Following DIEP flap breast reconstruction, patients are typically in the hospital for about 2-3 days. During that time, patients often wonder what they should expect. Here is what a typical hospital stay for PRMA patients entails…
Flap Monitoring
A nurse will come in to check on the health of your newly transplanted flap(s) every hour the evening after surgery. The morning after surgery, following an evaluation from a PRMA surgeon or Physician Assistant, the time between flap health checks will increase to two hours until you are discharged from the hospital.
Walking After Surgery
It may come as a surprise to most, but at PRMA we have our patients up and walking as soon as possible after surgery. For most patients, the nurse will have you up and walking a short distance first thing in the morning after surgery. Walking will gradually increase as tolerable.
Meals
The evening of surgery patients can expect a clear liquid dinner (example: a nice hot broth). If the liquid meal is tolerated well, a full normal breakfast packed with protein is served the morning after surgery.
Showering
Patients will take their first shower after surgery on post-op day two. For some patients, we may recommend showering for the first time in the surgical bra but will provided additional garments if that is the case.
PRMA Surgeon and Physician Assistant Check-Ins
PRMA’s Physician Assistants (PAs) will check in every morning while in the hospital. The surgeons will also stop by, but timing will be based on their surgery schedules. The PAs communicate daily with the surgeons as well and provide full updates on each recovering patients.
Authors: Ginger Crowder PA-C and Courtney Floyd
It may come as a surprise to most, but at PRMA we have our patients up and walking as soon as possible after surgery.
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