My nausea has continued since my last surgery, it did improve, and I feel like the last surgery did clear up some adhesions that were causing intermittent small bowel obstructions.  I still have the same symptoms (nausea/pain/vomiting), but my pain is in a completely different place, which I took as a positive, maybe a signal that we are getting to the root of the problem.  My surgeon at U of C referred me to the GI doctor at U of C.  I met with her on Friday for the first time, she is very nice and very knowledgeable.  They are thinking that I may have a Sphincter of Oddi dysfunction (which by the way, is weird enough to have been on that show Mystery Diagnosis), it has to do with the bile duct/sphincter being too tight, and allowing fluid to back up, which causes the symptoms I am having, but the symptoms could also be from some other things, so they took some labs to rule some other things out, and I am going tomorrow for a special MRI called an MRCP, it will allow her to get a good view of my anatomy as it stands now, including a view of the bile/pancreatic ducts and the pancreatic duct function as they will inject me with a medicine that will cause the pancreas to excrete Secretin so she can see where the pancreatic duct is, and also verify that I do not have any malignancies (God forbid) and make sure that I have not had a form of Pancreatitis all this time, not likely, but possible.  If all of these tests are still leading in the direction of the Sphincter of Oddi dysfunction, then they will schedule me for a therapeutic ERCP, it is done under endoscopy, and they use the endoscopy tools to reach the bile duct, and they use a cutting tool to splay open the Sphincter of Oddi to relieve the pressure and open the duct so it can function properly...there is a 30% chance of successfully solving my problem, and because I am a woman and I fall into a certain age group, there is also a significant risk of my developing Pancreatitis right after the procedure.  She has already told me that because of this, she will reserve a room for me for observation overnight, but I will only have to stay if I wake up in any pain at all after the procedure.  She advised me of all of the risks vs benefits, and even though a 30% chance of fixing me is not much of a chance, I have to do it because I can't keep on like this,  I need to improve my quality of life, and life for my family.  It has helped me to write these blogs, and to read the posts of others that are struggling, just a reminder that we are not alone.

I just want to start off by saying that a reversal is the LAST thing I wanted, and through all of this it is the only regret that I have, I don't regret doing it to make myself well, I just regret having to do it because then you fall into a place where you sometimes feel like you don't belong to either group...not that we always need to belong, but anyone who has been through this can understand.  Since my reversal 11/3/08 at University of Chicago (under the care of a wonderful doctor, Dr. Alverdy...both of my surgeons have been great, really), I was still suffering with these intermittent small bowel obstructions, and I do mean suffering because they were coming out of nowhere, at any time, and I work in the ER and it happened to me at work a few times and it's hard to just say, oh I need to go pace for a while and throw up, but I have the best co-workers around so they made it possible somehow.  I struggled to get through the holidays, in the ER over Thanksgiving, made it through the family visits over Christmas, and ended up back in the ER 12/28/08.  The elusive small bowel obstruction showed itself on film, which is a feat in itself as anyone with this problem knows they are usually camera shy for us.  I didn't have any bowel sounds at all, and that is a bad thing.  They helped me out with nausea/pain, and I thought I would be seeing my original surgeon the next morning, but who knew he was on vacation

Once I realized that he would not be able to care for me, I asked my husband to send my surgeon at U of C an email, and I called his office myself from my hospital room.  While I was waiting for his call back, I did see the covering surgeon, both of them, and they were convinced that it was just my gallbladder (they had rustled up an old ultrasound that was done in Feb 2008, which did show stones), and that even though I had no bowel sounds, there was nothing wrong with my intestine, and one of them even called me before I was transferred to U of C by ambulance to tell me not to let the other surgeon touch my small intestine.  I know I am making this a long story, but if you are going through something medical, you do need to listen to the experts, but you have to listen to your own body, your own intuition to tell you which experts you need to listen to.  I think there was someone else on here that said it best, to remember that they say that people "practice" medicine, it is always evolving and no one knows everything all the time.  On 01/02/09 I had my gallbladder removed (laparoscopically), and adhesions removed that were interfering with a piece of small bowel.  If I had stayed at the other hospital, I would have left with the same problems I started with, and another surgery.  I have only been home a few days, and I have the usual post-op pain/nausea, but we are watching the nausea...I think the next game plan, if it continues, involves investigating if I have Sphincter of Oddi Dysfunction, let's hope we can just get past this and be done.
I never took it lightly to have my surgery reversed, quite the opposite.  Anytime we have surgery, just the effects of anesthesia wreak havoc on your system, the depression, fatigue, nausea, hair loss, the list goes on.  Take care, and I hope all of you that are struggling find a resolution in this new year!