On the day of your stomach cancer surgery

Your nurse will check your blood pressure, pulse and breathing rate.

The nurse will go through a series of questions on a checklist to make sure you are ready for surgery. They will also ask these questions in the anaesthetic room. They ask you to:

• tell them your name and date of birth
• tell them when you last had something to eat and drink 
• change into a hospital gown
• put on a pair of surgical stockings
• take off any jewellery (except for a wedding ring)
• take off any make up, including nail varnish
• remove contact lenses if you have them
• put on 2 hospital identification bands usually on each wrist - if you have any allergies you will have an extra wristband so that your healthcare team are aware.

If you have false teeth you can usually keep them in until you get to the anaesthetic room

Shaving

For some types of surgery, you’ll need to shave the skin over the operation area. Or your nurse can shave it for you. They might do this when you’re under anaesthetic in the operating room.

Medicine to relax

Your nurse might give you a tablet or an injection to help you relax. This will be an hour or so before you go to the operating theatre. This makes your mouth feel dry. But you can rinse your mouth with water to keep it moist. Your nurse takes you to theatre on a trolley if you have this.

You can walk down to theatre if you don’t have any medicine to relax you.

Having an anaesthetic

You have an anaesthetic so that you won’t feel anything during the operation. Your ward nurse and a porter take you to the anaesthetic room, next to the operating theatre.

All the doctors and nurses wear theatre gowns, hats and masks. This reduces your chance of getting an infection.

The anaesthetist puts a small tube (cannula) into a vein in your arm. You have any fluids and medicines you need through the cannula including the general anaesthetic. This sends you into a deep sleep. When you wake up, the operation will be over.

Before you go to sleep your anaesthetist might put a small tube in the space around your spine. They can attach a pump to this tube to give you pain medicines. This is for after your operation to help control your pain.

When you wake up from surgery

After the operation, you may wake up in the intensive care unit or a high dependency recovery unit. You usually move back to the ward within a day or so.