Recovering from surgery in a hospital is much easier than at home. A medical staff is available 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. Patients are served breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Restroom facilities are available within a few feet away from the hospital bed. Most importantly, there are few distractions in a hospital room that require a patient to get out of her bed. The best way to help someone recover from surgery is to create a plan and prepare.
Instructions
Gather Information for Your Recovery Plan
1. Make a list of questions to ask the surgeon who will perform the surgery for your family member or friend. You need to know how long your loved one should plan to stay in the hospital and how much time she will need to recover at home. Make your questions concise but detailed. Imagine that you are the one who is preparing to have surgery. Think of everything that you would want to know.
2. Attend your friend or family member’s surgery consultation. The best way to get information about the recovery involved with a given surgery is to speak to the surgeon. Find out when the appointment will be and make plans to go along. Bring your list of questions. If you are going to help a friend recover from surgery, rather than a family member, you may need to wait outside the room during your friend’s consultation. Afterwards, though, you can speak with the surgeon.
3. Ask your friend to provide input for her own recovery plan. She may not want to talk about her surgery. Cover the basics anyways, as gently as you can. Ask about your friend’s favorite foods (which you will not give her until her dietary restrictions are lifted). Ask if there are certain family members or friends that she would like for you to call. She may want you to arrange for visitors. Or, she may want you to keep visitors away.
Create a Recovery Plan
4. List important dates in your calendar. Make note of her surgery date, the date you need to drive her home from the hospital, and any dates that you have committed to staying overnight or spending the day at her home. Make sure that you cancel any previously scheduled appointments, as necessary.
5. Develop a day-to-day schedule. Type it on a computer or write it on a piece of paper. Begin with the date and time that your friend or family member gets out of surgery. Put all of the possible details in writing. If you plan to bring your friend flowers the night of surgery, write that down. If you need to call her family members or friends, write down their names and phone numbers. If you will need to stop at the pharmacy on the way home from the hospital, write that down as well. Include all meals that your loved one will need assistance with.
6. Show the schedule to your friend and ask for her input and advice. See if there is anything that she would like to add; perhaps you have forgotten something important.
Prepare for Your Recovery Plan
7. Make a list of all of the items you need. Include all of the groceries for each of the meals and any videos, books, over the counter medications, and any other necessary items.
8. Plan a day to go shopping for everything that you need. Once your friend or family member is home and recovering from surgery, you will not want to go out for several hours. Take it from someone who helped her husband recover from major surgery: You need food in the refrigerator before you bring someone home.
9. Go shopping for all of the things that your loved one will require during her recovery from surgery. If you do not live with the person whom you plan to assist, make arrangements to drop all of the items off at his home, before the surgery.
