Sorry to hear your in hospital Gee, which can be a challenge in itself. The good thing is your in the right place and I hope your op goes ok.
Now I’m not one to preach but, as an ex smoker who packed in 6yrs ago, I not going to say I feel much better as I have COPD but, my wallet is a damn sight heavier. I tried the patches and tablets without much success. I even tried tiny whistle sweet looking vape given to me by the NHS, that was as much use as a chocolate fireguard. Iwas then recommended a vape mod device, the type you can replace the batteries. I stuck with fag flavour juice as I found the fruit flavours sickly. The taste took some getting use to but I gradually weened myself from 18mg nictotine to 0mg and still use it now. My X rays and scans whilst not looking much better due to COPD, they haven’t got worse!
If you do decide t try one, you need mouth to lung (MTL) setup, which is more akin to smoking and not direct to lung (DTL) that produces more vapour clouds than a fire, they also need a higher wattage and can fry your lungs over time!
All the best 🙂