare me for the way my body reacted. I was lucky to be able to have the surgery done laproscopically, and was told to expect a 3 night hospital stay afterwards.
The morning of my surgery, I was a nervous wreck. Having a highly unreliable home scale, I had no idea if I had made my pre-op weight loss goals. I worried that we'd get to the perioperative center and find out I was still too heavy for surgery. When I got on that scale for the last time as a pre-op, I was equally thrilled and terrified that I made it. The nurse got me into my oh so fashionable gown, took my vitals, and then it was time to speak to the anesthesiologist. After that, then my surgeon and clinical coordinator came to in to see me before I was brought back to the OR. At that point, I said good bye to my husband, our children, and my mother. I have to admit that I was so very afraid of dying on the table.
Once in the OR and situated on the table, my fear really amped up. I kept telling myself, "There's no going back now.". I had never been put under general anesthesia before, and that weighed on me. I'm so grateful that K, the clinical coordinator, stayed with me, holding my hand and reassuring me as the mask came down. It made a scary moment much easier to bear. I barely remember waking up in the recovery area of the perioperative center. It's all a little fuzzy to me. In fact, that whole first day is not too clear. Morphine will do that to a person.
My hospital stay was relatively uneventful. I did end up being kept 2 extra days due to tachycardia. I had 6 incisions, creating a rough circle on my belly. 2 days after discharge, I was back in the ER. I was pretty sure that it was just my asthma acting up, but my surgeon wanted to make sure that it wasn't a pulmonary embolism or something else just as serious. While I was there, I found out that one of the 6 incisions had become infected. This was actually my biggest post-op fear. The idea of having an open wound freaked me out. The ER doctor numbed up the area, re-opened it, irrigated and packed it with gauze. As for me, I cried like a baby.
Being home from surgery was so very much harder than I thought it would be. I had massive bruising all over my belly. I was sent home on a 2 week course of Lovenox, a blood thinner injection. The shots left huge lumps under my skin. I could not bend, or move really well due to the pain. I'm normally a very fastidious kind of person when it comes to personal hygiene and self-care. That all went out the window in the first 3 weeks post-op. The pain was too much for me to lift my belly and wash under it well in the shower. It also made cleaning up after a toilet trip near impossible. I would've been lost without Mr. P. during that. He helped wipe me clean and never said a negative word about it until I was back on my feet. The day I triumphantly announced that I took care of it myself, he said, "Thank God that's over!".
One thing I was not prepared for was just how exhausted I was. I spent far more time napping than I ever had before. I couldn't do much without feeling like I just wanted to go to sleep. I was also surprised at just how painful it all was. I can honestly say that between the surgery itself, the wound infection, and the horrid gas pains, there are times I thought I would just pass out. I spent most of October on liquid morphine.
The wound infection was possibly the one of the worst things I've gone through emotionally. For the first 2 weeks, it needed daily irrigation and packing. After that, it became twice daily. Luckily, my mother is a LPN and did my wound care instead of a visiting nurse. Thank God because my daily hysterics would've gotten on a stranger's nerves really fast.

The packing gauze after removal, at 4 weeks out.

I should've known better than to look at it each time. Really. But curiosity got the better of me and I did look. Then cried. Then apologized for crying, and cried some more.

"Hello! I'm here to gross you out!"

For the first 2 weeks or so, I could not walk upright without supporting it with my hand. I felt like my innards were going to fall out.

Freshly packed, and looking like a bow. I wear bow ties now. Bow ties are cool.

I give my mom credit for dealing with the whole thing. Although she never said so, I suspect the tears and drama were getting to her by the time it was all healed up.

All bandaged up for another night.

That first month out was rough. At least once a day, I would wonder just what I had done to myself. Buyer's remorse really stinks when you can't reverse it even if you truly wanted to. I struggled with food aversions, pain, exhaustion, and a lot of self-doubt. My motto became "you can't go back and change it; you can only go forward from here". Even knowing just how bad those early days would be, I'd do it all over in a heartbeat. Each little victory along the way has been so worth it.

Me, Tank, and the Princess. Halloween night, same day as the packing photos.