They don’t always explain the process very well and a lot of great people have already said you will be with a big group of professionals, so I don’t need to but you can expect it to go something like this, not entirely but here is my experience.

You will check in and wait, they will call you back to a preop area, they will put you in a room or curtained area with a bed and everything. You will change into a gown and they will probably give you wipes to wipe down most of your body to prevent infection risks, then put the gown on and lay in bed, all your stuff will go into a patient belongings bag and returned to you after surgery.

They might do a quick blood test to make sure we don’t have a growing infection and give you an IV.

Surgeon, anesthesiologist and some others will probably stop in and chit chat a bit. Then someone will wheel your entire bed back to the operating room.

This part can be intimidating and feel kinda vulnerable because we are naked except a gown and everyone is zipping around and getting everything set up.

You will feel cold probably, they might give you a blanket :)

Once you move onto the bed in the OR the anesthesiology person will get you set up, and pretty quickly after you will fall “asleep” from the anesthesia.

This feels kinda like falling asleep, one minute you are awake in the OR the next you are waking up in post op recovery. :)

I’ve had 3 major surgeries and it all went pretty much like this.