How are you feeling at this moment, emotion-wise? [Jeff] Well, I took a drug, and the drug is supposed to make me feel sleepy.
[Natalie] Oh, you took a drug.
Okay.
[Jeff] Well, actually, she gave me a whole cup, so I don't know what was in it, but there was some good stuff.
[Natalie] I feel sleepy without drugs.
[Jeff] Yeah.
And I'm just getting a lactated ringer.
[Natalie] Something to do with water.
[Jeff] Yeah.
And we're in the pre-op room.
[Jeff] I don't hear ringing in my ears, so I don't know if it's working.
[Natalie] How many days? How many days do you think you'll be in the hospital? [Jeff] Four.
[Natalie] Four.
So you'll be up by Monday? Tuesday?
[Jeff] Monday.
[Natalie] What's the best part of prepping for surgery like this? [Jeff] The Bear Paw, probably.
This cool floating thing. [Natalie] That's cool.
[Jeff] You can show them there.
[Natalie] How many weeks do you think it'll be before you start making a new video? [Jeff] I don't know.
Four... maybe five weeks?
[Natalie] This is room 3126 before Jeff gets in here after surgery.
[Natalie] This is Jeff post op.
He just got his new stoma—to be named later.
[Jeff] Why is the microphone pointed the wrong way? [laughter] [Natalie] We had a conversation with your dad.
He said it was the right way, but it's the wrong way?
[Jeff] It's pointing at you right now.
[Natalie] Okay, well, we can fix it.
[Jeff] That's silly. [laughter]
[Natalie] Dad was wrong.
It's the opposite way.
The longer part has to point towards the talent.
[sarcastically, but pained] I'm the talent.
[Natalie] The water
Mom.
Just don't touch him, Nana.
[Mom] Every time he stops drinking, it just leaks all over.
[Jeff] You know, it's the siphoning effect.
[Natalie] What's the last thing you remember before you took a long sleepy nap?
[Jeff] The guy, the anesthesiologist gave me a cocktail, and then, like three or four minutes later, I was in that room where you just kind of sit there and everybody's bored, and if they give you your phone, you're sitting there on your phone and stuff.
But I didn't get a phone, so I was kind of bored.
And then there was like—I said, there's a gaggle of nurses.
There are like, six nurses.
[Mom] A gaggle of them.
[Jeff] Yeah. I think that's like when you have a gaggle of geese.
[Mom] Yeah.
[Natalie] I think he's trying to be funny. [Jeff] I am trying to be funny, but it's not working.
[Natalie] But you remember all that because that's exactly what he told you.
I was right there when he said that.
Do you not remember? I was in the room.
[Jeff] Thanks for being there.
[Natalie] My mom said we got a package at our house today.
[Jeff] Oh, it's probably big.
[Natalie] It is big.
And I was kind of afraid that someone else was in love with me, but I'm pretty sure it's from you.
[Jeff] Oh, wait.
What kind of package was it? [laugter] [Natalie] Wait, what else? What is it supposed to be? [Jeff] I ordered a... rolling cart.
[Natalie] How are you feeling right now? [Jeff] Oh the pain... [in pain]
It's like a seven right now.
Oh, that's not plugged in the microphone's not plugged in.
[Mom] Jeff, what state are we in? [Jeff] State?
[Mom] What *stage* are we in? [Jeff] Yeah, well, the state is Missouri, but the stage is recovery.
My throat keeps drying out.
My humor is not dry.
My humor is very rich. [drinks water]
[Mom] I'm just trying to show that you're sitting in a recliner here.
[Jeff] OT
stands for occupational torture.
No offense to the lady; she was very nice.
She made me do a log roll. Turn out of bed and I kind of like flopped myself up and then did a side step shuffle, kind of like the Cupid Shuffle, except a lot slower... and a lot more painful.
Then I sat down here.
My eyes keep closing.
I don't even think about it.
They just keep closing.
[Nurse] How much do you use your abdomen for? [Jeff] Everything. [Nurse] Everything.
[Dad] So Jeff, what's been the worst part of recovery so far? [Jeff] Pain.
They brought me to the recovery room and I remember waking up and it was just like 10 [out of 10].
The pain was just so bad. Up here
The pain is just better.
Maybe five or six, seven, something like that.
The PT just left about 30 minutes ago and the OT came an hour before—earlier, show of the bed here...
I made the huge achievement of getting out of the bed and sitting in this chair.
And then the PT came
and I walked all the way from here to the door, which is like 100 miles over there.
[Dad] And have you eaten anything yet? [Jeff] I had a popsicle.
It was purple popsicle.
It didn't taste amazing, but it was something to chew on.
