Download or Print PDF

What to expect after surgery

This is a general overview of what to expect. The process varies from hospital to hospital, and everyone will respond to surgery differently.

	Recovery time When you wake up after the operation, you will be in a recovery room near the operating theatre or in the intensive care unit. Most people will need a high level of care. You can expect to spend time in the high dependency unit or intensive care unit before moving to a standard ward. How long you stay in hospital will depend on the type of stomach surgery you had, your age and your general health. You will probably be in hospital for 3–10 days, but it can take 3–6 months to fully recover from a gastrectomy. Talk to your treatment team if you have any concerns about caring for yourself at home. If you think you will need home nursing care, ask about services in your area.
	Help with your recovery You will have some pain and discomfort for several days after surgery, which will be managed with pain medicines. You may be given tablets or injections, or you may have patient-controlled analgesia (PCA), which delivers a measured dose of pain medicine through a drip when you press a button. Let your doctor or nurse know if you’re in pain so they can adjust your medicines to make you as comfortable as possible. Do not wait until the pain is severe. You may have a dressing over the wound. The doctor or nurse will talk to you about how to keep the wound clean and free from infection when you go home. After surgery you will have several tubes in your body, which will be removed as you recover. You may have a drip in your arm to give you pain relief and to replace your body’s fluids until you are able to drink and eat again. You may have a tube from your bladder (catheter) to collect urine in a bag. You may also have a feeding tube.
	Eating and drinking Your treatment team will talk to you about the impact of surgery on how you eat and drink in the short term and long term. When you can eat again, you will usually start with milk, soup, ice-cream and yoghurt. Then you will move to pureed foods, then to soft foods, and eventually back to normal, solid food. This process happens over several weeks. Eating 6–8 small meals or snacks throughout the day may make it easier to manage than a few large meals. Ask the hospital dietitian for advice about meal and snack ideas and whether you need to take any nutritional supplements. A feeding tube may be put into the small bowel through a cut in the abdomen. Special feeding formula is given through this tube while the join between the oesophagus and small bowel heals. For more information about eating after surgery, see Managing side effects.
	Activity and exercise Your treatment team will probably encourage you to walk the day after surgery. Gentle exercise has been shown to help people manage some treatment side effects, speed up a return to usual activities and improve quality of life. Ask your doctor or nurse for guidance on the right activity levels for you and if there are any suitable exercise programs available in your area. You will have to wear compression stockings for a couple of weeks to help the blood in your legs circulate and reduce the risk of developing blood clots. Check whether you need to avoid driving and heavy lifting for a few weeks after the surgery. A physiotherapist will teach you breathing or coughing exercises to help keep your lungs clear and reduce the risk of a chest infection.

For more on this, see our general section on Surgery.

Key resource

Download a PDF booklet on this topic.

Understanding Surgery

Download PDF541kB

More resources

Exercise for People Living with Cancer Download PDF1.37MB

This information was last reviewed in February 2024. View who reviewed this content.

Prof David I Watson, Matthew Flinders Distinguished Professor of Surgery, Flinders University, and Senior Consultant Surgeon, Oesophago-Gastric Surgery Unit, Flinders Medical Centre, SA; Prof Bryan Burmeister, Senior Radiation Oncologist, GenesisCare Fraser Coast and Hervey Bay Hospital, QLD; Kieran Cahill, Consumer; Jessica Jong, Clinical Dietitian, Upper GI and Hepatobiliary Services, Peter MacCallum Cancer Centre, VIC; John Leung, Consumer; Prof Rajvinder Singh, Professor of Medicine, University of Adelaide, and Director, Gastroenterology Department and Head of Endoscopy, Lyell McEwin Hospital, SA; Dr Sarah Sutherland, Medical Oncologist, Chris O’Brien Lifehouse, NSW; Paula Swannock, Upper GI Cancer Nurse Consultant, St Vincent’s Hospital Melbourne, VIC; Rebecca Yeoh, 13 11 20 Consultant, Cancer Council Queensland.

View the Cancer Council NSW editorial policy.