Esophageal cancer is one of the most common to malignant tumors in China, and nearly 150,000 people die from this disease every year nationwide, which seriously threatens people’s health and life. At present, surgery is the main treatment for early and mid-stage esophageal cancer, but if medical personnel do not give patients timely and scientific rehabilitation guidance after surgery, patients may be seriously affected by some late-onset complications, which may reduce the quality of life after surgery and plunge patients into another kind of pain. The following are some important self-care precautions: 1. Oral hygiene after surgery The oral cavity is the first gateway to the digestive tract, and it is a bacterial site, according to the literature: every 1ml of saliva contains up to 109 bacteria. If we do not pay attention to oral hygiene after surgery, bacteria will enter the esophagus with saliva and infect the esophageal anastomosis. Therefore, the oral hygiene of the patient after surgery is very important. During the stay of gastric tube, you should pay attention to brush your teeth every morning and evening, and rinse your mouth with some mouthwash or light salt water from time to time three to five times; if you often feel dry mouth, you can also rinse your mouth with light green tea or lemon water to reduce the feeling of dry mouth. Try not to swallow saliva or sputum containing a lot of bacteria before removing the gastric tube to reduce the infection of the esophageal anastomosis inside and prevent the occurrence of anastomotic fistula. 2.Exercise of upper limb function on the operated side Especially for some patients with long surgical incisions, the upper limb on the affected side is in a long suspension during surgery, and the open surgical incision cuts off the trapezius muscle and the serratus anterior, so the patient generally feels sore and numb around the shoulder after waking up. Therefore, after the patient is fully awake after surgery, he can start to move his limbs, especially the upper limbs on the affected side. By flexing and extending the fingers and forearms and massaging the muscles around the shoulder, the soreness and numbness can be reduced. Avoid disuse muscle atrophy of the affected upper limb due to long-term bed rest and fear of pain. After esophageal cancer surgery, the normal physiological state of the patient’s digestive tract is changed, and the stomach is pulled up to the thoracic cavity to form a “thoracic stomach”; the vagus nerve, which governs the peristaltic function of the stomach, is cut off, so the patient may not feel saturated and hungry after surgery; the gastric-esophageal anastomosis does not have the function of the cardia sphincter, so when lying down, it is easy to cause reflux of gastric contents and lead to reflux esophagitis. The reanastomosed esophagus has a special and fragile structure, which may lead to postoperative anastomotic fistula or anastomotic stricture once the diet is not handled properly. Therefore, the patient should follow the procedure of eating after surgery and eat gradually: 1. Fasting period: In the early postoperative period, the patient needs to stay in the gastric tube for gastrointestinal decompression because the gastrointestinal function has not recovered and the anastomosis needs to grow. This period should be absolute fasting. The doctor will choose intravenous infusion of high nutrients or infusion of enteral nutrition solution specially prepared by nutrition room through enteral nutrition tube according to the patient’s condition. The amount and speed of infusion of enteral nutrition solution is gradually increased and accelerated from little and slow. During this process, medical and nursing staff will closely understand whether the patient has abdominal pain, bloating, diarrhea and other conditions, and adjust the formula of nutrition solution, the speed of infusion and the daily amount at any time. 2, fluid period: about a week after surgery, the patient’s gastrointestinal function began to gradually recover, there is anal exhaust or stool, the anastomosis inside the esophagus also gradually grows and heals, then need to go to the X-ray room for barium swallowing examination, to confirm that the anastomosis grows without abnormalities, the doctor will separate the gastric tube from the negative pressure bottle, and instruct the patient to try to drink a small amount of warm boiled water in several times, after observing a day without choking and coughing, bloating and other discomfort, the next day the gastric tube After a day of observation without choking or bloating, the gastric tube will be removed the next day and the patient will be informed to start eating liquid food in small amounts (the general standard is 50 ml each time, every 2 hours). At the beginning of feeding, since there is nothing to digest in the gastrointestinal tract for a longer time, thick rice soup is advocated as the main food, and it is not advisable to drink nutrient-rich meat soups too early. After the gastrointestinal tract has readjusted to the digestion of food, only then start to drink some nutrient-rich meat soup (including meat and rice soup), once every 3 hours, 100ml each time; gradually increase the amount to 200ml and extend the time interval. 3.Semi-liquid period: After 3-5 days of liquid period diet, patients should start to eat less dregs, easily digestible minced meat porridge, noodles, egg custard, tofu and other semi-liquid food, and chew slowly when eating. 4, normal diet period: generally from the second week after the start of the diet, patients should try to eat ordinary food in the form of buns, cakes, soft rice and other dough, supplemented by stewed meat and vegetables, bananas and other softer fruits to maintain a balanced nutrition, avoid eating too much fiber too long, too thick, too hard and thorny food, prohibit the consumption of fried, spicy food, and minimize the consumption of sweets.