Hi Kendra
I just had AN surgery in July.
To prepare, you should focus on being healthy -- sleep, exercise, good nutrition. Treat yourself to a nice massage or nice meal !!
For when you come home, ideally you have someone to take care of food (shopping, preparation) and any bending or lifting required, for several weeks - you just want to putter around your house, and then be able to take walks outside, but stay totally away from any kind of lifting else you may spring a CSF leak. If you have to prepare your own meals, maybe get some good Amy's frozen meals (my fav!) and/or prepare and freeze some now.
My first few days out of the hospital I needed a walker and a shower chair - they brought us the walker in the hospital, and my husband got a folding camping chair for $10 that we used in the shower.
I also bought "slip on sneakers" - sketchers makes some - so I could have good footwear but not have hard time putting them on. I only ended up using them the first week, and then was walking in regular running shoes.
I bought anti-bacterial soap for washing my incision area daily, but the hospital said any soap was fine for that. I also needed bobby pins to pin my hair away from the incision, to help keep it clean.
If you need reader glasses or sun glasses, it helps to have cheap ones that you don't mind taking an "arm" off of, so that nothing touches your incision.
If you want to cut or color your hair, good to do that just before surgery since you won't want anyone touching your head for a while post op. you don't need any special hair cut - they don't take much off for the surgery, and ideally your hair can "cover" the wound after surgery when you go out.
My two cents !
Sheba
