Jennifer H.
Originally Posted June 11th 2010 - My surgical story
Jul 12, 2010
Post Date: 6/11/10 5:54 pm
Hi Everyone.
I'm not sure how long my abdomen will allow me to write, but I'll try to get as much in as I can. I'm not going to stop for the little typos.
So I had my RNY surgery on May 17th. May 20th after a few days of nothing but black vomit coming up, they did a CT scan and found they had to go back in and fix my bowels which had obstructed while they healed. That ened up being open surgery. Then May 22nd I almost died. My heart rate went up above 200 beats per minute in v-fib and they loaded me with drug after drug after drug. I had 7 IV's dripping into me at once. they told me if they couldn't correct the arrythmia or speed of my heart they would have to shock me. Nice thought, really relaxing. lucky for me after about 8 hours my heart came down to about 140 and the vfib stopped. yay no shocking. I was in ICU. They tried to do a CT scan to see what was going on in there, but because of all the fluids, I was too heavy for the machine. The bed weighed me at 445. Surgery weight was 402. That's a lotta fluids. They explored with the laproscopes and put in two drains. That was good. Lots of gross stuff was in there. Infected things, absecessed other things.. it was a mess. But they found it and that was good. took it out. I stayed in ICU for a week. I got weak as a newborn kitten. I could hardly breath and I couldn't even poop with dignity. "Just poop in the bed" they said. sometimes they cleaned me right away, other times I had to wait an hour or two. I didn't like ICU much sometimes. I kept track of the great nurses's names.
They moved me to HDU (High Dependency Unit) where after 2 days I got a new roommate who died under code blue two hours after she got there. That was haunting. I think I spent about 4 days in HDU, and then was deemed well enough to go back to the surgery floor. I was strong enough to get out of bed by myself and just spent day after day waiting for them to tell me I could eat. I was on IV food for a good 2 weeks. They did a swallow test and I passed with flying colours, so they introduced food and yummmmm. The dr said I could most likely leave the hosp on Monday (this week) but then Sunday night I spiked a fever and they were concerned. They did another CT scan (I was 398 by the scale in the hall so I knew I would fit this time) and found a pocket of crap. I was sent into a great depression. They said tehy would try to aspirate it out with ultrasound assistance, but the ultrasound couldn't penetrate my big body deep enough. So they all went to lunch and said 'let's have a salmon plate" while they left me in the hall to wait till they got back and did it with CT instead. Which they did. Which was painful. I was downstairs from 10:30am till 3pm, leaving my husband unknowing upstairs for what seemed like forever, on the day we were supposed to leave.
The dr came in at 4pm though and said he was happy with the CT and I could leave right then or the next day. I was in a lot of pain from the new drain and chose to leave Tuesday.
and that's all I can write right now.
Home has been a blessing, but the last drain they put in is infected and I'm worried I might have to go back to my local hosp. My fam doc saw me today tho and gave me antibiotics so I'm really really hoping that takes care of it.
ciao and it's good to be back.
1 comment
Hi Everyone.
I'm not sure how long my abdomen will allow me to write, but I'll try to get as much in as I can. I'm not going to stop for the little typos.
So I had my RNY surgery on May 17th. May 20th after a few days of nothing but black vomit coming up, they did a CT scan and found they had to go back in and fix my bowels which had obstructed while they healed. That ened up being open surgery. Then May 22nd I almost died. My heart rate went up above 200 beats per minute in v-fib and they loaded me with drug after drug after drug. I had 7 IV's dripping into me at once. they told me if they couldn't correct the arrythmia or speed of my heart they would have to shock me. Nice thought, really relaxing. lucky for me after about 8 hours my heart came down to about 140 and the vfib stopped. yay no shocking. I was in ICU. They tried to do a CT scan to see what was going on in there, but because of all the fluids, I was too heavy for the machine. The bed weighed me at 445. Surgery weight was 402. That's a lotta fluids. They explored with the laproscopes and put in two drains. That was good. Lots of gross stuff was in there. Infected things, absecessed other things.. it was a mess. But they found it and that was good. took it out. I stayed in ICU for a week. I got weak as a newborn kitten. I could hardly breath and I couldn't even poop with dignity. "Just poop in the bed" they said. sometimes they cleaned me right away, other times I had to wait an hour or two. I didn't like ICU much sometimes. I kept track of the great nurses's names.
They moved me to HDU (High Dependency Unit) where after 2 days I got a new roommate who died under code blue two hours after she got there. That was haunting. I think I spent about 4 days in HDU, and then was deemed well enough to go back to the surgery floor. I was strong enough to get out of bed by myself and just spent day after day waiting for them to tell me I could eat. I was on IV food for a good 2 weeks. They did a swallow test and I passed with flying colours, so they introduced food and yummmmm. The dr said I could most likely leave the hosp on Monday (this week) but then Sunday night I spiked a fever and they were concerned. They did another CT scan (I was 398 by the scale in the hall so I knew I would fit this time) and found a pocket of crap. I was sent into a great depression. They said tehy would try to aspirate it out with ultrasound assistance, but the ultrasound couldn't penetrate my big body deep enough. So they all went to lunch and said 'let's have a salmon plate" while they left me in the hall to wait till they got back and did it with CT instead. Which they did. Which was painful. I was downstairs from 10:30am till 3pm, leaving my husband unknowing upstairs for what seemed like forever, on the day we were supposed to leave.
The dr came in at 4pm though and said he was happy with the CT and I could leave right then or the next day. I was in a lot of pain from the new drain and chose to leave Tuesday.
and that's all I can write right now.
Home has been a blessing, but the last drain they put in is infected and I'm worried I might have to go back to my local hosp. My fam doc saw me today tho and gave me antibiotics so I'm really really hoping that takes care of it.
ciao and it's good to be back.
About Me
Sudbury, XX
Location
38.9
BMI
Surgery
05/17/2010
Surgery Date
Jun 23, 2007
Member Since
