Feystorm
So far – basically so good.
Mar 28, 2012
I am two weeks out from surgery today. I am also four and a half weeks from when I began the pre-op diet and realized this surgery was a reality, not just an idea. I am down 27lbs, but not any clothing sizes. My belly is still sore around the big incision site, and basically still swollen in general. No pants are comfy, even soft stretchy ones. I have resorted to wearing the soft stretchies down under my stomach (which I hate and it’s irritating) as it is the least uncomfortable way to get through the day. As soon as I get home from classes every night, the pants come off, the bra comes off and I just breathe. Usually I wear my longer t-shirt nightgowns just to be comfy. I can’t wait for the soreness to subside and to be back in regular clothes.
I have had some problems since I got home. The first night home I over did it. I was still riding the pain pump meds and so on the way home we stopped at the pharmacy and the grocery store. We then went home and I took a walk. I was so anxious to get this going and get it started on the right foot that I actually did more damage than good. Within an hour of starting to relax I realized I was having chills and a fever. I felt terrible. When I called my doctor he said to rest, I had really overdone it and that to keep an eye on the fever. I was to lay down, sip my water and try to relax. Lol… oops, my bad. So that’s what I did. By the end of the night, after a good long nap, the fever was gone and I was feeling much better.
I returned to school the Monday following surgery, and then Tuesday was my post-op. I had gone into surgery at 200lbs, but came out at 206 due to the water weight. I was back down to 199 at post op. Doctor was incredibly happy with my progess. Percentage wise I was 12% down of my total overweight amount. I was so happy, I could cry.
Last Friday however, was a bad day. I noticed a pain in my lower right back. By Saturday it was so bad that I couldn’t walk upright normally for any length of time. I was in pain and called the surgeon. I told him I didn’t think it was surgical related, but wanted to start with them just in case. I had long ago had a kidney infection (more than 10 years) and this pain was reminiscent of that. But I wanted to check. He agreed that it was more than likely not due to the surgery and to head to ER to be checked for kidney problems. I left my cell phone at home, but later regretted that. He had said that if they gave me any problems to call him, and I wish I had.
The ER doctor was a jackass, and that is putting it nicely. He had blinders on that the pain was due to surgery, even after a member of my doctor’s surgical team came in to check on me and told the ER doc that was NOT it. He then made it seem like I was a drug abuser. I had told him that I was off my pain meds by the post op appointment on Tuesday, and that the pain did not feel related to the surgical site, and that I also had not taken ANY pain meds on Fri or Sat as I did not know what would happen when I could finally get to ER. Twice the jerk asked me “So, when did you run out of your pain meds from surgery?” I was insulted to say the least. The first time he said that I calmly explained to him that I had NOT run out, and in fact had about 2/3 of the bottle left of the liquid pain meds and had not taken them since Tuesday. The second time (hours later) he said it, I was mad. I told him he must not be listening cuz I had already explained to him I still had meds at home. He didn’t seem to listen or care. The CT scan he did was not of my kidneys, but of my belly and following the surgery site through my bowels. What the hell. To add insult to injury, he asked me if I wanted him to run further labs on the urine samples I gave him. Well of course I wanted him to do his job. Why ask me, you know how! When they finally discharged me, I was so pissed to see that he wrote the diagnosis as abdominal pain. Idiot. I did not have abdominal pain, I had lower back pain. After wasting 8 hours of my time and my sleep (we left at 7am), I was livid, tired, and just plain upset. He had offered me no help to the situation, and basically dismissed it. I left feeling as though he treated me like a drug seeking liar. When I called my pcp the next business day, I was told I couldn’t be seen to the end of the week. The ER doc had prescribed vicodin in pill form, and while she couldn’t change it to the liquid, she okayed me to go back to the liquid I got after surgery. Also, she couldn’t see where he had actually run the cultures on my labs to see if I was having kidney problems.
I see my pcp on Friday. I am pissed that we made the extra drive to the hospital’s ER where I had the surgery performed instead of going to the closer one up the street. We made the drive to avoid this problem, a short sighted doctor not wanting to look for any other problems other than my surgery. And I doubt that I would have been treated as a drug seeker somewhere else.
Today I am still on the pain meds, and I try to last as long as I can throughout the day without taking them. I can’t afford to be slow-minded in class, one of the reasons I don’t care for meds in general. Plus, when I study, pain meds make me forget everything, there is no real retention. Law school demands retention, and I feel myself falling behind already.
Here’s to hoping that things look up and my pcp gets to the root of the problem on Friday.
