If you are travelling more than a couple of hours for your explant surgery I recommend booking an Airbnb for a week. You can rest and heal before making the trip back home, and you will be a lot closer to your surgeon if you have any complications.
Where you stay will really impact your first week of recovery.
I have a friend who had a tough time where she stayed because it was fairly bare-bones and economy-minded, which made it a very long and uncomfortable week.
If you start looking early, you will have the best selection and you can usually find a great place, and get a good deal as well. If it’s left until the last minute, it’s generally slim pickings and you will most likely be stuck in a place you won’t be very comfortable in.
See below for a link to get $45 off a $95 Airbnb stay
Cancellation policies
One important thing to look for is the cancellation policy for each listing. Airbnb has 3 levels for cancellation – flexible, moderate and strict.
The flexible policy is what you want to have if possible, as it’s extremely accommodating if anything happens to change your plans. You are entitled to a full refund up until one day prior to your arrival. This includes the cleaning and service fees.
The moderate policy allows you to cancel up until 5 days prior to check-in for a full refund of the accommodation fees. You may still have to pay the service fee, but their current policy at the time of writing this blog is that they will refund service fees 3 times a year.
With the strict policy, you need to cancel at least 14 days before your check-in date to receive a full refund of the accommodation fees. The same rule applies for the service fee as in the moderate policy above. Please check the Airbnb website to confirm their current policy information, since it can change any time.
The cancellation policy came in handy for my explant trip because my post-op appointment got moved forward. We decided to leave a day earlier to save some money and get back home sooner. I went into our reservation and changed the departure date, the host approved it, and refunded the money for that night. Super simple.
When I booked I intentionally chose a place with a flexible policy because I wasn’t sure if anything would change with my surgery date. This gave me so much peace of mind and took the stress out of committing to it.
Practical considerations
The amenities of your Airbnb can make a big difference to your comfort.
I highly recommend finding a place that has laundry facilities in your suite, because if you have a lot of bleeding you will go through clothes quickly.
This happened to my friend, and she didn’t have any laundry in her suite or even in her building. Her companion had to go buy her some new clothes so that she would have something to wear for the rest of the week.
Another thing I looked for when I booked was two bedrooms. Even though it was just my husband and I, and we normally share a bed, I knew how uncomfortable I was going to be at night after surgery and I didn’t want to wake him up.
I also knew that if I was finally getting some sleep and was woken up by his movements, I would be feeling cranky 😊 This was one of the best decisions because we both slept better for it.
A dishwasher was another must on my list.
My husband was already going to be responsible for making meals, cleaning up, taking care of me, etc., so I at least wanted to make sure he didn’t have to do all of the dishes by hand.
This was very useful because we probably ran a full dishwasher at least 4 times during the week. That’s a lot of hand washing he would have had to do!
Speaking of kitchens, it’s important to check to see if yours will be stocked with all the things you’ll need. Dishes, pots and pans, small appliances, and basics like oil, salt, pepper, and more. That way you’ll know if you need to bring some things, or even better, find a place that has everything.
Ours was fully stocked and our host was incredibly thoughtful in what he made sure was available.
Comfort and passing the time
Decent couches were another priority for me.
I think most hosts feel that you will be out sightseeing when you stay in their accommodations. I must have looked at 40+ places, and almost none of them had comfy looking couches.
Many of them were 2-seater loveseats, and if they did have full size couches they were pretty uncomfortable looking. I knew I’d be binge watching Netflix and I wanted to be able to get as cozy as I could with all the hours ahead of me that week.
The Airbnb we booked had a long couch plus a love seat, so at least there was room to prop up some pillows behind my back and stretch my legs. It wasn’t as nearly comfortable as our couches back home, but much better than most other places looked.
Along the line of binge-watching shows, I made sure that there was a decent size TV as well.
I was surprised to see that some places didn’t even have a TV, and for the ones that did, many of them didn’t have Netflix. Since I was in Quebec, that meant mostly French channels on cable – and we don’t speak French.
We thought ahead and brought our Roku TV streaming device with us, so we had the same selection as we did at home.
My friend who I mentioned above in the bare-bones apartment had a TV, but absolutely nothing to go with it. No Netflix and not even cable or a couple of local channels.
The host expected people to bring a laptop and connect it to their own Netflix account. This meant she couldn’t relax in bed watching any shows on her computer as the person who came with her wouldn’t have any way of watching shows.
In our Airbnb there was a TV in the living room, and also one in the master bedroom, so I could rest and watch in there if I wanted to. Bonus! And it was part of the reason I chose this Airbnb to stay at.
Another bonus about our Airbnb was the small office off the living room where my husband could get some work done, while still being close to where I was.
The bedroom I slept in also had a desk. When he needed a quieter space to work while I was watching TV in the living room, he just went in the bedroom.
Getting clean
Something you may not have thought of when looking for a place that is a removable shower head, or a removable faucet head at the kitchen sink.
Many surgeons don’t want you to shower for a certain period of time, so that you don’t get your incisions wet.
If you have a removable shower head, you can hold a large towel over your incisions to protect them. Have your husband or helper wash your hair for you very carefully as you stand in the shower with your back to the water.
The removable faucet head lets you wash your hair in the kitchen sink, and this is what I did midweek since I wasn’t allowed to shower for 7 days.
We pulled up a chair in front of the sink and I sat on my knees with my head bent forward and my husband washed my hair. It was so great to have clean hair again!
You can’t see the showerhead in the photo below, but I included this picture so you could see the bathroom was really spacious, which was great for when my husband was helping me with things.
Location and parking
Another important consideration is the proximity of the Airbnb to where your surgery and follow-ups will be.
My surgeon was located in downtown Montreal, so when I started looking for accommodations I looked close by him. It was mentioned in the Facebook support group that I’m in that traffic is crazy downtown and it was recommended to stay further out.
I’m so glad I followed that advice because driving in that area was a nightmare (congested, construction everywhere).
Where we stayed had so many great amenities close by, such as pharmacies, restaurants, gas stations, etc.
It also had a great health food store nearby where we got healthy food for recovery, vitamins, supplements, bone broth, etc.
The downtown area didn’t have those amenities close by that I could see. It also would have been difficult getting around through the week had we stayed there, since traffic and parking was a little crazy. By staying further away we just had to enter the busy downtown area a couple of times.
The last thing I will recommend is making sure good parking is available.
Some Airbnbs don’t have a driveway or garage, and only offer street parking which can be dicey. When we drove downtown I saw so many places like this and parking was insane.
In some reviews I saw people complaining they had to park far from where they were staying. This is what you don’t want when you are very sore and get tired really easily from the surgery. Make sure you have a dedicated parking spot that’s easy to get in and out of.
Recommendations
If you know of other women who have had surgery with the same surgeon you are going to, ask them where they stayed and if they would recommend it.
Even if they do recommend a place, I encourage you to look at the listing specifically for the things I’ve mentioned here to make sure it’s the best stay possible.
Giving a lot of thought to these things really helped the week to go very well for us.
It was also really affordable too – around $79/night.
I hope you enjoy the time and get lots of rest while you’re there! I’d love to hear your experience if you travelled for surgery and stayed at an Airbnb or other rented accommodations.
Use this link to save $45 on a stay that is $95 or more if you have never used Airbnb before. Or if you have an account but your husband doesn’t (or your friend that you’re going with), they can create a new account and use the link. Big savings!
