I know, I know. I said that I would update everyday, and now it has been a few days. Well, sometimes stuff comes up. So lets go over everything that you missed out on. Friday ended on a high note. I felt great and was very optimistic. I did forget though another one of the laws of recuperation, one good day, one bad day. Saturday was not too enjoyable to put it lightly. The gas pains from the previous night returned, and this time they decided to stay. As if the constant pain of air jockeying for position with my organs was not enough, the residents decided to pay me a visit in order to examine and hopefully remedy my hematoma. While I was fortunate that one of them at least had some bedside manner, it would be of little comfort. The best course of action was determined to be to remove two of the six staples holding my incision together, and then to encourage my hematoma to drain on its own. This doesn't sound so bad, and even the staples (the sight of which make me shudder while thinking of a horrible office equipment malfunction) weren't too bad to take out. The "encouraging" of the hematoma to drain however consisted of one of the residents essentially putting all of her weight on my incision in an effort to push some of the clotted blood out and jump start the draining process. Did I also mention that the area around my incision is also basically a 4x6 bruise? Needless to say, this was the only time that I can recollect yelling in pain during a medical procedure. Fortunately for me, the "procedure" was a "success," and the residents packed my wound and went on there way. Wait! Did I explain the whole "packing" process yet? No? Well you are in for a treat. After my incision was so carefully opened, I was left with an opening in my abdomen that roughly shares its width and depth with the Grand Canyon. But we can't just suture this thing up. In order for it to properly drain, it has to heal from the inside out. So how does that happen? Well three times a day, it has to be repacked. The repacking consists of taking the old dressing out, and then shoving as much gauze as will fit into the opening in my body into my body. Very soothing. I have yet to complete my first one of these procedures unassisted, but the night is young.
Aside from learning the ins and outs of this new-found hobby, I also spent much of Saturday fighting off nausea (a battle which I lost at least once and resulted in what I believe Montezuma's Revenge feels like), going to the bathroom about every hour and a half (I can look forward to going 15-20 times a day for the first couple of weeks), and gritting my teeth through gas pains. All of the nurses commented on how I was some superstar for not taking any pain meds. The only problem with that is that I would have been happy to take them, had any been available that would combat the pain that I was having. Oh well, I'll take what I can get. After all of this excitement, I was happy to spend the remainder of the day watching episodes of Lost and trying to rest.
Sunday I awoke in much better condition and spirits. The gas pains were still there, but a bit lessened. I just tried to avert my eyes during the repackings. And I was finally back on some full liquids. Not much happened this day. I continued my regular trips to the bathroom. I watched more of Lost. My nausea built throughout the day until I could not eat. And I was presented with the theory (their word, not mine) of how my hematoma came to be. Apparently, it can also be caused by a blood vessel that has not been tied off or cauterized during surgery. That's right, they tie them off. Pretty horrific. This was the agreed upon theory by my surgical team. It was also explained to me that at least one member of the team wanted to bring me back into the OR to fix this blood vessel. Nothing beats two surgeries in as many days. Luckily, this hapless fellow was over-ruled.
So now it is Monday night. Things are going much better, and I hope to be released tomorrow. I have finally eaten some solid foods without wanting to throw-up. I am still spending a lot of time in the bathroom, but what else is new? I just have to get a little more comfortable with the repacking, and I will be good to go. The I will have to come back in a week or so for a follow-up and for staple removal. Seriously, they are pretty gross. I promise to update everyone on my progress, but it probably won't be everyday.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Friday, August 15, 2008
There and back again...
