Having surgery can be scary experience, especially if you are having it for the first time. One way to make it seem a little less scary is to get all the facts ahead of time and find out exactly what you are in for. By this I mean not only what the actual surgery will be and what symptoms It's expected to alleviate but also what you can expect before the surgery and in recovery afterwards both in the hospital and at home.

Preparing For Surgery

Once you know that you are going to have surgery, it's in your best interest to prepare your body for the most expedient recovery possible. This means that, if you do smoke, you should stop smoking immediately. You should also start eating a healthy diet with lots of raw organic fruits and vegetables try to stay away from that red meats and desserts any added an antioxidant multivitamin to your daily routine. This will help build up your immune system and will help to give you an easier recovery as well as help your body resist infection from the surgery.

Review all your medicines with your doctor so that he or she can tell you if you should keep taking them or not before your operation. Some medicines like blood thinners will need to be tapered off before your surgery. In some cases your doctor may prescribe new medicines that who want you to start taking prior to the surgery.

Surgery Day

You'll probably get instructions from the hospital telling you what to do and most likely that will include not eating after midnight and the time schedule like you need to show up for before your surgery.

Wear comfortable clothing and leave your jewelry and valuable items at home. You probably be spending a lot of time filling out forms and don't forget to bring insurance card.

Shortly before your operation you be taken down to preop where any number of things may happen. Typically, you will be asked to put on special down and Catherine and to remove jewelry, contacts, hear pieces, hearing aids, dentures, barrettes and even to remove your nail polish. You may be given a laxative or enema and your body will be shaved at the site of the surgery. You may be given an IV line to help administer fluids during and after the surgery. A catheter may be put into drain your urine. Finally, you will be wheeled into a semiprivate area where you'll wait until the operating room and surgical team is ready to begin.

The Operating Room

you probably won't remember too much about the operating room since you will be given anesthesia as soon as you get in there. You will be moved to the operating table and hooked up to monitors. If you're getting general anesthesia you'll be unconscious and you won't know anything more until you wake up in the recovery room. If you're only getting local anesthesia then you will in effect be awake for the whole thing, but you may be given a pill to relax you and keep you're anxiety down.

Recovery

After surgery you'll be moved into recovery area, depending on how severe your surgery was you could be in ICU with one nurse looking over you or in a less intense area where your nurse has many patients. Depending on how you cut recovery progresses you may only be there for an hour or you could be there for days after which you be moved to a regular room

Expect to feel very weak after your operation for the first couple of days. The nurses will try to get you up and around as soon as possible to its eat your recovery. although you may not want to, the sooner you start moving around the sooner you will recover and be able to get out of the hospital.

At Home

When you are released from the hospital, it may feel like you're getting out of jail but you still may be a little weak and in some pain. Follow your doctor's instructions and take the pills he prescribes and you will find that each day you get stronger and feel better.