About 10 days ago, I went for my peritoneal catheter placement. The word catheter sounds scary, I know. I have watched enough Greys Anatomy to know that they use a catheter when you can’t urinate.  LUCKILY this is not the case with the peritoneal dialysis. Your catheter is placed in your stomach. I am not going to get into details about it. Mayo Clinic has a great section dedicated to peritoneal dialysis with all the information you need. Maybe one day I will write about the why and how but for now, read about it here.

My operation was scheduled for 9 December 2016 at 8AM. I had to stop eating the night before as I had to have an empty stomach the day of the operation. If you know me, you will know how hilarious this is. I love eating. So this was probably the most tough part of this situation LOL.  The day of the operation came and I had to be at the hospital (Vincent Palotti in Cape Town) at 6:30AM. There were a lot of pre-op questions that the nurses needed answered to care for me once my operation was complete. By the time it was 8AM, I hadn’t gone in to the pre-op area as the doctors were running late due to the weather (trust Cape Town to start pouring with rain on a random Friday). I was taken into the surgery area at about 9:30AM. All I remember was chatting to my surgeon and my anesthesiologist about the size of the hospital bed and next thing I knew I was awake and chatting to my sister.

The surgery only took about 45 minutes but I only woke up properly at about 2PM. Apparently I had woken up a few times in between, crying and asking for bananas (like I said, food is always on my mind LOL). I don’t remember this but my siser loves telling the story of how I went slightly crazy in my sleep due to the anesthetic.

So here’s the not so fun part. As soon as I woke up properly, the nausea hit me. Throwing up is difficult. Throwing up when you have had surgery on your stomach is even harder. The cut pains every time you heave. I threw up twice before I felt ok. Getting out of bed was a bit difficult but still manageable. The cut hurt but it was not unbearable. They also give you really good painkillers so you should be fine.

The rest of the weekend I was nauseous and tired due to my medication. I basically ate porridge and fruit for three days because I couldn’t stomach anything else. Sneezing was painful. Every time I sneezed, I felt it in my stomach. It was not ideal.

That being said,  the operation was not as bad as I thought it would be. It was quick and the healing process wasn’t too bad. I went to hospital on Friday and I was driving by Tuesday.

I will be writing another blog post on my post op experience 🙂

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