EGD-Day

Today was the day I’d been SO nervous about- my first experience with anesthesia.

Obviously everything turned out ok because I’m sitting at home and typing this blog post. No adverse reactions. No breathing tubes down my throat. Nothing! Esophagogastroduodenoscopy, or EGDs, are necessary pre-sleeve to ensure everything looks typical in your stomach. They are looking for any abnormalities like hernias or cancer. Thankfully, they found nothing- collective sigh of relief. Surgery should still be scheduled for the 20th, as planned.

In preparation for today’s test, I was required to stop all food/liquid at midnight and not use any nicotine products for 24 hours in advance. Everything was as expected until I woke up with unbelievable cotton mouth. I really, really, really love drinking water. I have a hot pink blender bottle that I use daily and refill constantly. It was SO bizarre to not wake up and chug water… you know, my normal routine.

Anyway, we arrived at the medical center at 10:00 for my 10:30 appointment. As things often do, they ran late. I think I was finally wheeled back to the OR a little past noon. Thankfully, Alex was able to wait with me until the doctor arrived and took me back! 

When they’d taken me back to the OR, they asked the same few questions again- name, birthday and what procedure I was having done. The last thing I remember was joking with them about the Z my first name and then boom, lights out. Next thing I remember was being wheeled out and asking the nurses what color I should paint the study… the study that we don’t have. Who knows what other stuff I said while I was ultra loopy. I was very sure I’d had the colors narrowed down and none of them would tell me what colors they liked best. I was irritated because I couldn’t get an opinion from them and then realized it was ME asking about colors to paint the study and that we don’t even HAVE a study! From that point, the groggy feeling wore off and it was just a waiting game to be cleared by anesthesia to leave. About 30 minutes later I was free to go!

We had a fabulous soup lunch at Panera and I came home and napped. My throat is a tiny bit sore but aside from that, I feel great. Much, much less scary than I’d anticipated. I think we always brace for the worst.

7 days until my liquid diet starts and 21 days until surgery. Not that I’m counting down or anything. 🙂
-Alee

Testing 1, 2, 3

Tomorrow is my first official pre-op test! It’s getting real!

It’s still shocking to me that all of this is happening so quickly. The next two week will include 4 tests and 2 classes. Tomorrow is the easy one- the chest x-ray. Tuesday will be full of more tests and classes. The 29th is the EGD.

This is where I get nervous. Not because I’m afraid they’ll tell me I’ve got a hernia or that the doctors will judge me for all the gum I swallowed when I was 10. I’m nervous because of all the YouTube videos of people saying stupid stuff post-anesthesia. I’ve never really been a deep-dark-secrets kinda gal. My life is an open book, honestly! I have no idea what I’m afraid I’ll jabber on about. Hopefully it’ll be about how handsome I think my husband is or how I just really miss the dogs. I have no idea what to expect.

I don’t feel nervous at all about undergoing anesthesia for my sleeve because I’ll have already done it once (although, the first time will be more mild). Not knowing is the worst. I can’t imagine what I’d say to actually embarrass myself. My husband is taking me to have the test done and then bringing me home afterwards. We talk about everything from weird bowel movements the dogs had to having the other pop an unreachable back zit. I can’t fathom what in the world I’d say or do that would be legitimately embarrassing, yet- here I am.

If anything, I just hope it makes for a funny story I can tell y’all later.
-Alee