Hi guys,
Its finally over! I guess I am now one of those guys who gets to tell their story for the hope that it will help someone else who is thinking about the surgery. I will try to give as much detail as I can remember.
I finally got my surgery (excision and lypo) yesterday on 11/4. I was scheduled for 1pm surgery and had to show up at 12pm. It kind of sucked because they had told me not to eat anything from 12am the night before but technically the last time I had ate was 8pm the night before when I had my dinner so I was really hungry! By the way for those who didn’t know this drinking any fluids or chewing gum is somehow still considered eating! So I get to the surgery center a little before 12 and they have me fill out these paper work and sign couple of places. Also for some odd reasons I was asked for my birth date like 6 times by different people so make sure you know your birthday!
So I finish the paper work and sit in the waiting room with my mom. At exactly 12pm a nurse comes out and calls my name (my luck it was a guy nurse but really nice!) as it turned out the guy had a gyno surgery like 10 years ago also but he said he only had done lypo. So the nurse gets my moms phone number and said that she can go home and they will call her when I am in the recovery room.
So he takes me to this room with a bed and a TV and he starts taking my vitals and asking me how much I weigh and how tall I am and just small talks. They he goes over my blood work that I had done at the same place three days before and he said that they usually check for whit blood count to see if you have any kind of infections and how you would recover from the anesthesia and from what he could tell everything looked fine. Then comes this other nurse with a gown and some pills and she tells me to take the pills which will help with the nausea (it was a small white and yellow pills if it makes a difference). So I take the pills with some water (odd that it was ok for me to drink right before the surgery) and then the guy nurse asks me to undress everything and put the gown on. Now I guess I should have known after reading so many of you guys experiences but I was not expecting to take off my underwear and everything but they do incase you were wondering. It was a little weird because both of the nurses were still in the room and I didn’t know if they were going to leave or what so I started to undress and then they were like just open that door back up when you are done so I got the hint that im suppose to wait until they are gone with my pants down to my knees.
So I get changed into this gown and open the door back up and the lady nurse comes back with two worm blankets (it was freezing in the room) and lay me down on the bed. It’s a really weird feeling not having anything underneath this flapping gown. But I just pulled the blanket on top of me to cover myself and it was all good!
There was a slight difference between what I got done and what you guys will most likely get done. Aside from the gyne surgery I decided while I was at it I would remove these three little bumps (benign fatty tumors) on my left and right forearms as well. What I hadn’t thought of was that’s exactly where they needed to put the IV and since they needed plenty of room around that area IV in my arm was out of the question. So six different nurses came in the room to look at the area and try to find a good place to stick me and each had a different thought (not to mention each one asked for my birth date every time they would walk in) so it was finally decided that they will stick me in my hand and put me to sleep and once I am out they will put the another IV in my foot and remove the hand one. They said it is probably safer to wait for the anesthesia to come in (who was with my plastic surgeon in another surgery that was running late before me). So after waiting for like an HOUR in the room watching TV. Finally both doctors show up and apologize for running late and I told them it was fine because I wasn’t going anywhere and then he decides that he should just put the IV IN MY FREAKING NECK! The most painful part of the deal! Also they told me that they will need to shave my arms and my chest once im under which I couldn’t care less what they do when I was out. I cant really tell because im covered with bandages.
So after they stick me in my neck and tell me that I can relax and move my neck (like that was happening) my PS surgeon shows up and decides that he needs to mark the area for excision while I have an IV stuck in my neck…. I will spare you the details but it was not pretty! So he asks me if I had any questions and since I wanted to get it over with I said no and forgot the question I wanted to ask which was for how long do I have to sleep on my back at nights, which I am hoping someone here can answer me now?
So the doc walks out of the room and the anes. Doc comes back in with my cocktail and he injects it into the IV and tells me to lay back and let it work its magic. The last thing that I remember was the nurse was putting these sticky sensor deals all around my chest to monitor my vitals and they unlocked the bed and pushed me out towards the surgery room and I was out cold. Some people say you feel a worm fluid coming up your arm and get a funky taste in your mouth but probably since I had it in my neck I didn’t feel a thing!
About 3 hours later I woke up in the recovery room (took a bit longer because they had to remove those other stuff too). People have different reactions when they come out of sedation but I guess I was one of the lucky ones because they said when I woke up I was smiling and saying are we done yet!
I was a little stiff because the doc had put my compression vest under my gown while I was under so it felt kind of weird. They gave me couple glasses of apple juice and crackers so I could take couple vicodins and I sat there for what seemed like 30 minutes making small talk with the nurse and then they rolled me into the original room where I was in to begin with where my mom was waiting for me. The doctor has talked to her and let her know all the details and that everything went well and I stayed in the room for maybe another 30 minutes and the nurse gave me post op instructions and got my phone number to call on Monday to see how im doing. And then he brought in my clothes and closed the door for me to get dressed. Once again kind of awkward because my mom had to help me get dressed so make sure you go with someone who you are comfortable with seeing you buck naked!  Then after I got dressed he sat me on a wheel chair, took my vitals one last time, signed some paper work and rolled me out to the car and I was on my way home.
The ride home was a little bumpy and I think the pain meds hadn’t taken effect yet cuz it was a little rough but once I got home I ate some soup that my mom had made, took some more meds and I was sound asleep. Well that was until I woke up in the middle of the night and couldn’t fall back to sleep because I am not used to sleeping on my back.
This morning I took couple of vicodins too because I have a really low thresh hold for pain so I don’t want to wait until I have pain to take them. Maybe starting tomorrow I will do that but in all honesty I am not in very much pain. If I didn’t have the lumps removed from my arm things would have been so much easier because I would have been able to pick stuff up and get dressed and undressed easier by myself. As of right now getting dressed and getting out of the bed seems to be the most difficult part!
I have some pre-op photos that I will post as soon as I get some post ops as well. Feel free to let me know if you have any questions while things are still fresh on my mind. By the way the PS fee was $3035 anesthesia doctor was 1050 and facility fees were $1000. Well worth the money if my chest if flat once I go in for post-op on Tuesday and the doc takes the bandages off. Right now I have no idea how it looks with all the pads and compression vest.
Tom
Topic: Dr. Fredrick Duffy - Dallas, TX (Read 3214 times)
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