What Happens on the Day of Surgery
Getting Prepared
On the day of your surgery, you should take a shower that morning, but avoid using anything like lotions, moisturizers, creams, or any makeup, including nail polish. Also, avoid wearing any jewelry.
You can wear your dentures, but just before surgery, you will have to remove them.
What Do You Bring to the Hospital?
Only take what you need to the hospital with you. Leave all jewelry at home and don’t bring any cash above $20. If a small item, like a photo, will help you to relax, bring it along
Here are more things that you can bring along with you to stay comfortable:
- Your binder and bariatric guide
- A small bag with a few toiletries like your toothbrush, shampoo, toothpaste, lotion, and soap
- Your glasses along with their case
- Storage cases for items like contact lenses, hearing aids, or dentures
- A clean bathrobe
- Lip balm
- Your address book so that you can call your loved ones
- Loose clothing that is comfortable to wear home. If they can easily be put on and taken office, those are the best types.
Hospital Pre-admitting Procedure
You will have to follow all of the hospital’s registration and pre-admission testing guidelines and instructions before your surgery. You will get specific instructions from us.
After you have registered and have checked into the hospital, you will need to change into a hospital gown and slippers that the hospital will give you. If you wear any corrective lenses, dentures, or hearing aids, you will have to remove them for your safety, so make sure you have a case for each of them.
Hospital personnel will ask you to sign a consent form before your surgery, even if you have already signed one in dr. mailapur’s office. When you sign, you are saying that someone has explained the surgery to you, and that you understand what it will do and that you no longer have questions about it.
Hospital personnel will measure your pulse, oxygen saturation, blood pressure, height, respiratory rate, temperature, and weight.
You will get an IV line in your arm. This will allow the surgical team to administer any medications and fluids into your blood. You might be administered a medication that allows you to relax.
Anesthesia
When you get general anesthesia, you will quickly go to sleep and will remain under your anesthesiologist’s care during the entire operation.
Some patients are afraid of the anesthesia. The anesthesiologist can give you an anxiolytic if necessary.
The monitoring system in the operating room recognizes any problems with the anesthesia immediately and can treat that problem. If there is the slightest change in your blood oxygen level, in the carbon dioxide in your breath when you breathe out, your blood pressure, or your heart rate, the anesthesiologist will know immediately. When you’re ready for surgery, your anesthesiologist will talk to you about its specific risks before you have surgery.
The Operating Room
When you go into the operating room, it’s a strange place for most people. The surgical team understands the nervousness that so many patients have when they are in that room and ready for surgery.
You will be attended by well-trained specialists who use the latest techniques and equipment. Your team will have one or more anesthesiologists board-certified, a physician assistant, one to two surgical assistants, a certified registered nurse anesthetist, and nurses who will assist the surgeon
After you have entered the OR, everyone will help you to feel more secure. You might walk to the operating room or be brought on a gurney. Your chart will then be reviewed by the nurses who are there to assist the surgeon.
You will be settled onto the operating table and be connected to monitors. You will get a sedative through your IV that will immediately work after you have breathed in oxygen for several minutes. After you have been put to sleep, the anesthesiologist will take an endotracheal tube and slip it into your mouth and down into your windpipe to make sure that your breathing is obstruction-free. Other medications and anesthetic gas will then be administered to make sure you stay asleep and out of pain. While this is happening, you will be connected to monitoring devices by your anesthesiologist.
Your surgery time will vary, with most falling between 30 minutes and one hour, depending on the surgery type, whether there are any extra procedures necessary, and how difficult it is to find space to work within the abdomen.
After your surgery is finished, your dressings will be placed, and you will be taken to a room to recover.
