OK, grab a cup of coffee or tea and I'll tell me tale of surgery, ha ha. Lots of gross stuff ahead, OK, you were warned, HA HA!!! I went in the night before only to find that they didn't have me on the OR schdule, they had me in one computer but not the other, interesting because all of this happened after I began the dreadful prep that stuff is horrible!!!!!!!! Then a resident comes in and gives me that above info and says oh yeah by the way the ostomy nurse is gone for the day too. so i'm freaking out big time, a short time which seemed like a long time later my personal doctor comes in and i tell him i'm leaving this isn't a good idea after all. he says no you'll never come back um yeah he was correct!!! so after his calming talk i agree to stay he tells me if he has to operate on 12 mindnight on me he'll do it, so i plan not to go to surgery before 7pm the night after i arrive, great no sleep the night before offered me a sleeper i say no i want the time to worry ha ha, so early the next am the ostomy nurse comes in, for some reason i sort of freakout by not being able to say a word or even look at her or my hubby, only ball my eyes out big time. she was fab, took her time nad was just a wonderful lady, so finally i calm enough to get the dreaded dots for my stoma placement and she isn't even in my room 10 mins and a knock on my door brings surgery to get me, but wait it's only 9:30 AM and i haven't had a shower or worried enough or stressed out enough, yeah right!! so i begin the tears again the ostomy nurse was fab again she went to the door and siad DO NOT KNOCK ON THIS DOOR AGAIN I'LL OPEN IT WHEN I'M READY FOR YOU!!!!! OK so she goes back to taking her time and was just fab to me. She leaves and tell surgery to give me 5 mins and then go in, so i cry to my hubby some, oh man this is bringing tears to me now!! So i get on the stretcher to the OR, upon arriving in the holding area who but my personal dr comes out and hugs me and tells me he knows i'm upset but it'll be ok and he's rubbing my arms and legs just trying to make me stop crying it was so sweet, then of course you know several people from the sleepy drs to the nurses from the OR all come out and talk to you, they tried to stick me, no luck in getting an IV in even my foot so my dr says just take her back there and give her some "happy gas" and put her lines in then. Great plan to me, now the entire time my dr is stil with me, just making me feel calm as can be!!! He stayed with me until i was asleep he was the last face i saw going out and the first i saw upon waking, talk about a great dr!!!!! So i'm told i'm going to CCU due to high BP and high blood sugars and a high heart rate, oh man was my heart racing and it was killing my tummy!!!! so i get to the unit my nurse was fab, he gets more a different stronger pain med going through the device i push for pain meds every few minutes, don't remember much about that night except my heart was racing all night long and it was making me hot as can be and hurting my tummy!! I had a hige tube in my nose a first for me and a huge incision in my in tummy that went from boobs to past pubes and then in the middle it went across sort of like a cross on my tummy nice and big and sore!!!!!! S0 i stay in the unit for several days not much fun because i was awake and didn't feel well and well those people working in there were loud as can be and all the spoke about was food!!! Of course it happened to be the week before thanksgiving here, but still!!! I was so nasuated but due to the ng never threw up then. i moved to the floor around wed after my surgery being on friday, and oh yeah my surgery was way long it went in at 11:30 AM and came out at 8:30 PM!!!!!! My dr looked tired as can be when i woke up and saw him, then he was there bright and early the next am at like 8AM grest guy great dr!!!!! So i'm on the floor and on thanksgiving day they pull my NG tube out, i was fine all day, into the evening as i drank a lil ginger ale i began to feel my belly bloat so i only drank flat soda, no good either!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Friday am i begin throwing up green bile and keep throwing up till mid-Sat afternoon when i'm told i need another NG tube put in at that point i was sore from surgery and puking i was ready, it hurt like hell but who cares!!!!!! So i'm much better once they put it in and hook my to sucution, yeah!!!! I go down for tummy xrays monday and am told i have an ileaus, which is basicly swollen bowls so much so that nothing can pass through so that's why i'm puking my guts up, only fix for it was belly rest and ng tube, ok fine so i continue on with my new tube and i keep till the following thursday am, i am told i can eat and drink but my tummy still felt bloated so i was drinking barely, then i begin a temp of 104 great!!!! so that Thursday was a roough day, that evening i begin throwing up neon green bile again, great!!!!! So i through up all day friday and all day Sat, then they say i need another iv due to all of the puking yeah i think i needed it before then but then again my dr was off for a few days and i didn't like who was on call for him and told him when he came back and he was so wonderful about that and told the residents from now if i have issues he is to be called no matter what!!! Nice guy huh? so iget my IV and meds for pucking doesn't help at all!!! I keep puking into Sun AM i am told again i need an ng tube again by that point i don't care i've been puking for days again. then some stupid nurse comes in and pushes a med that totally burned and blew my IV, so great n iv access so no pain meds no puke meds either, Sun my dr comes in and sees how dry i am orders a central line for an iv i get it in and get puke and pain meds and sleep for while, so i just cruise on from then all week and slowly they began turning down the suction and i could talorate it ok, so thursday my ng comes out i have chicken noodle soup for dinner and kept it down and i get to go home exactly three weeks and one day from the day i went in!!!!!!!!!!!!! As for my stoma it's doing well but i was so sick during my hospital stay that it wasn't on my mind much, so that sort of hit me hard when i got home and had no back up, other than hubby and of course he was great about it and was as helpful as he could be. i had lots of company my sister from NJ drove down to see me and our son and daughter in law were here from HI. Christmas comes and goes and i cry about everyday that goes by, i don't remember when i finally stopped crying over my stoma daily but then it became like once a week i'd have a good cry, and now i can't remember the last time i cried about it till i wrote this which i wanted to write about before because i'm sure i have forgotten some stuff i took a few photos i plan to put on my blog soon. I've had so far so good with my stoma and changing the bag and stuff, i've had two infections since one where i just slide by the skin of my teeth not being admitted to the hospital and agreed to come to the office every day and injections of ab's. I'm on ab's for about another week and then i go to once a day a maintance sort of dose. My dr here who didn't do my surgery (i had to go to a big medical center for surgery due to all of health issues) has been fab as he normally is, he seems to think once we get this infection cleared we should be good to go and i shouldn't hopefully have infection after infection but only time will tell. I can say i feel a hell of a lot better than i did before surgery now. i'm getting around fine doing all of my normal stuff i do or don't do daily!!!! I also am really taking a leap of faith and am traveling to NJ to visit my sisters for three weeks, it's a long over due visit and i'm looking forward to it and that is oine of the things that got my through my surgery and and recovery knowing i had this trip planned and i pushed to get better every day just so i'd be able to travel so i'm glad i had this trip planned because i really think not having had anything to look forward to would have made recovery harder. So that's the tale of my surgery!!!
Marie