Monday, January 22, 2007

Survivors Guide to VNS: Part 5 – Pre-Surgery Shopping

Before you have your surgery, there are a number of items you should purchase to make your post-surgery life a bit easier.

Pain medications
Have your doctor give you prescriptions for your pain meds. Pick them up the day before surgery so that you wont have to go out to get them or pick them up on the way back home from surgery.

Phenegran
General anesthesia tends to make people nauseous. It definitely did me. From first hand experience, throwing up everything in your system is not fun after just having surgery. Get the phenegran before you have surgery.

Lozenges
If you have a breathing tube in your throat while under general anethesia, your throat is going to hurt. Go ahead and get your throat lozenges. Any menthol based lozenge will help, but my favorite is Ricola!

Pillows
For a few weeks, you are going to be sleeping in strange positions in order to avoid pressing on your fresh wounds. Many people on the VNS Message Board recommend those beanie pillows. I ended up just mixing and matching pillows from around the house. In any case, make sure you have a bunch, and of different sizes.

Sick Food
Get a bunch of that food you eat when you have a cold. Crackers, chicken noodle soup, Sprite, yada yada… You really won’t feel like steak and potatoes for a few days.

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