My wild ride in surgery on August 26, 2008 1:35 pm
Let me start by telling you my surgical history. I was always pretty healthy my whole life except for my weight and a few medical problems that were under control. I had four children delivered vaginally. They were healthy and I raised them for the most part as a single parent. I wasn't willing to take any major risks until they were old to enough to take care of themselves. So I put off doing anything drastic until my children were grown and had left home.
In 2004, I was finally at the point where I could take a few risks. Because of an uncomfortable prolapsed uterus, I had a partial hysterectomy in August of 2004. The doctor did it vaginally which left me with no scars and very little pain. I did have a severe bladder infection afterwards but that was quickly taken care of with antibiotics. I had a few quirky pains which the doc put down to adhesions. He said not to worry about them unless I had a lot of pain. No problem. I was up and working within a month.
Now that I was feeling better, I wanted more. I wanted to be able to live and breath and have a healthier life. I started looking into bariatric surgery. After a long period of research and testing, I was ready. I went in for RNY surgery with gallbladder removal in September of 2006. The surgeon was nearly done with the RNY when he realized he couldn't see well enough to finish the procedure laproscopically. He decided to open me up and finish the RNY then removed my gallbladder. The incision was far more painful that anything I had ever experienced. My abdominal muscles were cut from my breastbone to my bellybutton. I didn't realize until then that abdominal muscles are used for pretty much every movement. Thankfully, I had good pain meds and a comfortable recliner to help me thru those first few weeks. I had some infection in my incision. Again, that was taken care of with antibiotics. After four weeks, I was back at work. I did work from home for a couple of weeks at first but my energy level started to come back and before long, I was good to go.
Things moved along quickly after that. I lost 30 pounds the first month then 7-10 pounds a month after that. All my labs came back good time after time. I reached my goal of a normal weight at 9 months out. After that I lost another fifteen pounds. I was okay with that since I now had a little cushion to work with. I could gain a few pounds and still be a normal weight.
In spring of 2008, at about a year and a half out, I gained back a few pounds. I was feeling really good about my life. My most pressing concern was that I might start to gain weight. I tried not to panic but frankly, I was a little scared. All that work and pain. I was not going to allow myself to regain.
In spring, I was walking for 30 minutes three times a week. After I gained those few pounds back, I decided to kick it up a notch to avoid any further weight gain. I started to walk 30 minutes a day almost every day. I weighed myself daily. I still struggled but I didn't gain.
I was starting to enjoy my walks in nature with my dogs so I started walking 60 minutes some days. I could feel myself getting healthier and I enjoyed my life more and more.
I took Monday, June 30 off as a vacation day. I was going to babysit for my sweet three month old grandbaby that day. I was looking forward to taking her for a walk in her stroller and spending the day with her. Unfortunately, plans don't always work out.
I woke up that day at 4 AM. I didn't feel well so I went downstairs. I paced the kitchen for a little while trying to "get things moving". That was my usual fix for middle of the night discomfort. Then I went to sit on the toilet. As expected, I had a BM and felt a little better. I stood up, the pain hit and grew and grew. I couldn't walk because of the pain so I laid down on the bathroom floor waiting for the pain to pass. Finally after an hour, I pushed past the pain and got back to the bedroom where I could ask my husband to take me to the ER. I was shivering from my time laying on the cold floor then I started hyperventilating. By the time he got me to the ER in my PJs, shivering and hyperventilating, I must have looked pretty bad. The doctors ran all kinds of tests from blood tests to a contrast CT. The only thing they found was a kidney tumor. They were quite sure it couldn't be causing the pain. They suggested I go see my surgeon the next day. They set up an appt and gave me some pain pills to get me thru the night. I was pretty disgusted with their attitude, so I went home.
I was suppose to take one to two 500 mg pain pills every four to six hours. I took two every three hours and the pain was still horrific. I knew this was not normal but there wasn't much I could do about it until I saw the doc. I ate nothing all day or night. I did try to drink with the pain pills to avoid dehydration. I managed until sometime in the middle of the night when I started to spontaneously bring everything back up anytime I tried to swallow.
Finally, the next morning, I saw my surgeon. I could barely talk because of the pain but I did manage to tell him I was in horrible pain - 15 on a scale of 1-10. He immediately sent me to the hospital for exploritory surgery. By that point, I didn't care if I was alive or dead. I just wanted the pain to go away.
That afternoon, my surgeon opened me up from above my bellybutton to just above the pubic area. He found adhesions from my hysterectomy had messed up my intestines. My small intestine was twisted. 9 inches was gangrene and had to be removed. Along with those nine inches, I lost the valve between my small and large intestines.
During this whole ordeal, my husband was getting more and more frantic. When the surgery took an hour longer than expected, he was quite sure something had gone wrong and the worst had happened. Fortunately, I did make it thru. I woke up with an NG tube and a whole lot less pain.
The road to recovery was slow this time around. I was tired all the time. I slept at least 12 hours a night. I couldn't walk without pain. I fell into a short depression for a while. In the end, I did, ever so slowly get better. After just shy of six weeks, I went back to work.
But there was one more issue to address. Remember that kidney tumor they found in the ER? I had to see a urologist about it. He was quite sure it was cancer and it absolutely could not be ignored. Another major surgery. *Sigh*
They scheduled it for just over 7 weeks after the surgery on my intestines. I was freaking out. Two major surgeries in two months? Could I live thru two?
I had that kidney removed last week. It was cancerous. It was small. No chemo. No radiation. I'm in pain again but this surgery was a breeze compared to the twisted intestine. I did wake up with a JP drain in my side. The incision was horizontal rather than vertical this time so the pain wasn't nearly as severe. I just got home yesterday and I'm feeling hopeful.
Things are about to get better again. I just know it.
I think I'll put off plastic surgery for a while though.
:-)
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9 weeks post op on November 29, 2006 10:39 am
I'm finally done with the pains of surgery and I'm having fun watching the numbers on the scale go down every week. So far I've lost 48 pounds. This is the most weight I've ever lost on a diet and it has taken very little effort. With most diets, I was starving every minute. With WLS, I'm never really hungry but I eat because I know I must to stay healthy. I even enjoy cooking again. I know I won't overeat any of the food I make. Even diet frozen dinners fill me up before I finish! My dogs are loving me. They never leave my side for very long. Its not because I'm such a great dog-mom, its because they get all my leftovers. LOL.
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