I AM SO BEHIND!  Here is how this past week went...

Thursday (10/18) - In the middle of my International Relations class I about pass out.  I start getting all fuzzy and the room starts spinng and I feel like I am going to throw up.  I grab my cell phone and nothing else, and make a quick exit.  For the past 8 days I have been getting 3-4 times as much fluid out of my bulb thing than I am supposed to and I have been queasy almost non-stop, making eating and drinking really hard.  I've felt sluggish for days, but finally I start to feel like things are getting life threatening.  I call La Crosse to talk to the surgery clinic nurses and they want me to go to the ER.  I don't have a car so instead I find a quiet room, eat a cheese stick, drink some water and try to calm down.  After my other class let out I went back to the room and got my stuff.  I managed to hold it together for one more hour for my last class of the day, but as I rode to my mom's house for fall break with a friend I felt like I was dying.  I couldn't quite breathe as deep as I wanted or get the room to stop spinning.  At my mom's house I curl up in a corner on the couch and just try to keep breathing and drinking.  Dr. Baker's office left a message on my cell phone in the mean time, telling me they want me to come in at 10 the next day for a tube check because something is definately wrong.

Friday (10/19) - Emergency Trip to La Crosse to re-position my tube, which had migrated out of my stomach (after losing 13 pounds in 9 days unintentionally).  I felt better almost as soon as they moved the tube. 

Saturday (10/20) - Do 6 hours of service learning for my Adolescent Psych class, still feeling good.

Sunday (10/21) - Church and recover at my mom's house (and gain 2 pounds intentionally)

Monday (10/22) - Follow-up appointment with Dr. Baker in La Crosse.  All looks good until Kyle and I start home.  All of a sudden my bulb thing at the end of my tube starts filling up quickly again, a sign that the tube has migrated.  I let it go , hoping it is just a fluke.

Tuesday (10/23) - I go to campus and start feeling really drained (pun unintentional) and nauseous again.  I have trouble keeping food down and I'm losing 100 cc's of fluid every 20 minutes.  I call La Crosse and am instructed to go get x-rays at Plattville's hospital (they'll send orders) to check my tube position.  After frantically (unsuccessfully) trying to get a hold of Kyle, he finally answers his phone and I get to the hospital where po-dunk P-ville doesn't even have a radiologist on staff.  They technician who took the xray has ME come look at it to see if I can tell if the tube is out of place.  DUH.  Xrays just show BONE and METAL not organs, how in the world am I supposed to know?  What I do notice is the IUD I had inserted back in March is UPSIDE DOWN!  GREAT.  I call La Crosse and let them know this isn't going to be good enough, and they agree and tell me to get there ASAP.  Kyle and I make the 3 hour drive (having to stop frequently to empty my bulb).  We get to the ER where a rush assures I have lots of time to worry about how many days it has been since I shaved my legs and  the fact that it's laundry day so I'm wearing granny panties and now the stereotypically cute doctors-in-training are going to know.  Not only that but they are sure to ask about my recent bowel movements and if I'm passing gas just to make my mortification complete.  I am a professional patient and so I hardly flinch anymore when a tech draws blood or intserts an IV.  This IV insertion was rougher than normal (as the bruise on my hand will testify to) and watching ended up being too much for Kyle so he had to excuse himself.  Xrays show the tube has definately moved out of my stomach, but none of the doctors on staff can move it until morning.  Well, they could take it out (heck, I could take it out - and have taken them out before) but not put a new one in so I'm stuck.  They can't send me home like this so I'm admitted.  

