Surgery Update

Sorry for the long delay in updating after surgery but it has been a rough couple weeks. I had every intention of blogging while I was in the hospital and even took my laptop with me but was not up to it at all.

So, here is the update. Surgery went well. It took a little over 5 hours to complete. Just before they closed I had a lot of unexplained bleeding which they were able to stop without knowing the exact cause. This meant a bit more monitoring in recovery and for the next 24 hours to make sure the bleeding didn’t start again.

I asked my surgeon before surgery if he could take a picture of my stomach once it was removed. He said he would try to remember. When I was taken into the OR I asked all the nurses to please remind him. After surgery one of the first things I asked was if they got a picture and they did! My stomach was very enlarged and extremely misshapen which explains why I had so many problems with it. (I will include the picture at the very bottom so that those that don’t want to see it don’t have to)

I spent 9 days in the hospital. Some of those days I have very little recollection of. I apparently even had visitors that I don’t remember coming. In the hours following surgery they struggled a bit to keep my oxygen levels up so I was put on oxygen. They also struggled a bit with pain management. Not all the nurses were good at keeping to a schedule and I am not always great at communicating when I need meds. I slept a lot in the first week and didn’t have much energy to do anything. I managed a few games of phase 10 with my parents but that took a lot out of me. We also struggled with nutrition. My tube feed rate had to be pretty low for me to tolerate it and I could only take in sips of liquid by mouth without getting sick.

After 9 days the doctors felt like my risk for complications had passed and let me go home. The drive home was not as painful as I expected it to be and we made it home without too much traffic. Mom stayed home with me the first day and Dad the next two so that I wasn’t home alone for the first week. They were able to let the dogs in and out, so that I didn’t have to go up and down the stairs, and to bring me little bits of broth throughout the day.

This week I have been on my own. The pain gets a little better each day and I can move a bit easier. I got my stitches around my new feeding tube out on Monday and that has helped with some of the discomfort as they were pulling and inflamed. My nutrition is still really poor and we are waiting for the doctors to decide how we are going to handle this. I continue to lose weight and feel weak and tired due to poor nutrition. My tube feeds are going well, other than the fact that the rate has to be very slowly increased or I deal with extreme pain, but are not enough to be 100% nutrition. In fact, right now my tube feeds are only giving me about 40% of my daily calories. I am trying to take things in by mouth but can still only take sips of liquid without getting sick.

We are all hopeful that things will continue to improve. I am hoping that the pain will go away and that I will be able to consume more by mouth. We won’t know for several months what my new normal will be but are hopeful it will be better than things are right now. Some days are more discouraging than others but right now we are taking it one day at a time.

Warning: Photo of my stomach is below