And I just had a piece of bubble gum.
You're supposed to chew bubble gum.
I think the chewing motion triggers some physiological response that tries to get food moving through your body.
So I want to get that happening because I can't leave here until I pee and poop and all the wonderful things that human beings do.
[Dad] So any advice for any someone recovery at a hospital? Someone in recovery? [Jeff] Try to get a friend or family member to help you because that's huge.
The nurses—especially nowadays with all the code protocols and all that kind of stuff—nurses are stretched pretty thin.
So even things like, "Oh, can you grab me a water?" It's huge to have a friend.
And so I'm so thankful for my Dad who's here, my Mom who's here earlier, my Wife, and couple of friends who are going to come over over the weekend.
I'm on these different things.
Like there was a, what is it? Vicodin, no Vicodin—oxycodone.
I don't know how well it's working.
[Dad] You'll find out.
About 20 minutes.
[Jeff] Yeah, the pain is still pretty bad.
This is the spirometer.
It inspires you to breathe in.
[Natalie] What's it supposed to go up to? [Jeff] Well, they have this marker on 3000 that's pretty unrealistic.
[Natalie] You can always move it.
Yeah, yeah.
Here we go. [breathes deeply]
There.
There's my goal now.
[Natalie] See how's your Cream of Wheat going there? [Jeff] It's my first food since... [Natalie] It's going to get cold if you don't eat it.
[Jeff] No, I'm not going to eat the whole thing.
I'm just going to eat a little bit.
I ate, like, five scoop fulls.
[Natalie] Is it delicious? [Jeff] It's pretty good.
And I mean it's...
Cream of Wheat.
[Natalie] Is there anything in it? Like honey? [Jeff] Like two packs of sugar.
[Natalie] Oh you take after your mom.
Oh, hello, Jeffrey.
Here we are, day two, almost 24 hours after surgery.
I'd like to ask you some questions.
[Jeff] I have a bariatric gown. The lady—that was the only one that was available.
So it's like size 55 or something.
Pain is actually like a three or four right now because I've had some oxycodone and some other thing that are helping.
Although earlier it went up a lot because they had to peel off some of the dressing and replace it.
And that hurts a lot because there's wounds, and wounds hurt.
The ostomy—
When you get an ostomy, it's kind of like a balloon.
It's kind of puffed up.
So it's kind of big right now, and you can't tell the final shape yet, but hopefully when it kind of shrinks down, it'll look good.
I told him he'd get bonus points if he made it look good.
[Natalie] He'll get more money in his
paycheck? [Jeff] Bonus points, not money.
[OT] My goal is to make sure you can safely do stairs and do whatever you need to go home.
[Jeff] It's like a little computer that's this big. Just a credit card sized computer.
[Natalie] Don't worry I don't know what he does either, ha ha!
So have no worry about that.
[Jeff] I just got finished with about a 200 or 300 foot walk.
I don't know how many meters that is, but it's tiring.
And now I'm going to head over to the bed.
It's amazing, the little milestones that that you hit in the hospital after a major operation that you're very happy with.
You fight for the positives.
You try to find the next positive in the midst of a tough situation.
And that's where I am right now.
That's funny.
Using netboot. [PXE boot]
So that makes sense.
We're watching the World Cup game, and it just poof went away.
I guess this TV doesn't like Argentina.
[Friend] How are you feeling about OT or PT? [Jeff] I actually graduated today.
They have milestones that they want you to hit.
So if you just push them, like, a lot of times you'll get tired and they'll be like, okay, let's head back to the room.
But instead of that, you just say, "What else do I need to do?" And then they're like, "Well, you need to do stairs, and you need to do this and show me how you can do that."
So if you do all those, then they'll be like, "Okay, you're done!"
And then you get to graduate out of that, and they don't have to do their little torture sessions anymore.
So—I still walk though, four times a day.
I have had four bowls of Malt-O-Meal.
I've had that.
But I did have French toast this morning, which is okay, but I forgot to ask for syrup,
so it was just dry French toast.
But it was still good.
[Friend] Did you have a chance to look at your stomach yet? [Jeff] Yes.
[disgusted] I wouldn't recommend it.
I've had—two times I've had ostomies.
One is on the right side, one is on the left side now.
And any abdominal surgery, your bowels just kind of shut off and you have to start them back up.
So they make you chew gum.
They want you to walk as soon as possible.
They want you to transfer then from your bed to your chair and stuff.
And if you do that, it will help you start moving your bowels quickly.
And not only does it make the doctors happy, it's a very joyous occasion the first time you see poop. [heh]
[Natalie] Okay, so your surgery was Friday, December second? [Jeff] Yep.
Nine point nine-nine pounds.
