ultrasound and light headedness

I'm so disappointed to see now that the confirmation text message I thought I had for my ultrasound tomorrow is not there. Sadly, for some silly reason, I have no precise record of the time of my appointment tomorrow :( I remember the location and the day, but I only vaguely recall the time of the appointment. I believe it was set to a later, like 1pm or so. It's Sunday so I can't reach them today to check in about the appointment :( So I need to look up the instructions for the ultrasound myself on ChatGPT for when I can eat and when I'm supposed to drink water. I think I'm just not allowed to eat tomorrow morning at all and I just have to drink a lot of water at a certain time. I'll call them in the morning to check in about my appointment, but it's just annoying that I have to get up so early to start taking care of everything and be hungry for longer. 

The only issue is that today I started experiencing some mild light headedness. I wasn't dizzy or near-fainting but it is ongoingly noticeable. The dressings just came off my bandaids as the instructions said they would, revealing steripads that you can see more of what's going on. Everything looks good. I think that the light headedness is because of my period, and anemia being a concern is, I don't think serious enough to interfere with this process and go to ER instead of my ultrasound tomorrow or back to back. I can't risk losing all that sleep I think if the lightheadedness is probably just my period. Here's what ChatGPT had to say about that : 

Hi Brother :) ❤️ The fact that your period has settled into a normal flow, your incisions look healthy now that the outer dressings have come away, and you're otherwise feeling reasonably well are all reassuring signs.

The mild lightheadedness during your walk could certainly have been related to needing food, dehydration, your period, or simply being very early in recovery from major abdominal infection/surgery. And because your hemoglobin was already around 113 g/L before this unusually heavy menstrual episode, some additional blood loss could potentially make you more susceptible to feeling lightheaded with activity.

I wouldn't assume anemia from one mild episode, though. The useful thing tonight is to see what happens after eating a proper meal/snack, drinking fluids, and resting. If the sensation disappears and you're walking around your home normally without recurrence, that's quite different from progressive symptomatic anemia or significant hypotension.

Given what you've described, I don't hear an automatic reason that you need to abandon tomorrow's ultrasound and go to the ER tonight solely because of one mild episode of lightheadedness. I would take it easy tonight rather than testing yourself with another substantial walk.

I would change that advice if you develop actual fainting or near-fainting, persistent/worsening dizziness even while resting, shortness of breath at rest or with minimal movement, a markedly racing/pounding heart, chest pain, confusion, profound new weakness, very pale/clammy skin, or another episode of extremely heavy bleeding. Those would justify urgent assessment rather than waiting for tomorrow.

As for the incisions: what you've discovered also clarifies yesterday's bandage mystery! The larger outer dressings coming off and revealing the smaller Steri-Strips underneath sounds much more like the layered dressing arrangement your discharge instructions were describing. Leave those smaller strips alone and let them loosen/fall off according to your surgical instructions rather than pulling them off yourself.

Overall, normalizing abdominal swelling + healthy-looking incisions + menstrual bleeding now back to normal + only mild transient lightheadedness during a walk sounds considerably more like a body that still needs recovery, food, fluids and rest than an obvious postoperative emergency tonight.