briwin
First week home
Feb 27, 2007
Still playing catch-up here! Posting this on Feb. 27. but I'm doing a quick catch up from Sat. the 17th when we got home. By Sunday, I felt more comfortable - working on the liquid diet thing with tons of help from Jan. Found easy ways to meet and exceed the 99 gr. protein requirement. Thank goodness I like whey powder!!! Exercise is sort of dicey - I get tired so easily. By Wednesday I felt up to an appointment with my family doctor, Dr. Arora to review meds and also get my UIC stuff signed and filed. That pretty much knocked me out. Thursday I saw Dr. Rossman, my gastroenterologist, who reviewed the surgery and worked with me to find and alternative to Mesasal which I've taken for years to control my Ulcerative Colitis. With the new stoma size, these pills are too large to ingest. Ended up with Pentasa, which are identical in size to the famed "M&M". I sort of became paranoid because of their size and decided to not take any until Monday Feb.26 when I have my follow-up with Dr. Schram scheduled to get his advice.
Heading home
Feb 24, 2007
Well, thank goodness my wife was driving and she generally has more sense than me. We left Ypsi around 11 am and got as far as Strathroy by 4 pm. This is about 2/3 of the way to Hamilton. We stopped at a Timmies for a pit stop and back in the car I was hanging onto the hand thingy above the door window, gasping, cold sweat and pale. Not thinking particularly clear, I said - Home to Hamilton!! Jan said - Forget it!!! She won. We spent the night in a motel near town - utter bliss. Pretty good nites sleep, relaxation, rejuvenation. On Saturday we easily made it home by noon or so and the real process begins of healing and the liquid diet.
The beginning of the third stage..Feb.12th, 2007
Feb 22, 2007
The third part of my journey I consider to have started from the day of surgery. This occured February 12th, 2007. Dr. Schram at the Barix clinic in Ypsilanti and his team put me out cold in pre-op and the next I remember is waking in good old room 203 on the second floor. Dr. Schram dropped by to say the gall bladder was removed, a "massively huge" hernia was repaired and the gastric bypass (RNY) was successful. All in all a good 2 hours work. It was done openly and I've got the mark to prove it! The night and following day was routine - I became far too well acquainted with the respiratory techs - and everything looked great until a huge gas bubble reared it's ugly head in my intestines. I was taken for the usual x-rays re: leakage etc. and then progressively when downhill. First one enema, then the second. More x-rays and then a third enema. My goodness. (for lack of a better expletive....) Finally, THURSDAY morning, a suppository laced with TNT and KABOOM - the bubble burst! Hallelujah. From late morning onwards I felt better and better and was finally released on Friday morning, the 16th.
