LSH: A good nights rest at the hospital????

Hello Ladies. I am scheduled for a LSH (think I am using the correct letters there) on May 25, 2011. I am soooooo looking forward to the day. I have spent many, many years with miserable, heavy and painful periods and that has ramped up 10 fold in the past couple of years. I unfortunately have to endure one more go round between now and my surgery, but at least this time I go into it with Vicodin instead of just over the counter stuff which doesn't touch the pain.

So here is my concern about my upcoming surgery......it is the overnight hospital stay. I have Multiple Sclerosis and part of my symptoms/issues MS wise are a very big difficulty in sleeping. I can be exhausted, but not sleepy. In order to sleep I need a very quiet room and it needs to be really dark, like the closer to black the better.

The problems have lead to my husband sleeping in a different room because between his snoring and getting up at night to pee I would be awake most of the night. The surgery it's self is not a worry at all to me. I am dreading being trapped in the hospital, unable to sleep and exhausted and desperate for sleep until my husband comes to pick me up the next day. I have heard people with no issues sleeping talking about having to go home from the hospital to get rest so I figure it will be way worse for me :-(

Just to make it clear, stuff like having a series of long and difficult days can have a really big impact on my health. This isn't just a "oh you can go home and get rest and be fine" sort of a deal. It is actually one of the reasons for having the surgery. I have enough health related problems as it is, doing the period problems on top of the MS ones just makes it unbearable.

Don't know if anyone will have any words of wisdom or if this was just my chance to rant and express my concerns. Hopefully they are unfounded, but somehow I doubt it.

Can you let your doctor know so he can give you something to sleep that night? I don't know if that is a good idea right after surgery but it doesn't hurt to ask your doctor.

Hi JKD,

I do not have MS, but I did just have my surgery on the 2nd. One thing I noticed at the hospital I was in was they had nurses and a team of 2 techs. The techs are there to help you, but that is 3 people in and out. Maybe you can request that they keep the traffic down as much as possible due to the circumstances surrounding your situation. Also, just thought, a friend gave me eye shades, totally didn't think I would use them but I did and they worked, totally dark room. It sounds like you have the right attitude, I wish you a fast recovery and look forward to hearing your progress..best of luck to you

How about eye shade plus earplugs? You'll probably need pain meds during the night so you may wake anyway, sad to say. Or could you arrange it as day surgery? LSH can be day surgery so that may be an option. In fact that might work best for you. If not, ask for a quiet room, and for staff to give you certain hrs "quiet time" when they stay out. Just be sure you have your call light first. Good luck, and best wishes for your surgery.

The eye shades and ear plugs would drive me crazy, would be worse then not having them. I would love to do it as a day surgery, but my doctor does not and more importantly, my husband really doesn't want me home that soon after surgery. I think if I didn't have the MS and issues with balance, dizziness, spasticity, on a normal day he might be a bit more open to the idea. I don't blame him.

I am actually looking forward to not having to get up to pee during the night (I intend to have them leave my cath in overnight because of MS related bladder problems that I have.

I will add to my list of questions for my doctor what can be done to make my overnight stay a bit less miserable, hopefully she will have some good ideas that will help.

Hi JK, I wouldn't worry too much about the sleeping. Remember that you'll still be in a (hopefully lovely) anesthesia haze, and that will help you sleep despite the comings and goings of the nurses and techs (and omg, med students!). I have chronic insomnia, yet was able to sleep fairly well during my overnight stay.

Well I had my surgery on May 25, came home mid afternoon today (26th). They removed my uterus, were able to leave both ovaries (YEAH!)
, two fibroids, one of which they already knew about and one that was even larger but had remained hidden and they removed a bunch of endo. I apparently had retrograde blood in my abdomen, a lot of it.

I am blown away by how HUGE my stomach is, but pleased at how fairly mild my discomfort is. They gave me Dilaudid in the hospital. The first pill was around eleven and it knocked me out pretty solidly. The nurse came in four times until about 4 when they came in to pull the cath (which I wish they would have waited longer per the doctors orders). Anyway I never woke up for any of her 4 visits it had me that knocked out.

So she was not wanting me that out of it and asked if I had ever had Oxy. I said I hadn't, but asked if we could halve the stuff that they gave me. That seemed to do the trick. It took care of the pain well enough and allowed me sleep, but not be almost comatose.

A bit later in the AM they give me two stool softeners-BIG mistake. I now have screaming diarrhea and cannot get any rest because I am rushing to the bathroom a lot. Plus my backside is now feeling raw and sore from all the wiping. Thankfully I have some of those extra soft tissue with the lotion on them and I am wrapping that around the toilet paper which is helping.

I look at my meds list and directions for the stool softener say a total of 2 per day, morning and night. I get the feeling that either this nurse mis-read the chart or took it upon herself to be certain that I wasn't constipated. She insisted that the cath come out in the middle of the night, in spite of my MS related issues which meant I was getting out of bed over and over again for the rest of my stay:-(

They ended up re-setting my IV in the OR after I was done. The nurse that put it in had a heck of a time doing it, which has never happened before and it hurt like a son of a gun while she was doing it. After it was in for about 20 minutes my arm ached all the way up above my elbow. I told the doctor was doing the anesthesia about this and he assured me that they would change it to a different location. Woke up with it in a different (and better) location and all was right with the world.

Hubby seemed to find every pot hole and bump in the road on the way home, but I made it. I feel sorry for the dogs, especially my Anatolian Shepherd Dog pup Tre who is training to be my service dog. He is still very much a baby and wants to sort of greet me by waving his feet so he can only come give his mommy puppy loves when I am sitting in my computer desk with my husband holding him back. Poor fellow doesn't understand that mommy is in no condition to have a 60 lb puppy in her lap at this point.

Thank you all for all the pre-op help and support. Now to switch over to the post op side and ask my next group of questions.