Your Surgery: What You Need to Know Before

General Instructions

• Do not eat or dink anything after MIDNIGHT the night before your surgery. This will help prevent possible complications while you are under anesthesia.
• Take your regular medicines ONLY as instructed in your preoperative visit.

Preparing Your Skin

• The night or morning before your surgery, you should wash your body thoroughly with antibacterial soap (for example, Dial or Safeguard) and water. Because you may not feel like washing your hair for several days after your operation, you may want to wash it the night or morning before surgery. 

Do not apply lotions, powders, deodorants, or sprays after washing.

The Morning of Your Surgery

• You may brush your teeth and rinse your mouth with mouthwash. Avoid swallowing any water or mouthwash.
• If your physician or anesthesiologist have instructed you to take any medications, take these medicines with a small sip of water only.

For a Sentinel Node Biopsy

When you arrive at the hospital, go to the Patient Access Department (Registration), located in the hospital lobby on the ground floor. You will then be directed to the nuclear medicine department on the 2^nd floor. A radioactive liquid will be injected at the site of the melanoma. This will allow the surgeon to identify the sentinel lymph node.

Getting Ready for Surgery

After the dye is injected, you will be directed to your room. The nurse will complete your admission process. You will be asked to put on a hospital gown and to remove dentures, glasses, contact lenses, and hair accessories.  

What to Expect In the Operating Room

You will be helped onto a stretcher and transferred to the Holding Area (which is next to the operating room). If not started before, an intravenous (IV) line will be placed in a vein in your hard or arm. You will also meet the anesthesiologist in charge of your care during the surgical procedure.

• From the Holding Area, you will then be transferred to the operating room (OR). Staff in the OR will be wearing uniforms, masks, and caps to protect you from infection. The OR team will help you to move to the operating room bed.
• An anesthesiologist or nurse anesthetist will monitor you during your anesthesia.
• A blood pressure cuff will be put on your arm.
• An electrocardiogram (EKG) machine will monitor your heart rate.
• Medications will be given through your IV to make you feel sedated. An anesthetic will be injected in the skin where incision lines will be made to provide local anesthesia. More medication will be injected to these areas as needed to keep the area pain free during the operation. If the combination of local anesthetic and the sedation medication do not keep you comfortable during your operation, consideration will be given to placing you under general anesthesia
• If you require general anesthesia, while you are sleeping, a tube may be put in your throat to help you breathe.
• Compression boots (leg wraps with tubing, attached to a motorized machine that inflates and deflates at the ankles, calves and thighs) may be applied to your lower legs to reduce the risk of blood clots. These will stay on until you get out of bed after surgery.
• Your skin will be scrubbed with a special soap call betadine*. This skin preparation will reduce your chance of getting an infection.

* Betadine, like shellfish, contains iodine. Be sure to tell your physician and nurse if you are allergic to iodine or shellfish before your skin preparation. You may wash off the betadine as soon after your surgery as you are able.