ObesityHelp

I had a Lap RNY on July 21, and things did NOT go smoothly at all. It has taken me almost 2 months to finally feel glad that I had the surgery, but I have been regretting the decision for the past 7 weeks. My surgery ended up having complications which were serious and painful, but I know they are rare, and I would still encourage people who are considering surgery to go for it. I have read so many encouraging accounts of people who had uneventful surgeries and then went on to lose lots of weight! The very next day after the initial surgery I was running a 103 degree fever and feeling extra terrible, and my doctor decided that he needed to go back in to see what was wrong. He ended up opening me up with a 5-inch incision and discovering a leak in my "new" stomach, which of course created infection inside of me. He fixed that,and I went home 3 days later with a drainage tube sticking out of my stomach. Well, after a day and a half, I was back in the hospital again. I had a CAT-scan, where they discovered that my "blind" stomach (the part no longer being used) was full of gas or air. They ended up opening me up again to discover more infection under the incision, and put a gastrostomy (?) tube into my stomach...so now I had 2 tubes sticking out of me. This time they didn't sew me back up. They left a giant open incision to heal up on it's own because they didn't want to risk closing in any infection again. So, that was pretty awful. The wound needed to be packed with wet gauze 3 times a day, and I spent another week in the hospital. It's still not totally healed (after 7 weeks), so I have to clean and dress it 3 times a day still. As I said, it's taken me this long to realize that having the surgery was a good idea despite the complications. I have lost 45 lbs. so far, and I am feeling better each day.

**Update: It has now been 4 months since my surgery, and I have lost 72 lbs.