OT - Questions for surgery veterans

[Guest guest]

My big day is September 22 (unless my surgeon's wife goes into labor around

then). I'll be getting my ileocecal valve (with a little extra on each side)

removed laproscopically. I have lots of questions for those of you who have been

through this:

Do they put the NG tube and urinary catheter in after they have put you under?

When did they take them out?

How did you feel when you first woke up? Was there a lot of pain, or were you

sufficiently drugged up?

How was your pain managed? Was it effective?

Did you have an epidural? Would you do it/not do it again?

How long did you have to stay in bed? Did you sleep a lot, or were you awake

most of the day?

When did you first eat/drink?

When did you go back to eating normal food? How long should I avoid nut butter?

Do they always put a drain in, or only in certain cases?

How many incisions did you have (for laproscopic surgery)? How big were the

incisions?

I had my gallbladder removed laproscopically. How much worse is a resection?

Also, when I had my gallbladder out, they put a super annoying " airbag " type

device on my legs to prevent blood clots. Do they still do this?

How will this affect bowel movements? Does the body adjust to not having the

ileocecal valve and go back to normal BMs?

I've read chewing gum works well for waking up the bowels. What is the SCD

alternative?

The prep day instructions say I can have cranberry juice and grape juice. Is

that right? I always thought you probably had to avoid red/purple type drinks

when doing a clean out for bowel surgery.

I'm doing a Mirilax prep, and it says to mix with Gatorade. What is a good SCD

alternative?

Do you have any helpful suggestions for getting through all of this as smoothly

as possible?

That's all I can think of for now. Wish I had come up with my list of questions

BEFORE I saw the surgeon. Thank you for any info you can give!

Holly

Crohn's

SCD 12/01/08