Some ?'s for Before & After...

I also ordered a t-shirt to go with my tinkerbell pants, and a pair of cute pj's from jcpenney.com. They are having a pretty good sale. (Shutterbug - are we frugal instead of cheap, maybe? or thrifty??) I figure if we are going through this, we should at least get new, cute pj's out of it, right?
This way, I'll have 2 "good" sets of pj's, for the ride home, when people show up to visit, etc. The tinkerbell pants are so cute, I figure I can wear them in public for short trips out soon after surgery. Like to visit work, they've seen me at 630am when I've only been awake for less than an hour.....I don't think it matters if I go wandering in there in pj's.
And, when this is all over, and I'm feeling like spending some time at the computer, I'm going online shopping and buying a bunch of cute underwear, that I can actually wear more than a few days out of the month!!!!!

Thanks for all the helpful hints......less than 2 days away for me.........

Frugal or thrifty works for me! I feel the same way about getting cute new pj's. Me and hubby like to lounge around in ours alot anyway and watch movies and stuff. And cute undies are a must.....after this ordeal we all deserve a little "me" stuff!

I had the LSH on 9/12/05. I wore the catheter for just under 24 hours since my doc wouldn't let me leave until I could pee a certain amount by myself. I was there for a long time waiting to be able to do that. I drank water some, but since my throat was so irritated (breathing tube popped out during surgery), I drank more tea than anything else. I was first able to shower in the hospital just after the doctor's visit, then daily at home starting the day after I arrived. Reaching "back there" was hard with my big belly, and stretching around that monster was not an option. So I used one of those poofy wash things on a stick. Invaluable! I also have a hand-held shower which helped loads too.

I wore a big dress to the hospital, and I am SO glad that I did. No waist-bands! Those little stab marks will be awfully sore when you are done, so even jammey pants will almost make you want to say curse words. For a couple of weeks, I was really sore at that area just above my vagina and below my stomach. I assume that was cervical pain. It hurt to have even a loose-fitting waist band touch the incisions or ride below my stomach, so I wore lounging robes and those galabeya dresses (do an E-Bay search to see what they look like) while I was home, and no-waist-line dresses when I went out.

Don't forget your belly pillow. That thing is a life-saver! I got one from the hospital because I forgot to pick one up. Oh, and start taking stool softeners, Phazyme or Gas-X, and a mild laxative as soon as you can tolerate it (preferably right after surgery and recovery). That gas will kick your behind! And you'll feel it in the darndest places (like your shoulders and eye sockets), especially when you lay down. It took me 6 days to be able to go #2 when I got home, and another 8 days to go again. I think that the sooner you start taking that stuff, the better off you are. Make sure that your ready-meals include the things will wake up those sleepy bowels too. My doctor recommended dried fruit, but that didn't really work for me. Now a good stiff cup of prune juice with some Metamucil stirred in will get the old wheels moving for sure! Have it waiting at your house if you don't already.

Make sure that you have plenty of good books, knitting, crochet, or whatever you like to do right at hand. You really do need to rest at least 4 weeks. You won't feel like you need that much until just after you over-do it. Your goal is to ditch the pain meds ASAP since those little boogers cause constipation. I stopped them at 7 days post-op, but found them again when I had to have a particularly difficult exam to check on a possibly busted stitch. What works best for me is Advil Liqui-Gels. They took care of the pain without leaving me feeling as insane as I was on those pain meds. Oh, and you may experience some insanity anyway. Something about the hormones goes wacky, causing you to lose your mind - even if you keep your cervix and ovaries (which I also did).

Hope this helps!

I have never had a catheter until this surgery, and it was a bit of worry for me. I told my Dr that i wanted it out asap after surgery if it was bothering me. He wrote the order that I could have it out 6 hours post upon request, after I had gotten out of bed once with no problems. The cath drove me nuts! So, it was out about 8 hours later.