So I'm here, sans ostomy, and feeling great. But how did I get to this point? Well, lets go over the last 24 hours or so. We (my mother and I) arrived in Madison yesterday at about 6:30 yesterday evening. After checking into the hotel (the process of which involved my saying "what a production" to my mother several times in exasperation), I decided to take in some of the local cinema. As I had not eaten since lunch, and would not eat anytime in the foreseeable future, I decided that it would be a good idea to distract myself. Once I returned from the 2 1/2 hour epic of The Dark Knight, I began the next stage of my preparations for today (the first of which was self-imposed starvation). Earlier that day I purchased from Walgreens what looked like something that you would find in the supply closet of a doctor's office in California recently after the Louisiana Purchase. It was a sizeable bottle of grape-flavored, carbonated laxative called Magnesium Citrate. When I returned to the hotel, I consumed the entire bottle with a water chaser, and waited. The idea of using a laxative is slightly disturbing for me normally, but now I was using one to hurry things along in a rather non-traditional way. Within a half-hour, my ostomy bag began filling at a break-neck pace. Much more than the equivalent of the bottle's contents passed through me, which would come into play the next day. As I was looking forward to being free of the bondage of the ostomy, I let my guard down and the little bugger got the best of me one last time. I don't know if any of you have tried to empty a bag filled with liquid and attached to your body at 2:00 AM, but trust me when I say to maintain your diligence in such cases. I took for granted the fact that I was a veteran with such tasks, and failed to notice the rather large gap in between the toilet seat, and toilet bowl at the hotel. I figured that once I cleared the seat, I was home-free. Unfortunately, this was not the case. As I opened my ostomy bag for what would be one of the last times, a torrential flood of my remaining fecal matter came pouring through the aforementioned gap. My old nemesis was apparently not letting me go without a fight. While such an event would have been a source of frustration two months ago, now as I was so close to being relieved of my omnipresent burden, it was nothing more than an annoyance and slightly comical.
The remainder of that night was spent without incident. I awoke this morning, eager to get to the hospital. We arrived at 7:40 AM and were told to check in at admissions. After giving my name to the hospital worker, I was offered the information that I was at the wrong facility. I say 'offered' because I replied with, "No, you are wrong lady." She said that I was wrong (big mistake) and that I had an appointment on the other side of town at a non-surgical facility with a doctor who wasn't a surgeon. I replied with, "Well, I am having surgery, and it is not happening there. So thanks, but no thanks." I immediately left and went to the office where I knew my surgeon worked out of. I asked a woman there to look up my appointment and admit me. Shortly after this, the previously mentioned ignoramous came chasing after me and telling me that she found the appointment for today. The other appointment that she was looking at was scheduled for January of 2009. Way to instill me with confidence. If they can't even find the right appointment, how would they find the right body part to operate on? Fortunately, I have the utmost confidence in my surgical staff. Nonetheless, I did double check several times that they would be performing the correct procedure.
I then checked in for my surgery and was quickly ushered off to my prep room. After dispensing with the regular pleasantries, we jumped right into sticking me with as many needles as possible. First, we needed to get some baseline blood tests. Normally, not an issue. Remember the high output in my ostomy bag the night before, well apparently that resulted in me being pretty well dehydrated. Unknown to me, a side-effect of dehydration is that your veins are not very full, and don't really put out much blood. We arrived at this conclusion after attempting twice in vain to get some blood out of me. Then another old friend arrived to welcome me, the heparin shot. The nurse wasted no time in reaquainting us. We were then down to the IV. This is also not a big deal normally these days as I have received more than I can remember. The IV went in without a hitch. However (there is always a however), the anesthesiologist who put it in must have found the one good vein left in my body, and it resulted in my blood leaking all over myself, the bed, and the floor. I chose not to observe these events, but I would imagine that it would look something like a butcher shop counter right before the Fourth of July. After cleaning up my blood with what I believe was a spill kit normally intended for jack-knifed tankers on the interstate, I was given my IV cocktail to relax me and then was whisked off to the operating room.
After receiving my cocktail, they could have done anything to me. But they just operated. The last thing that I remember is being told to breath four times with a mask over my mouth. I made it to about 2 1/2.
I woke up in the recovery room feeling pretty good. The procedure took under two hours. I was pretty sleepy, but I was excited to be rid of the ostomy, so I didn't sleep too much. I hung out down there with a bunch of really ornery patients. I overheard many patients complaining, and many doctors trying to satiate them. One of my favorite lines was delivered very deadpan from a doctor. He said, "We can't give you that much pain killer. It would result in death." Needless to say, the doctors and nurses were sorry to see me go.
