redenallen
About Me
I am a 33 year old wife and mother of 4. I work full-time as a teacher and my husband is a stay at home dad until our 2 year old twins get old enough for school. I have been overweight my whole life and considered WLS for about 2 years prior to actually having a lap RNY 03/11/2010. I have been relatively healthy with no history of any major medical complications, until now...
Here is a brief time line of the unlikely events that occured during a routine lap RNY.
03/11/2010
I arrived at Methodist Hospital in Houston, TX at approximately 9:30 am to have my surgery. I was originally scheduled to have the 1st surgery of the day at 8:00 am but the Dr's office conveniently bumped me to 12:00 pm making me the last surgery of the day. (The doctor's last patient before he left on vacation) I didn't go into surgery until about 2:00 pm due to the demands of my Dr. The surgery went fine and I didn't have any complications (or so I thought). I was released the next day about 3:00 pm and sent home with some pain meds and an inserted pain pump in my left incision.
03/13/2010
My husband decided to take our 4 children to the zoo to give me a break (8 year old, 5 year old, Twins that 1 year old). I went to my parents house and was feeling terrible. 1st I started out with some abdominal pain and took some pain med. Then came the vomiting. I would sip liquid and then throw up. I immediately called the dr (on vacation) and was instantly connected. He advised me to go straight to the ER where after collapsing I was put in a room immediately. The pain at this point was unbearable. Morphine would only last about 30 minutes before I was writhing in pain again. The ER immediately took me for X-Rays, then a CT scan (I had to drink some crap which was utterly impossible). The CT scan showed a small bowel obstruction. Within an hour I was rushed in for surgery. Fortunately my dr was on vacation close enough to come in. They were able to correct the obstruction and resewed all my connections by hand (instead of the original staples). In all they drained 3 Liters of fluid out of my remnant stomach and my small bowels! I had a "G" tube put in place in case they had to drain more fluids out of my old stomach. The doctor said if I would have waited another day I probably would have died.
03/15/2010
After making it through 2 surgeries in days, what are the chances I would have another complication? I don't remember that much about this day, but I do remember being in a lot of pain and discomfort and being hooked up to a bunch of machines. I remember a very rude nurse telling me she was going to have to send me to the ICU because my machines kept beeping and I also remember not being able to sleep because every time i would doze off my oxygen levels would go so low the machines would go crazy beeping and wake me up.
At about midnight the PA from the doctor's office woke me up to inform of another immediate, emergency surgery. This time they were going to have to do an open surgery to look for a leak. Sure enough, I had sepsis and the doctor had to clean me out and remove the infection. My husband said this was the scariest night of his life. (He received the phone call at about 1:00 am and couldn't leave to be with me because of our children.) The doctor said if he couldn't get all the infection I could risk losing my life.
I spent the next 4 days in ICU on a ventilator. I don't remember much of anything during this time, except being strapped down to a bed with tubes down my throat.
03/15/2010 - 03/27/2010
Spent the rest of my days recovering trying to keep my blood pressure down and my spirits up. I got very depressed towards the end of my hospital stay because I would be told I was going home and then something would happen and I would have to stay a few more days. I went home with an eight inch open incision (they didn't close it for risk of infection) that has to be packed with gauze every day and the g-tube along with visits from home health care nurses who help my husband take care of my wound.
04/03/2010
At the follow up appointment the PA removed my G-tube and looked at my incision. She said everything was healing nicely. I was very disappointed that the doctor did not even come and speak to me or inquire about my condition. He was in the office and was actually outside my room chatting away on his cell phone and passed me in the waiting room and hallway twice without even acknowledging me or asking me how I was doing. I was and am still infuriated with him and his lack of compassion or bedside manner.
04/09/2010
Another follow up appointment with the PA to check on my incision. A few more weeks and I should be healed she says. I got a B12 injection and cleared to return to work on 04/12 1/2 days.