Wednesday (10/24) - I have now missed 3 days of school.  In the hospital I am happily hydrated, but kept NPO (no food) as a precaution.  At 4am my tube is clamped.  Dr. Baker wants to see if we can get me really filled up with fluid and do a CT scan to check, one last time, for SMA syndrome.  Within 10 minutes of being clamped I feel like a water balloon.  I'm given dramamine and sent back to sleep.  Later in the morning I ask for more anti-nausea drugs and am given Reglen aka heroine.  It makes me jittery like you wouldn't believe.  At least it wasn't droperidal which makes me hallucinate.  The CT scan happens at about 10:30 (only an hour and a half after it was scheduled for) and is CONCLUSIVE.  Yes, ladies and gentlemen, we got a CONCLUSIVE test out of me!  I HAVE SMA SYNDROME!  FOR SURE!  Now, I thank God for Dr. Baker listening to his gut and waiting to remove the excluded stomach because if he would have removed the stomach I could have died.  The SMA syndrome means I have fluid build up in the upper limb of the duodenum, and when the pressure gets to be too much the fluid refluxes into the excluded stomach, but without an excluded stomach there to collect excess fluid the duodenum could burst and that would be fatal.  So yes, Dr. Baker is the right man for this job.  I hang out in my room, still NPO, until close to 4:30 when I am discharged.  I have to come back tomorrow to get a new tube because all the radiologists are sick of my ugly mug (jk - really the radiologists were just booked solid).  So my grandpa picked me up and took me home, where I attend church and try to eat and drink (they told me to eat and drink) through the nausea and pain before falling dead asleep from anti-nausea meds.

Thursday (10/25) - My grandparents (these people rock) take me back up to La Crosse.  Dr. Baker removed my old tube and reinserted a new one himself.  This one is held in place by a balloon and it sits a lot shallower in the stomach so it shouldn't move.  It is really uncomfortable and it doesn't drain as well as the other one so I am back on daily pain meds and anti-nausea meds until my surgery which will be the day before Thanksgiving.  At home I try to get used to the new tube which is a lot longer than the old one, and eat and drink through the pain.  I have now missed 4 days of school and am supposed to take midterms tomorrow.  I e-mail and call my merciful professors and get extensions for the tests.  

Friday (10/26) - I stay at my mom's house and recover from my hospital adventures.  Hospital stays are never as restful as you think they should be.  I mean how much sleep/rest can you possibly get with nurses coming in to check your vitals every half and hour?  Then I rode along with my older sister to pick up my nephew from a visit with his dad.  I've managed to put back on 4 of the 13 pounds I lost - which we guess were mostly fluid anyway.  I hate my new tube.  The balloon puts pressure on the inside of my stomach and that is NOT PLEASANT at all.  It basically means sleeping lying down is out of the question.  Like I said before it also doesn't drain as well as the other tube so I spend a lot of time managing pain with serious drugs that I need to be done with.  But, at least I am closer to surgery and FINALITY and I probably won't die.  On that positive note, my dog thinks I am the coolest (when I'm not feeling well she turns into my shadow and so I've spent the past 30 hours reassuring her that I am okay with lots of scratches behind her ears) and my nephew looked at me and with all sincerity and said "Thank you uncle Amy" and later lovingly called me "My aunt Amy" while trying to force feed me funyuns.  That right there will keep me smiling for days.

I'm devoting Saturday to studying for midterms and Sunday to my grandpa Robertson's retirement.  He is a pastor and Sunday is his last Sunday in the pulpit before he retires.  It is going to be a beautiful service and a lot of my family is here to attend it.  Monday it is back to school - wish me luck!  I'm a week behind so it is going to be hard to catch up but I sure am going to do everything I can to get there.

2 Responses to "Home, re-tubed and catching up"

• Amy,
  I have followed your story and pray for you daily. I am so sorry you have been through so much with WLS. I am thankful you have found LaCrosse. Dr. Baker and Dr. Kothari are the ones who performed my procedure and I hold them in high regards. I am so happy that Dr. Baker has figured out your problem! The day before Thanksgiving seems so far away! I will keep you in my thoughts and prayers! Good luck!
  Sherry Picha

  cskwj commented on 10/27/07 8:18 pm

• Praise Jesus hun, you have your answer! So glad they're not removing your old stomach, that's so scary! Hope you have a quick recovery!

  rebeka C. commented on 11/5/07 6:15 pm