I was then brought up to the familiar confines of the F4 section of the hospital. This is the same area that I stayed in before. I got checked in, met the new residents, said hi to some of my old nurses, and began to settle in. Before long, I was visited by yet another old friend, the familiar feeling of liquid leaking from my ostomy site. "That is impossible," I thought, "I no longer have an ostomy." To my relief, if was merely blood leaking from my dressing. Oddly enough, that is much less distressing than fecal matter. Well, maybe not too oddly. The blood continued to be a problem, but with an absurd amount of gauze taped to my belly, we got it under control. I guess that it is supposed to drain a little bit. Shortly after we stopped all of my bleeding, I was finally visited by my surgeon, Dr. Heise. He was pleased with how the operation went, but was pretty annoyed when he noticed what appeared to be a hematoma in my incision site.
Quick medical lesson. A hematoma can be caused by many things, one of these is an infection in part of your body. Apparently, there may be a little infected area under my skin, but over my muscle. The body seals this little infected area off, and then it needs to be opened up and drained at some point. I inquired as to how this is performed. Dr. Heise said that I would just come in to the clinic and they just slice it open, not really much anesthesia. So that should be fun. He did say that if we could get it to bleed out, then it would be okay. I would have to apply a lot of pressure to my incision site though. All of this after finally getting it to stop bleeding. I'll probably opt for the under-sedated slicing.
The remainder of my evening was spent attempting to urinate under the threat of having a catheter inserted (I didn't have ANY tubes coming out of me when I woke up this time) and ambulating. I think that nurses always use the catheter as a threat in order to scare the pee out of me. I went for a pretty long walk with my nursing assistant. We walked all around the floor. Upon return to my room, I noticed a slight, but increasing pain in my right side. She said that it was gas that had moved from when I was walking. I guess that I never realized it before, but trapped gas can be extremely painful. On the frowning face scale of pain, it was definitely a frown with some water come out of its eyes. I explained this to my NA, who responded with a look that seemed to say, "Are you serious? What a wuss." After continuing to complain of what must have felt like a heart attack, she supplied me with some heating pads which were supposed to help. The pain receded after a few minutes, and now I am fine, but man, it was no fun for a little bit.
Anyway, I am getting tired, and that is probably more than anyone wants to read anyway. I'll provide another update in the morrow.
The remainder of that night was spent without incident. I awoke this morning, eager to get to the hospital. We arrived at 7:40 AM and were told to check in at admissions. After giving my name to the hospital worker, I was offered the information that I was at the wrong facility. I say 'offered' because I replied with, "No, you are wrong lady." She said that I was wrong (big mistake) and that I had an appointment on the other side of town at a non-surgical facility with a doctor who wasn't a surgeon. I replied with, "Well, I am having surgery, and it is not happening there. So thanks, but no thanks." I immediately left and went to the office where I knew my surgeon worked out of. I asked a woman there to look up my appointment and admit me. Shortly after this, the previously mentioned ignoramous came chasing after me and telling me that she found the appointment for today. The other appointment that she was looking at was scheduled for January of 2009. Way to instill me with confidence. If they can't even find the right appointment, how would they find the right body part to operate on? Fortunately, I have the utmost confidence in my surgical staff. Nonetheless, I did double check several times that they would be performing the correct procedure.
I then checked in for my surgery and was quickly ushered off to my prep room. After dispensing with the regular pleasantries, we jumped right into sticking me with as many needles as possible. First, we needed to get some baseline blood tests. Normally, not an issue. Remember the high output in my ostomy bag the night before, well apparently that resulted in me being pretty well dehydrated. Unknown to me, a side-effect of dehydration is that your veins are not very full, and don't really put out much blood. We arrived at this conclusion after attempting twice in vain to get some blood out of me. Then another old friend arrived to welcome me, the heparin shot. The nurse wasted no time in reaquainting us. We were then down to the IV. This is also not a big deal normally these days as I have received more than I can remember. The IV went in without a hitch. However (there is always a however), the anesthesiologist who put it in must have found the one good vein left in my body, and it resulted in my blood leaking all over myself, the bed, and the floor. I chose not to observe these events, but I would imagine that it would look something like a butcher shop counter right before the Fourth of July. After cleaning up my blood with what I believe was a spill kit normally intended for jack-knifed tankers on the interstate, I was given my IV cocktail to relax me and then was whisked off to the operating room.
After receiving my cocktail, they could have done anything to me. But they just operated. The last thing that I remember is being told to breath four times with a mask over my mouth. I made it to about 2 1/2.
