The steps you need to take to prepare for a return home, post-operative or post-hospital stay.
Whether returning home following elective surgery or after a longer stay at the hospital to manage an emergency into a chronic condition, your ability to recover quickly and effectively is tied into the kind of care you have.
Major surgery or a long stay at the hospital for an illness can really sap you of your energy and ability to manage on your own. Figuring out how you are going to cope when you get home is a priority before you leave.
Talk to your doctor
It’s important to talk to your medical team about what restrictions you might have and for how long. If you’ve had a heart attack, for example, and a protracted stay at the hospital was necessary, you will have necessary restrictions on your daily activities. For example, one restriction might include the inability to climb stairs for a certain period of time. If you live in a three story townhouse, that could be problematic! You need to know what all of your restrictions are, including physical and dietary ones, and their duration, so that you can plan for your care.
Don’t leave the hospital without clear instructions on what to look for in terms of post-operative infection or other post-hospital stay issues.
Set up your house and your kitchen
Taking the example from above, you would have to change your sleeping arrangements and have a bed put on the first floor, to avoid the stairs temporarily. You might also need to change your diet immediately, which requires a stocked refrigerator and pantry, filled with healthy food and snacks.
Depending on the nature of your hospital stay, you might need certain pieces of equipment: oxygen, assistive devices for toileting and showering, first aid supplies to care for any incisions and so on. There is nothing more invigorating than a nice shower, but you may need help, either from devices or another person. It’s nothing to be ashamed of and professional home care workers have seen it all before!
You will need to start moving around at some point, so having someone around the house when you do is a good idea, in case of a fall. For people who have had a protracted stay at the hospital, they might find that they are easily dizzy, so making sure that your ‘living space’ and proximity to a bathroom, with no trip and fall hazards in the way, is set up is important.
Transportation
Very often, a hospital will require that you have someone to accompany you home, to ensure that it all goes well. Even for a short surgery, if you had an anesthesia, you cannot drive yourself. Even after it has worn off, you may not be able to drive for some time, so you need to plan for follow up appointments too. This person can ensure that you’re set up with everything you need, including getting any prescriptions for you that you will require.
Not everyone has someone that they can ask for this kind of help, so it’s important to look into home care assistance before you leave the hospital. These services are well equipped to help with everything from transportation (including follow up appointments), vitals monitoring, incision care, general wellness observation, preparation of meals and medication administration and monitoring.
Top 5 items you’ll want to have ready at home
- Soap and hand sanitizer — it’s always important to wash your hands (and visitors too) but never more so than when your immune system has taken a hit and you’re recovering.
- Easy to cook meals — if you know you’re going in for surgery, you can plan for this in advance and have them in the freezer. If your hospital stay was based on an emergency, there are services that can provide healthy meals and deliver them to your home for you.
- Comfortable clothes — particularly post-operative, you want to have soft, non-restrictive clothes on hand that won’t rub an incision.
- Prescriptions and incision care supplies — it’s not an option to run out to the drug store, so make sure you have your prescriptions filled and care needs purchased and delivered, or have someone pick them up for you.
- Water — most people who have had any kind of stay in hospital, whether for surgery or illness, end up dehydrated. You don’t feel like drinking when you’re ill, but you need water to flush medications and the anesthesia out of your system.
Issues to watch for
If you’ve had major surgery or are recovering from a serious illness, it would be a good idea to have home care assistance personnel attending you who have medical backgrounds—an RN, for example. They can monitor your vital signs and check for signs of infection or other issues that could be warning signs of bigger problems. Family members may not be particularly well versed in this area, but here are a few key things to watch out for:
- Fever.
- Pain at the incision(s) or anywhere, and pain that gets worse over time, or serious pain when you urinate.
- Shock: where your blood pressure drops significantly, caused by blood loss or the presence of infection.
- Nausea or vomiting that continues for more than a day or two (some people react to anesthesia with nausea or vomiting, but that should subside within about 48 hours).
- Hemorrhaging: rapid blood loss.
- Fast heartbeat.
You could experience other problems, like a DVT (deep vein thrombosis), also known as a blood clot, or pulmonary embolism, particularly if you were immobile in a bed for a long hospital stay. The symptoms for these can escalate quickly, so having home care come in who are trained to recognize them could be a life saver.
If you were in hospital for a relatively simply surgery and out in a day or two, or if you were in for longer to manage a serious illness, you need help when you get home. It’s not always enough to count on friends and family, so look into home care assistance and get the support you need to be on your way to a solid recovery.
If you or an aging loved-one are considering in-home senior care in Atlanta, please call the compassionate, caring staff at Mothers Helping Hands Home Care. Call Today! 470-260-4137.