Oh hey, I survived
Jun. 16th, 2017 12:39 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
next_to_normalThank you for the well wishes on my last post - I meant to get around to answering them, but then I was in the hospital for THREE EFFING WEEKS, and by that time, it was like, old news, but I appreciated your thoughts.
I had my surgery four days after I posted, and then spent the next two weeks developing every complication ever. No, really. I had surgery on a Tuesday, and was supposed to be released by that Friday. I actually did really well at first; I pretty much bounced out of bed on Wednesday and was walking around and everyone was impressed. (It was mainly laparoscopic surgery with one larger incision to take out the bad intestines, so I mostly just had small holes all over my abdomen and the pain was nothing compared to what I'd be dealing with before.) Well, on Thursday I start feeling lightheaded, and by Friday I am straight-up passing out in the bathroom. Turns out my blood pressure was a little high, and they way overcompensated with blood pressure medicine, so my bp then plummeted to like 67/40, hence: unconscious.
So I had to stay in the hospital another few days so they could watch me, but in the meantime, my blood tests come back that I am anemic and showing signs of infection, so I go for a CT scan to discover that I have fluid in my pelvis that needs to be drained. Free fluid just kinda floating around in there. So they poked another hole in me and I had a drain for a few days. The fluid they drained tested positive for E. coli, so then I ended up on lots of antibiotics. But even after the drain had drained everything, my white blood cell count was still high, so I went for another CT scan, where they took out the first drain and put in a second drain to drain more fluid in a different place. Counting my PICC line (which is like a permanent IV line in my upper arm, so they could take blood and feed me through the tube and give me medicine all in the same port, it's pretty awesome, highly recommended), I ended up with a grand total of 7 holes in me.
Also, throughout this time, they kept switching between letting me eat real food (the surgeon wanted me on solids ASAP, to make sure my bowels still worked properly) and putting me on feeding tube only or liquid diet because of all the drain insertions and CT scans and stuff, so I only ate solid food maybe four days out of the three weeks I was there. The hospital I stayed at was super nice; I was in a brand-new building just opened in the fall and had a private room with a fold-out sofa bed for guests and a bigger flat-screen TV than I have at home and a bathroom you'd see on HGTV. So we kept joking that it was like staying at an all-inclusive hotel, except the meals are terrible, lol. (The few times I got real food, it was actually pretty good. I just spent most of my days drinking Ensure and eating jello, when I was allowed anything at all.) My mom insisted that my bag o' tube food looked like a pina colada, but the nurses refused to add rum.
FINALLY, two weeks after my surgery, and nearly three weeks since I'd first gone to the ER, they took out the second drain and let me go home, but because my bloodwork was still wonky, I had to give myself IV antibiotics for three weeks after. They gave me my own IV pole and everything. Since I also know how to give myself shots, I am now basically qualified in nursing care.
Once they took the PICC line out (after the three weeks of home antibiotics) I was allowed to come back to work, where the plague has descended, so I have a horrendous cold. And possibly allergies. It's hard to tell. I also had my period for three weeks because my body was so out of whack after surgery. (No wonder I'm still anemic.)
But THE PAIN IS GONE HALLELUJAH. I still have Crohn's and I still have diarrhea (have not had solid poop since surgery, shortened intestine means I may never have solid poop again, wheee), but it is a thousand times better than being in constant pain. It was actually pretty hilarious that BEFORE the surgery, they were giving me morphine and dilaudid, and after the surgery, I just took tramadol and tylenol. Surgical pain is nothing compared to scar tissue hardened to concrete in your internal organs. \o/
So, other than possibly hacking up a lung, I am doing well and hopefully will not need more surgery for a while (like, years).
I had my surgery four days after I posted, and then spent the next two weeks developing every complication ever. No, really. I had surgery on a Tuesday, and was supposed to be released by that Friday. I actually did really well at first; I pretty much bounced out of bed on Wednesday and was walking around and everyone was impressed. (It was mainly laparoscopic surgery with one larger incision to take out the bad intestines, so I mostly just had small holes all over my abdomen and the pain was nothing compared to what I'd be dealing with before.) Well, on Thursday I start feeling lightheaded, and by Friday I am straight-up passing out in the bathroom. Turns out my blood pressure was a little high, and they way overcompensated with blood pressure medicine, so my bp then plummeted to like 67/40, hence: unconscious.
So I had to stay in the hospital another few days so they could watch me, but in the meantime, my blood tests come back that I am anemic and showing signs of infection, so I go for a CT scan to discover that I have fluid in my pelvis that needs to be drained. Free fluid just kinda floating around in there. So they poked another hole in me and I had a drain for a few days. The fluid they drained tested positive for E. coli, so then I ended up on lots of antibiotics. But even after the drain had drained everything, my white blood cell count was still high, so I went for another CT scan, where they took out the first drain and put in a second drain to drain more fluid in a different place. Counting my PICC line (which is like a permanent IV line in my upper arm, so they could take blood and feed me through the tube and give me medicine all in the same port, it's pretty awesome, highly recommended), I ended up with a grand total of 7 holes in me.
Also, throughout this time, they kept switching between letting me eat real food (the surgeon wanted me on solids ASAP, to make sure my bowels still worked properly) and putting me on feeding tube only or liquid diet because of all the drain insertions and CT scans and stuff, so I only ate solid food maybe four days out of the three weeks I was there. The hospital I stayed at was super nice; I was in a brand-new building just opened in the fall and had a private room with a fold-out sofa bed for guests and a bigger flat-screen TV than I have at home and a bathroom you'd see on HGTV. So we kept joking that it was like staying at an all-inclusive hotel, except the meals are terrible, lol. (The few times I got real food, it was actually pretty good. I just spent most of my days drinking Ensure and eating jello, when I was allowed anything at all.) My mom insisted that my bag o' tube food looked like a pina colada, but the nurses refused to add rum.
FINALLY, two weeks after my surgery, and nearly three weeks since I'd first gone to the ER, they took out the second drain and let me go home, but because my bloodwork was still wonky, I had to give myself IV antibiotics for three weeks after. They gave me my own IV pole and everything. Since I also know how to give myself shots, I am now basically qualified in nursing care.
Once they took the PICC line out (after the three weeks of home antibiotics) I was allowed to come back to work, where the plague has descended, so I have a horrendous cold. And possibly allergies. It's hard to tell. I also had my period for three weeks because my body was so out of whack after surgery. (No wonder I'm still anemic.)
But THE PAIN IS GONE HALLELUJAH. I still have Crohn's and I still have diarrhea (have not had solid poop since surgery, shortened intestine means I may never have solid poop again, wheee), but it is a thousand times better than being in constant pain. It was actually pretty hilarious that BEFORE the surgery, they were giving me morphine and dilaudid, and after the surgery, I just took tramadol and tylenol. Surgical pain is nothing compared to scar tissue hardened to concrete in your internal organs. \o/
So, other than possibly hacking up a lung, I am doing well and hopefully will not need more surgery for a while (like, years).
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Date: Jun. 16th, 2017 07:02 pm (UTC)no subject
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Date: Jun. 17th, 2017 08:18 am (UTC)Good to hear from you! I actually wondered not that long ago about your last post, thinking, "the last time we heard from her she was in the hospital, and she hasn't posted since...."
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