Preparing for an operation can involve physical, emotional and spiritual work, which can produce positive effects on each of those levels.
On the Emotional Issues surrounding Surgery page, we presented a number of issues that can arise. Here we will try and address them all.
Increasing your Sense of Control
Feelings of insecurity tend to surface before surgery and hospitalization – you feel you’re not in control of your body, the situation, your surroundings, the pain or your moods. And indeed the patient is not in control of most of these areas.
That is why it is important to try and restore the patient’s sense of control via the small things, such as:
- Personal items from home (sheets, pajamas, hand cream, etc.) This will make the patient’s space a little more personal and give him or her a greater sense of control over the surroundings.
- Arranging support during the stay in hospital (someone to take care of the children, a friend to bring homework for the hospitalized child, someone to cook at home…) Having some ability to manage the routine at home can increase the patient’s sense of independence.
- Receiving information (about the procedure, the team, the department, etc.) Knowledge is power and receiving information about the operation can help the patient feel less vulnerable, match expectations and reduce anxieties. The doctor and the medical team will usually talk to the patient or the patient can read up on the particular surgery. However, it is important to absorb the information critically, and to make sure your sources are reliable.
- Orientation before surgery and being familiar with the surgical process (the move from the department to the operating theater, the change in room temperature, infusions, etc.) Knowing what is going to happen at every stage will help calm the patient and give him or her a greater sense of control, particularly as they come closer to the actual surgery.
- Preparing the home for the patient’s return – buying appropriate food the patient can eat after the operation, the right painkillers, preparing the rest of the family, etc.
Reducing Tension and Anxiety
An operation is seen as something arousing stress and fear throughout the entire process, from the initial decision through the uncertainty to the operation itself and all the potential complications. For this reason, many effective techniques have been developed to reduce tension in general and before surgery in particular. Some of them require short professional intervention and others can be learned through videos, CDs or books.
Relaxation Techniques and Guided Imagery
Relaxation is a situation of physical and emotional calm. The aim of the techniques is to empower the patient and to raise his or her sense of control over elements connected to the disease. The more the patient learns to direct attentiveness inwards, to raise self-awareness and reduce tensions at stressful times, the relaxation will then affect other physiological aspects such as blood pressure, pulse, muscle tension and breathing.
- In deep breath relaxation, the patient tenses the diaphragm when breathing in and relaxes it when breathing out, with the aim of reducing chest muscle action.
- Gradual muscle relaxation aims to achieve a perfect balance between tension and muscle relaxation. The patient learns to identify tension change in different muscle groups by squeezing and releasing each muscle in turn, thus releasing stress from the body.
- Guided imagery is a method that helps patients create sensory images which advance states of relaxation, focus and self-awareness. The patient listens to the guide – or to themselves – while being guided to relaxing and calm-inducing images. Exercises can be performed with professional help or using a CD or video.
Changing Thinking Patterns
Interventions focused on the connection between thoughts, emotions and behavior (CBT) can help change the thinking patterns that have affected pre-surgery anxiety levels. The assumption is everyone has basic beliefs through which he or she views the world, such as, “it won’t happen to me,” or “the world is a relatively safe place.” Disease in general, and surgery in particular, are liable to explode these beliefs (“it will happen to me”) and leave a person helpless, lacking a stable base of beliefs. This can add to anxiety so any treatment that can help restore some healthy beliefs will help reduce the patient’s fears.
Working on distorted thinking can also help the patient cope with the operation and its ramifications. Common types of distorted thinking include dichotomous (“black or white”) thinking – “either the surgery will be successful or it won’t,” depressing prophecies – “There are definitely going to be complications,” and negative filtering – “no-one comes to visit” (when they actually do.)
Enlisting Inner Forces
Everyone possesses the strength and abilities to cope with crisis. However, these powers are often hidden or not accessible and so each person has to find the way that works best for him or her – some will prefer professional aid, others family support, religious faith, sport or some other hobby. Everyone, with a little patience, perseverance and will, can overcome these difficult times.
Inner Strength
Hope, optimism, self-confidence, looking positively on the situation (even though it may seem impossible). A little hope goes a long way to enlisting the necessary inner and outer strength to cope and to believing it will be over soon. Optimism and self-confidence will help conquer depression and despair.
External Help
Family, friends, welfare staff, social workers, nurses… any or all of these people can serve as a source of strength and encouragement for the patient. Other external aids can include material comforts, technical help and other ways of easing the patient’s suffering.
Spiritual Aid
Faith, religion, philosophy, sport, etc. People who live with these belief frameworks and disciplines often manage to draw much encouragement and strength from them.
Turning the Hospital Experience into Something Positive – a Few Tips
Learn to ask for help: For many people, hospitalization is a real challenge. In their regular lives they are used to being there for others, others depend on them and suddenly they are the ones in need and dependent on others. The solution? Remind yourself this is a temporary situation.
You will also be doing a big favor to those who have relied on you all these years and have been waiting for an opportunity to pay you back. Now is their chance. So forget about “dependence,” “victim,” and all the other negative, self-pitying words and learn to ask for and accept help during your times of crisis.
- Enjoy being a patient: Anyone hospitalized after surgery can enjoy a number of incidental benefits. Our aim is to raise their awareness without detracting from the pain and the hardships they’re going through. Looking at the benefits can help them build a more positive outlook and help them enlist their inner strengths.
- Among these benefits: support, worry (others), visits, time off work or school, attention, easily available painkillers, doctors and nurses at your service 24/7, etc.
- Available painkillers: There is no need to suffer unnecessarily after your operation. If it hurts, ask the nurse for an appropriate drug. This is real pain and it’s unlikely you’re going to develop an addiction to painkillers in the few days after the operation. Usually, as time passes, your need for painkillers will too.
- Come equipped: Although there is usually no desire to do anything apart from sleep or stare at the TV, certain items may help make your hospital experience more pleasant, e.g. music, CDs of relaxation techniques, a notebook to write down your thoughts and feelings, books, games like Sudoku, cards, etc.
- Know how to welcome attention: What for many can be a positive experience can also be negative and annoying for others. Not everyone enjoys being the center of attention and an operation usually places you under the spotlights whether you like it or not. Again though, if you remember this is in fact a good thing, and temporary, you’ll be able to weather the storm.
- Returning to normality: Many patients report that the quicker they return to normal functioning, the faster they recover from the operation. Of course recovery time is different for each person and procedure but for many, a return to normal physical functioning can already begin in the hospital (e.g. walking, physiotherapy, diet, etc.). Other technical functions –like arranging places for the kids to eat, doing homework, catching up on work matters, etc. can also begin in hospital.