Well Guys, no more stricture in my colon.
I got everything set up a couple weeks ago, and went in Monday at 11am, my surgery started at 1:00pm. I was going to talk about
it here some, but I kept thinking I would chicken out at the last minute, so I kept quiet, and was able to stick to my guns, and pull it off.
It was going to be done with the laproscope, but once in there, the surgeon said there was just way too much scar tissue for that, so he made a nice wide vertical cut, and took about
3-4 inches of stricture out. He also took out some type of fatty tissue which I cannot recall the name of at the moment, it was wrapped around the stricture like a glove, and is the type of tissue that drives the immune system to keep attacking. I suppose it was a good call, but it was one very hard thing to do.
The surgery was setup to start at 1Pm, and take a couple hours. It was over around 6:30pm, and I woke up in recovery. I don't know what to say other than there was just so much tremondous aching pain.
As if someone had hit me in the belly with a wooden baseball bat until I passed out. I was in so much pain, I have yet to experience pain on that level. I could not speak I was hurting so badly, I could only utter out tiny pieces of words at a whisper. They pumped some dilaudid into me, kept telling me to breathe, and then hooked me up a morphine pump. Around 8pm, I was pretty numb.
The rest of the night was so so, morphine pump was definately a winning idea. The only real trouble was that I could have nothing by mouth, NOTHING for two full days. So that meant I could not take my SSRI med called remeron. Around 6am the next morning, tuesday, I was having panic attacks, which lasted about
20 minutes, and my pain was coming back pretty hard too.
I got really lucky though. There was a nursing student who had been assigned to me, she seen how badly I was shaking, sweating, and just plain in tears, and she helped me out. There were two other nurses there who seen me in agony, shook it off, and just walked away, as if it was no big deal, but not this student. She held my hand, and told me to breathe, hold it, relax, breathe in again, long deep breaths, take it slow, easy, relax...
After a good ten minutes of this, I was much more calm. I also got more dilaudid, and was given a standing order for the stuff every two hours on top of my morphine pain pump. They finally gave me some ativan later on that day, and then PRN every 6 hours, and I was somewhat ok, I was functioning, I was not in a world of terror anymore.
The first two days after the surgery were rough, they expected me to be up out of bed sitting in a chair for one hour per day, and walking around three times per day. This was all within 24 hours of the end of the surgery, and I kid you not. I managed to do these things, the pain med helped me too, but whoa it was hard.
Yesterday things got much better, and easier. Today was not too bad. I was so eager to get home, that when I seen my surgeon today I told him home is where I was headed, he said OK, you know your body best. You have transistioned from clear liquid, to semi, to full, and are eating pretty good regular food. You have went to the bathroom some 30 times, you can go home, just take things really easy.
I plan on thanking the student nurse who helped me out, maybe a card, some flowers, candy, or something else nice, just to say thanks.(I don't wanna date her). I was also thinking of sending a note to her teacher letting them know just how much she helped me through this ordeal. She did come back the following day, and helped me to walk around and do normal stuff, it was cool hanging out with her, I think she will make a fine nurse, doctor, or whatever it is she wants to do in life.
Will keep you guys updated. I am gonna need a lot of time to get through this, it has taken a serious toll on my mentalilty and on my desire to be alive. I hate to sound that way, but it is the truth is all. I am thinking maybe a nice vacation when I get well enough, perhaps the beach would do wonders. Any other ideas along those lines are definately welcomed.
I do wonder if I will set off metal detectors now, such joy trying to go into concerts maybe. I dunno, maybe not, any ideas on this one?
Later