You’ve had your surgery, you’re in recovery, the hospital is giving you the best pain killers now what?

So, those painkillers don’t last forever and while your pain will be well managed in the hospital, you will need to go home at some point and these are my tips for when that happens.

Getting around:

1. Breathe: Take big deep breathes to stretch your diaphragm, breathe through the pain.
2. Move: Move from side to side to stretch the belly and take small walks. I made a point to use the loo on the other side of the house as opposed to the ensuite
3. Use the bed: When you’re in the hospital and need to get off the bed, raise the backrest to the highest it can go, dangle your legs off the bed, push your pillow into your abdomen and then get up
4. At home: When you’re at home,  I recommend sleeping on two pillows to elevate yourself. Then put a firm pillow on either side of your body, that way if you want to roll over onto your side, you can put your leg on the pillow. That will stop your tummy from stretching/hurting. Then in the gap between your pillow and belly, I put a hot water bottle there. The heat definitely assists with the pain.
5. Getting up: At home, when you need to get up, I would roll onto my side, lift myself up with my elbows, dangle my feet off the bed, push a pillow into my tummy and then get up.
6. Getting home: I recommend taking a pillow in the car with you for the ride home, to press into your belly, to absorb some of the shock of the drive.
7. Rest: Other than that, take your pain pills, drink water to flush the anesthetic out of your system and rest as this will all aid in your recovery.

What else you need to know:

1. I drank lots of peppermint tea to reduce inflammation
2. I added a bit of Tumeric to my meals to reduce inflammation
3. I drank energade for the electrolites
4. I sipped on chicken soup, filled with all the good stuff
5. You can’t shower, so I gave myself little sponge baths, that wasn’t too bad
6. I would sweat a lot at night, apparently, that’s a natural response to the inflammation and pain in your abdomen

If you are a marketing brand, looking to do a partnership/sponsorship with a hospital, this is where I recommend you start.

1. Paint: Let’s give these hospitals a lick of paint, the beige walls are so dull
2. TV’s: The small, hunchback TV’s that don’t work anymore are so 2010.
3. Eye patches: Hospitals are bright and it’s difficult to sleep, an eye patch would go a long way
4. Earplugs: Hospitals are loud / you could have a neighbour that snores so earplugs help a lot too
5. A wifi hotspot/cell phone charging station so you can download movies/podcasts/music
6. Earphones: To listen to those movies/podcasts/music
7. Waterbottle: They’re easier to drink out of than pouring water from those jugs
8. Cleanliness: Sanitiser, and wet wipes. You can never be clean enough
9. Comfy cotton PJ’s
10. Hot water bottles