Surgery Gone Horribly Wrong Archives

con't from Two Weeks To The Day Since Surgery

So you are thinking about surgery. Maybe it is due to a medical problem or maybe you are considering cosmetic surgery.

Think about this first…

Surgery is serious. When someone cuts into you it literally opens up the fragile eco system that is your body and exposes it to errors, infections and complications.

Here are 10 things I wish I'd been told before I went in for my ednometriosis, ovarian cyst and polyp surgery that went sideways and ended up perforating my bladder.

1. The complications after surgery may be worse than the reason you went into surgery in the first place. Take this to heart because it isn't BS. It's real.

2. You could take you much more time to recover than you expected, or you may never recover. Be warned.

3. The drugs that they give you may adversely affect your body and cause you more damage than good. They may shut down your bowels, cause horrendous nausea and make you feel like you are ET and want to "Go Home".

4. If you cannot go to the bathroom after surgery under no circumstances should you be allowed to go home. Do not listen to the idea that you are simply dehydrated despite pumping you full of fluids and all your urine has magically "disappeared".

5. The surgery could affect other parts of your body that you don't expect and will most certainly affect you psyche. You could be depressed afterwards.

6. You may feel as though your intestines do not belong to you anymore and some wicked witch is squeezing them like a water balloon causing you excruciating stabbing pains, bloating and severe agony every time you move. Many people experience this after surgery for weeks on end. Going to the bathroom and going to be tortured have suddenly become synonymous.

7. You won't recognize your own body. You will be swollen, red, black, blue, bruised, puffy, itchy and may even for some weird reason have your skin peel off. This happened to me, might have been all the poison seeping out of my stomach.

8. You won't be the same. I now have a new bellybutton and scarfacebelly. Since this was a laparoscopy I expected very small scars…I have one 6 inch scar and 3 other very small scars.

9. This surgery could lead to other surgeries. Don't make the mistake I made and think that a surgery error won't happen to you. They happen.

10. Don't expect the surgery to solve all your problems. You may go through all of this for nothing. Doctors don't know everything and can't know how your body will react to the surgery.

I don't want to scare you, but then again, maybe I do. After what I went through these past weeks I would hate for anyone else to suffer the same.

How do you feel about surgery?

Would you or have you undergone elective surgery?

That’s right.

Two weeks.

I ended up staying another two days in hospital before I was released.

The last two days were substantially less chaotic and dramatic than the first 24 hours. Thank God!

I was given a private room during the last 18 hours I was in the hospital. It had a door and even my own toilet! It felt like I’d been upgraded to the best suite The Ritz has to offer.

Thanks to a little blue pill called Imovane I managed to have a good sleep that last night filled with wonderful vivid dreams. There were fluffy pug puppies, skiing on the grass in the summer and huge white tame owls to be petted. I was even in a Off Broadway dance show at one point. I wanted to stay in those delightful dreams forever.

I’ve been home for almost a week now trying my best to recover.

I’d like to tell you that I’m doing better, I’m healing well…

but I don’t feel that way.

For eleven days now I’ve had a new bag. But I won’t be posting any photos of myself modeling it with some funky boyfriend jeans and a trendy peplum top.

It’s a bag of urine strapped to my leg. It is with me day and night. It requires maintenance. I am constantly taking care of my tubes and bags. It is a nightmare.

It makes me sick.

Physically sick.

For the past few days my lower stomach has started to cause me pain again. Yesterday it was severe. My stomach is a blue/red colour. It’s been that way since the surgery.

I can’t sit for more than 20 minutes at a time. I’m not eating because it hurts my stomach more.

I’m not taking any pain killers because I’m scared how they affect other parts of my body.

I haven’t left the house since I came home from the hospital other than a few short walks with my dog. The bag can’t be trusted. I had to walk home a few days back holding it up with my one hand the whole way. I haven’t gone outside since then.

Since I started getting new pains again I can feel my optimism slipping away. I don’t want to end up back where I was.

The fear has climbed up through my body, threatening to spill out of my mouth should I open it.

More than anything I want this to be over.

….update

I saw my urologist late this afternoon.

After much debate my bag and catheter are gone. Hallelujah! Raise the roof!

I may have an infection where my pain is coming from. I have been given new meds to see if that helps.

I will have an ultra sound hopefully next week to make sure nothing else in my lower abdomen looks infected.

I have been scheduled for a scope or cystoscopy. Not looking forward to this.

They insert a camera into my bladder, fill the bladder with liquid and then see if it has properly healed. This is the only way other than another CT scan to see if I am still leaking. CT scans are like having 40 x-rays, scopes are less damaging to the body.

Removing the catheter today despite my pain, swelling and redness is a bit risky, but I really wanted it gone. If it turns out I am still leaking from my bladder or my infection gets worse I will have to go back to the ER for treatment and then have bladder surgery. This time I have been told to go to a different hosptial that hopefully doesn’t have the same issues as the last one. Please, please body heal! I don’t want to go back to the ER!

I should know if I still have a hole in my bladder in the next 48-56 hours or so. Thinking positive thoughts!

I am beyond happy to no longer have that bag of piss attatched to me. You can’t imagine how great it is not to have to deal with that.

The irony is that catheter is the one thing I felt personally I could never tolerate and I had it for eleven full days. I guess when you don’t have a choice you are simply forced to do what you thought you never could.

I have my fingers crossed that my bladder has healed and this other infection pain is just a blip on the radar.

I want so badly to be normal again. Just the fact that I can sit again to pee is frankly delightful. We take for granted everything that our bodies do for us daily.

Being able to

walk

talk

see

breathe

smell

feel

think

dream

sleep

eat

pee

these are all gifts that you won’t miss until they are gone.

Once any one of those is gone you will wonder every minute why you wasted so much time and energy worrying about your

wrinkles

age

weight

saggy chin

etc.

I know it may sound corney but believe me…

Love your body.

Be grateful.

Cherish yourself.

I am hoping with all my heart that next week back I will be back to writing about something other than my health. Fingers crossed….

I will tell you one little funny story that I left out…I think this is brilliant because it truly shows the difference between how a man thinks and how a woman thinks.

When Robert had his surgery for his kidney tumour his stomach was very big and swollen. That is normal. I was shocked to see just how much, but it is a major surgery and that is just your body’s natural reaction. I understood that this would eventually pass and mostly just a large scar would remain.

When I was in the middle of my trauma, 24 hours after the surgery, we were in the bathroom trying to deal with the blood and liquid leaking out of me. It was the first time that Robert had seen my stomach after the surgery. He didn’t say anything at the time, I was in such pain and it was such a nightmarish situation, really just a blur trying to figure out how to stop the leaking and deal with my pain and nausea. Later though he told me that he was shocked upon seeing my very swollen pointed stomach and had silently thought, “I knew that she said she had gained some weight…but man…that is crazy! Those dresses she wears hide it so well. Underneath she looks like Santa!”

That still makes me chuckle : )

Thanks to everyone for your encouragment and support. I can tell you in all honesty that I read and reread your comments. It helped knowing that there were caring people “out there” rooting for me and I wasn’t just writing to the big black void known as the internet. I appreciate the fact that you took the time to write. You made a difference to me and gave me strength. Thank you.

Continued here…

10 Things I Wished I’d Been Told Before Surgery

Two Weeks To The Day Since Surgery

vintagebysuzanne

vintagebysuzanne

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