Tips for Setting up Your Recovery Area

Meeting with your doctor and scheduling your appointment is only half the battle when planning for surgery. While it’s important to take precautions leading up to your surgery, it is equally as important to make a steady plan for recovery. Ideally, you will be surrounded with friends and family waiting to serve you after your surgery, but there are a few things Dr. Marcus Crawford recommends doing to help make the little things easier. Consider the following tips to help you set up your recovery area.

• Prepare your bed: You will be spending a lot of time resting and recovering in your bed for the next few weeks, so make sure you come home to a comfortable environment. There is nothing quite like getting into a clean, made bed, especially when you don’t feel well. Before your surgery, wash and change your sheets, place your most comfortable blankets near your bed, and make sure you have enough pillows to sit up comfortably. If you have a recliner, you may want to bring it close to your bed or drape it in a clean sheet.
• Organize your nightstand: Since you will be spending a lot of time in your bed, think of all of the things you may need to stay comfortable and place them within reach. Include Chap Stick, your favorite hand and face moisturizer, Kleenex, some bottled water, and a reading lamp.
• Keep entertainment options close: Now is the perfect time to catch up on your reading, finish the Sudoku puzzle you started at Christmas, watch the movies you’ve been meaning to rent, flesh out your journal entries, or even learn how to play a fun video game. Make sure your TV, laptop, gaming console, and books you plan to read are close to your bed. You may also want a couple card games nearby. After all, it’s never too late to learn how to play solitaire and other card games.
• Plan your meals: Opening a jar, can, or a box of food is easy as pie in regular day-to-day life, but after a surgery, battling with food containers can prove to be an annoying struggle that you may not have anticipated. Instead of declaring war on your food, spend the day before surgery making some pre-made meals that you can easily grab and enjoy. Cut up fruits and vegetables and put them in zip lock bags, pre-make some sandwiches, and put any other meals in easy-to-open containers. Treat beverages similarly. Either pour your beverage of choice into smaller containers before your surgery, or buy smaller bottles.
• Open doors, cabinets, and bottles: Just like opening a jar may be difficult, it also may be difficult to unlock your medicine cabinet, doors, and medicine bottles. Provided you don’t have small children you need to protect, unlock your medicine cabinet, inside doors, and make sure you can easily open approved medicines. This will make small tasks a lot easier.

To learn more about how to prepare for plastic surgery, contact Dr. Marcus Crawford.