What do hospitals do anymore????

Hi. I agree with Missdawn.

I would mention the shaving thing to your doc. I asked my doc if I could shave and she said no. She said they will do it just before surgery. Something about keeping the bacteria count low to avoid infection.

How about asking yourself, " if I don't do this what is the worse thing that will happen?"


They will do it for you and...... all is well.

Hey, like she said, what's the worst that could happen? You wake up shaved! No problem. It's just hair. I woke up with everything shaved, front to back, inside and everything. Even around the anus. No nicks. And it wasn't shaved skin close, either. It was left a quarter of an inch long.

Funny thing is, in pre-op they shaved the very top, about an inch off. I thought, wow, that's cool. But I had a tummy tuck, abdominal hyst and posterior repair. So two different teams worked on me and I was re-positioned during surgery. So two different shaving requirements.

Common sense would leave me to conclude that THEY should be the ones shaving, since THEY require no hair. I would never attempt to shave myself before surgery, I would end up going in with 15 bandaids down there!!! If my husband shaved me, I'd end up with 30!!!

The bandaid visualization is waaaay funny! See the Op Room staff's stricken looks...........

I suggest if you dont like the instructions the hospital gave you, call your surgeon, he or she is the one who gives the hospital pre-op the written orders. It is your docs orders pre- surg. not the hospitals. hospital staff cannott make those decisions, only your doctor can, its called a doctors order. I guarentee every surg. in that hospital who does hysterectomies gives totaaly different orders pre and post op. its just the way they operate in hospitals. So if your angry, dont be angry at the hospital, give your surgeon a call. best of luck, carol

Please don't just not do the enema in the hope that the hospital staff will do it for you. If you don't do it and come to the hospital without proper prep, it's quite likely your surgery will be cancelled and rescheduled at a later date. OR schedules don't allow time for the staff to stop in order to do bowel preps. If the patient is told to do it at home (which is a much more pleasant place to be...trust me) and does not, we've canceled surgeries because of it.

As for shaving, yeah, sure, the OR staff will shave you. But the person who does this may be an OR tech who is male. You do this at your own risk. Again, the vast majority of women prefer to do that themselves. As for nicks and infection, the area is completely scrubbed with antibiotic soap before the procedure; the risk of infection is very minimal.

The reason you do these procedures at home is because of time and financial constraints. If you want to pay for the hospital staff to administer an enema and shave you, you can arrange for an overnight stay the night before your surgery, but your insurance company won't pay for it because those services can be done at home by the patient.