Always talk to your Surgeon or his/her staff !!

Apr 09, 2011

Hi All,

In my previous post I did mention I was already feeling better and thats true... each day after I returned home from my surgery I was feeling stronger and stronger and then it started!!

I was getting more and more pain in my left side and at first I just put it down to pain around the largest incision site and all the blogs about post surgery pain made me think this must be normal. As it happened I had already scheduled an appointment with my PCP as a courtesy and I told the Doc there of the pain and she thought maybe constipation/gas etc, so I went home with some Miralax to try and help, but NO... that pain just kept increasing.

After the fifth day of this I spoke with my surgeons office and although I felt a bit of a fraud talking to them about what was probably just constipation, they were not so sure and after talking further with them the next day and I explained I was now seeing much more swelling and redness to the area, they told me to go to the ER for a CT scan.

Well it turns out I did the right thing as I had an infection the size of a Cantaloupe Melon that had most likely been caused by the surgical instruments especially bearing in mind my surgery took so long. If I had waited another day I could have been in serious trouble. So my surgeon came saw me after I was admitted and re-cut open my incision and you don't want to know how much stuff he pulled out of there.

3 Days later I was back home after being pumped full of antibiotics and more to take at home orally. Needless to say that at this moment I am a little frustrated and currently have buyers remorse... I know that will pass and I have already lost 30lbs since surgery which is great but I am just fed up with being in pain all the time. I have home health come every morning to repack the open 4cm x 1cm hole I have in my stomach which they pack about 4 inches deep with gauze to act as a wick so as to draw out any remaining infection and my wife changes it at night.

I'm sure my next post will be more upbeat and I know a lot of you are off to a great start and I don't want to take that away... I just thought I would share my experiences with anyone who wishes to read but I guess here the message is  more about trusting your instincts and speaking with your surgeons office as early as possible if you think something is wrong. I should have taken my own advice.

Ken.

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