I woke up in the recovery room feeling pretty good. The procedure took under two hours. I was pretty sleepy, but I was excited to be rid of the ostomy, so I didn't sleep too much. I hung out down there with a bunch of really ornery patients. I overheard many patients complaining, and many doctors trying to satiate them. One of my favorite lines was delivered very deadpan from a doctor. He said, "We can't give you that much pain killer. It would result in death." Needless to say, the doctors and nurses were sorry to see me go.
I was then brought up to the familiar confines of the F4 section of the hospital. This is the same area that I stayed in before. I got checked in, met the new residents, said hi to some of my old nurses, and began to settle in. Before long, I was visited by yet another old friend, the familiar feeling of liquid leaking from my ostomy site. "That is impossible," I thought, "I no longer have an ostomy." To my relief, if was merely blood leaking from my dressing. Oddly enough, that is much less distressing than fecal matter. Well, maybe not too oddly. The blood continued to be a problem, but with an absurd amount of gauze taped to my belly, we got it under control. I guess that it is supposed to drain a little bit. Shortly after we stopped all of my bleeding, I was finally visited by my surgeon, Dr. Heise. He was pleased with how the operation went, but was pretty annoyed when he noticed what appeared to be a hematoma in my incision site.
Quick medical lesson. A hematoma can be caused by many things, one of these is an infection in part of your body. Apparently, there may be a little infected area under my skin, but over my muscle. The body seals this little infected area off, and then it needs to be opened up and drained at some point. I inquired as to how this is performed. Dr. Heise said that I would just come in to the clinic and they just slice it open, not really much anesthesia. So that should be fun. He did say that if we could get it to bleed out, then it would be okay. I would have to apply a lot of pressure to my incision site though. All of this after finally getting it to stop bleeding. I'll probably opt for the under-sedated slicing.
The remainder of my evening was spent attempting to urinate under the threat of having a catheter inserted (I didn't have ANY tubes coming out of me when I woke up this time) and ambulating. I think that nurses always use the catheter as a threat in order to scare the pee out of me. I went for a pretty long walk with my nursing assistant. We walked all around the floor. Upon return to my room, I noticed a slight, but increasing pain in my right side. She said that it was gas that had moved from when I was walking. I guess that I never realized it before, but trapped gas can be extremely painful. On the frowning face scale of pain, it was definitely a frown with some water come out of its eyes. I explained this to my NA, who responded with a look that seemed to say, "Are you serious? What a wuss." After continuing to complain of what must have felt like a heart attack, she supplied me with some heating pads which were supposed to help. The pain receded after a few minutes, and now I am fine, but man, it was no fun for a little bit.
Anyway, I am getting tired, and that is probably more than anyone wants to read anyway. I'll provide another update in the morrow.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
69 days down, 5 to go
I know, it has been so long and you have all been met with disappointment upon each viewing of my blog that results in yet another updateless day. Well, half of that is correct anyway. "What have I been up to?" You ask. I would be happy to fill you in on all of the exciting details of my life over the past several weeks. This should take about three sentences (but I do tend to be a bit long-winded, even while typing). Basically, I have felt excellent since my last update. I have been biking and exercising any day that I have had time to. Also, everyone kind of came through for me when I said that I was insanely bored. Over the past several weeks, I have spent probably about 36 combined hours in La Crosse because friends in either the Dells or The Cities have provided me with assorted means to stay occupied. I have only had maybe one or two mornings to my self over this period of time. I have been pretty busy painting, working on the Dells house, catching up with old friends, making new ones, and of course eating/drinking on the patio at Salut.
But enough catching up, lets get down to the proverbial brass tacks (does anyone even know what that means?). A few weeks ago I had my barium test. It wasn't nearly as bad as I expected. The tube was not very large at all, and it only had one mishap when it shot out of where it was supposed to stay put and sprayed barium everywhere. While I would LOVE to describe this in every offensive detail that I can muster, I am attempting to keep this thing PG, or maybe PG-13, so just use your imaginations. Anyway, it was a pretty interesting procedure. I even watched on the monitor as the barium slowly crept up my new "colon" and then spilled out into my ostomy bag like the spring flood waters reaching the Mississippi River Delta. Also during this procedure, I stumbled upon the perfect joke for any procedure involving anything being inserted into an individual's rectum. I have tried many one-liners in an attempt to make the medical staff more uncomfortable than I. After all, why should I be completely at their mercy? You are all free to use this one. So the younger doctor that was overseeing the test tried to sympathize and say that all of these procedures must be pretty uncomfortable for me. I replied with, "Yea, this whole experience would be a lot more enjoyable if I were some sort of sexual deviant." The uncomfortable laughter that this was met with was pure beauty.