[Natalie] Nine point nine-eight pounds it's supposed to be.
[Jeff] Look, I'm doing a workout.
[Natalie] Okay! So how many days ago was your surgery? [Jeff] Surgery was three days ago.
[Natalie] Okay.
How are you feeling right now? [Jeff] Pretty decent.
The pain level is very manageable.
I took some pain medication this morning, but watch this! [Natalie] How long ago was that? Because maybe that's why you're feeling good.
[Jeff] That was at like 6:15!
[Jeff] See. [Natalie] And what does that do? [Jeff] It inspires me.
It's a SPIRE-ometer for inspiration.
Incentivizes you to spiromit. I do this kind of stuff.
[Natalie] This is three days post surgery, folks.
[Jeff] Yeah.
So when I'm like 90 years old doing this surgery, I'm not going to be doing the same kind of stuff.
I won't be able to be like da-da-da-da [dancing]
That's the it runs something that likes to lock up all the time, which is Windows.
So there's a Windows PC behind it, and it said "Your Windows PC needs to be rebooted."
And it takes like a minute and a half.
Both times it was in the middle of a World Cup game.
So you're like, "Oh, there's a goal, oh! Up...
No windows is rebooting."
[Natalie] Unfortunate.
[Jeff] Yeah. So next time, maybe I'll convince this hospital system to start using Raspberry Pi-based TV systems instead of Windows, or at least to replace their OS's with Linux.
Could be more stable. Before coming here.
I'm not the most fit person in the world, but I did start taking some walks and getting a little more fit, getting my heart rate better and all that kind of stuff beforehand.
It's not always an option for all surgeries, but prep before the surgery is important.
And eating a lot of protein for a surgery like this, where your skin has to heal, the protein helps your wounds to heal quite a bit.
So even in the hospital, I get a little immuno-nutrition shake with every meal, that helps, too.
But doing that stuff, talking to your nurses, and ideally have a friend or family member to help you, like, "Hey, did you do that this morning yet?" And it's like, "Oh, no, I forgot!"
Go ahead and do it.
Last surgery, it was a new stoma.
It was a new thing.
I didn't know what to expect. I had—the pain was off the charts for the first day or so.
[Natalie] Last time you had a rear end injury as well? [Jeff] Last time, yeah.
I got what's called a Barbie butt.
Or if you're a guy, it's called a Ken butt, where they take out your bottom hole and seal it up because, you know, it's like Barbie Dolls—if you ever take their clothes off of them, it's flat back there!
[Natalie] Thank you for your time.
[Jeff] You're welcome. [hehe]
[Mom] What was the best part of the recovery in the hospital? [Jeff] The best part? [Mom] The best part. [Jeff] There weren't many wonderful parts in the hospital, to be honest.
The best part was probably deludadid? Deluded?
[Mom] Dilauded? [Jeff] Yeah.
That was one of the drugs that helped to numb the pain a bit.
I guess it is helpful to have the pain management tools that they can give you at the hospital, but it's also not good to get addicted to them—which I didn't.
But if you ever have pain management, don't get addicted to pain management.
[Mom] Okay.
What was the worst part of the recovery in the hospital? [Jeff] The worst part for me is sleeping.
You're sleeping in a bed that has, like, a plastic cover on it with a protective pad that's really thick and hot. [sound plays]
Oh, no. [laughter]
The only good thing about the bed is the fact that you can bend the legs in the back and stuff to get in a position where things aren't hurting too bad.
But other than that, it's just not a pleasant experience.
[Mom] Were there any other complications that you had after surgery? [Jeff] Yeah, well, I was originally going to record this segment a couple of days after I got home, and I guess I'm lucky I didn't because we did have a pretty big complication.
I had an abscess form under the old stoma site where I used to have a stoma over here, and they had to do a CT scan.
But actually after they did that and started giving me lots of antibiotics, that made me feel a lot better than I was feeling.
So that was nice, but luckily I was the sickest person in the waiting room!
It's not necessarily something to be proud of, but we got in after a few hours and there were still a few other people that were there before me that didn't go in until later, but... [Mom] The end.
About 1% of Americans have diagnosed IBD, or Inflammatory Bowel Disease, like Crohn's or Ulcerative Colitis, and two tenths of a percent have ostomies that help when their bowels get really screwed up.
And me? I'm in both those groups!
Even better, I've now had two ostomies, so I'm in, like, the .001%!
This video probably won't get as many views as a regular video on my channel, but that's okay with me.
People are scared when faced with major surgeries, and even if it's not for an ostomy, hopefully something in this video helps someone out there who really needs it.
I'll get back to my normal tech videos in January.
But for now, happy New Year.