I know it will be difficult as you don’t like hospitals or needles but they will look after you. Just try and focus on how life will be so much better after your op. I had to wait forever for mine, they did look at me oddly when I said I was excited, but it’s so awful to suffer for so long.
Take earplugs, headphones, iPad or whatever. The best tip I was given was to put all the things you use often such as lip balm, mini pack of tissues, mints, hair tie etc into a little tie handle sandwich bag so, instead of twisting and reaching into your bedside locker for each item, you can just lift the little bag to you.
I was given little info from the hospital other than a leaflet of physio. I can’t find the link I used to aid recovery, someone posted it on a thread here, but the advice was to walk every day for 5 minutes when you get out of hospital, even if you didn’t feel like it, and to add 5 mins for each new week so that by week 6 you are up to 30 mins. Do your walks alongside the physio they recommend and do your pelvic floor exercises several times a say. I feel very sure that the reason I was back at work and had no problems was because I built my strength up by walking. My cousin had her op a couple of months after me and said she was enjoying being lazy and laughed off my suggestions of walking. She is 5 years younger than me and really struggled going back to work and suffered a lot of pain as she had to use muscles she hadn’t used for weeks because she was lying on the sofa doing nothing & she had no core strength!
Sorry, waffling now. Don’t forget slippers, a good book & maybe some snacks. The pain does pass amazingly quickly, I hope all goes well for you and wish you a speedy recovery 