So that test went well, and everything is on track. Just five days to go from today. It is all pretty crazy. While I would love to embark onto a retrospective diatribe concerning the ups and downs of the past 2+ months, I fear that I must save that for after the surgery sometime. I go in on the 15th for my takedown. I did get some excellent details on how this procedures is performed. I asked the doctors if they just shove everything back in and sew it up. Apparently it is not that simple. What they do is pull a portion of my intestines out of my body (I know, sweet), and then cut out the part that goes to the ostomy, then they sew the two ends back together and shove it all back in. I think that flux and solder are involved somehow, but I am not sure. I was hoping to get some sort of camouflage hospital gown and perhaps a WWII military surplus helmet in order to finally re-enact that beginning scene from Saving Private Ryan (how is that for foreshadowing? I only wish that I had planned it [see blog entry #2 if you are confused]) After that, I will basically be good to go. I will have to stay at the hospital until I have a bowel movement (the beauty never ends). This can range from two to perhaps nine days. It all depends when my GI track feels like waking up. So I will probably feel great for as long as I am there, which with any luck will only be two or three days. I foresee a very boring stay.
I guess that is about it for now. I will let everyone know how it goes on Friday as I will probably be up and about pretty quickly. It is only a 2 or 2 1/2 hour procedure. Until then, thanks for all of the support.
But enough catching up, lets get down to the proverbial brass tacks (does anyone even know what that means?). A few weeks ago I had my barium test. It wasn't nearly as bad as I expected. The tube was not very large at all, and it only had one mishap when it shot out of where it was supposed to stay put and sprayed barium everywhere. While I would LOVE to describe this in every offensive detail that I can muster, I am attempting to keep this thing PG, or maybe PG-13, so just use your imaginations. Anyway, it was a pretty interesting procedure. I even watched on the monitor as the barium slowly crept up my new "colon" and then spilled out into my ostomy bag like the spring flood waters reaching the Mississippi River Delta. Also during this procedure, I stumbled upon the perfect joke for any procedure involving anything being inserted into an individual's rectum. I have tried many one-liners in an attempt to make the medical staff more uncomfortable than I. After all, why should I be completely at their mercy? You are all free to use this one. So the younger doctor that was overseeing the test tried to sympathize and say that all of these procedures must be pretty uncomfortable for me. I replied with, "Yea, this whole experience would be a lot more enjoyable if I were some sort of sexual deviant." The uncomfortable laughter that this was met with was pure beauty.
So that test went well, and everything is on track. Just five days to go from today. It is all pretty crazy. While I would love to embark onto a retrospective diatribe concerning the ups and downs of the past 2+ months, I fear that I must save that for after the surgery sometime. I go in on the 15th for my takedown. I did get some excellent details on how this procedures is performed. I asked the doctors if they just shove everything back in and sew it up. Apparently it is not that simple. What they do is pull a portion of my intestines out of my body (I know, sweet), and then cut out the part that goes to the ostomy, then they sew the two ends back together and shove it all back in. I think that flux and solder are involved somehow, but I am not sure. I was hoping to get some sort of camouflage hospital gown and perhaps a WWII military surplus helmet in order to finally re-enact that beginning scene from Saving Private Ryan (how is that for foreshadowing? I only wish that I had planned it [see blog entry #2 if you are confused]) After that, I will basically be good to go. I will have to stay at the hospital until I have a bowel movement (the beauty never ends). This can range from two to perhaps nine days. It all depends when my GI track feels like waking up. So I will probably feel great for as long as I am there, which with any luck will only be two or three days. I foresee a very boring stay.
I guess that is about it for now. I will let everyone know how it goes on Friday as I will probably be up and about pretty quickly. It is only a 2 or 2 1/2 hour procedure. Until then, thanks for all of the support.
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