On Thursday I had my most recent VSG appointment.  The appointment was originally supposed to be with the surgeon Dr. Mo, but he wound up needing to be in surgery, so I met with his awesome Physicans Assistant (PA) Tiffany.  Tiffany is amazing.  She’s perky, she’s helpful, knowledgeable, and most of all empathetic.  I had a slew of questions for Tiffany, and she answered them all.  The ones that I can remember are below.

• I am prone to becoming nauseous, can we prevent that?  Let the anesthesiologist know, they will do whatever they can to prevent the nausea.
• I am prone to UTI’s, will I have a catheter?  Yes I will have one.  I can plead my case with Dr. Mo on the day of surgery and try to talk him into taking it out prior to me waking up from anesthesia.  I think the catheter and the tube they put down your throat scare me more than anything!
• I have a fairly high pain tolerance, but shockingly would much prefer as little pain as possible, what can we do to help that?  Dr. Mo uses a “narcotics ball” which is a ball of narcotics that hangs out of your stomach that is connected to your insides via a small tube.  It basically feeds pain meds to the area that has been traumatized for 5 days.  So now I know I’ll have a drain and a narcotics ball hanging out of my stomach for about a week….yay?  I was told no matter what, do not pull the narcotics ball out before the first 5 days are up or I’ll greatly regret it!  I will be listening to the doctor on this one
• Will they be using staples/glue/stitches to seal me up.  I was told I’d have stitches and glue.  The stitches will be internal, the glue on top.  The glue also creates a water proof barrier between my incisions and the world.

I was given my “orders” which included what tests are still required, orders for my blood work, x-rays, and EKG.  Currently my surgery is tentatively scheduled for 1PM on August 22nd.  I will have to check in at 11:30AM and no eating before surgery other than clear liquids.