What are the steps after surgery?
The best time to focus on home recovery from an operation is before the operation. Before the operation, if you have time, it’s important to reduce (or preferably stop) cigarettes and alcohol, get fit and lose excess weight.
The hospital will give you instructions to avoid blood clots and wound infections, but there is much more to recovery. Here are some tips.
Journey home
Make arrangements for a safe and comfortable journey home. Ask a family member or friend to take you home by car, or book a taxi. Place a cushion under or over your affected area to keep it safe from a jerky ride.
Schedule for medicines
Understand your tablet regime. Go through this with the ward nurses or pharmacist before you leave hospital. If they are complicated, consider writing them out on a spreadsheet.
Painkillers
You will have some pain from the wound, and are likely to be prescribed some painkillers (like codeine). They should be taken them with a laxative; as constipation is a well known side effect of codeine, and all opiates. The laxative needs to be waiting beside your bed already at home, otherwise you will become constipated quite quickly. There are different laxatives, so you may need to ask a pharmacist.
Patients are especially likely to suffer from constipation after abdominal surgery. If that happens, as well as painkillers, eat more fibrous food, fruit and fluids; and start light physical activity.
Blood thinning drugs
After an operation, blood clots in the legs (deep vein thromboses, DVTs) or lungs (pulmonary emboli, PEs) are more likely. So you may be prescribed an injection of a drug called heparin (under the skin), to thin the blood.
This is given every day, for up to two weeks after the operation. If you (or a family) member do not feel able to do this, ask your GP to send a district nurse to your home. However most people can be trained quite easily to do them.
Take adequate sleep
You may feel dizzy and tired, and have may not slept well in hospital. This is normal after an operation and anaesthetic. Have patience. Things will become normal in due course. In the meantime, try to get back to your normal sleep pattern.
Wound infection
Draining yellow colour liquid from the wound in small quantities after the surgery is normal. If the drainage continues after 7 to 14 days, it may be a sign of wound infection – especially if there is redness around the incision, or you have a fever.
Physiotherapy
Physiotherapy advice is also often forgotten. For instance, after a hernia operation, it is important to do the pelvic floor muscles and basic abdominal contractions recommended for women after giving birth.
Postop checkup
Book a post-surgery checkup with your GP practice nurse, say two weeks after the operation. Or they can ask a district nurse or paramedic to visit you in your home.
However
There is still a lot of research to do, concerning recovery.
