Post Op Ileostomy reversal - is this usual ?

Hi,

My father-in-law has recently had an Ileostomy reversal. I have been reading all night across this and a multitude of other resources trying to understand if any others have had a similar experience to what my father-in-law is experiencing.

He has been in hospital now for two weeks having had the operation two weeks today - he has not eaten any solid foods, is losing a lot of weight, is becomming weaker by the day and is in a lot of pain from indigestion type burps / hiccups. Most recently (in the last couple of days) he has started vomitting as well when trying to force himself to eat foods (he currently has no appetite). The bowel does appear to be working as he is passing - albeit liquid.

We are all very concerned as the hospital keep saying they are amending the drugs and it's a question of finding the right level of medicine, they haven't yet conducted a CT scan as they 'feel' that there isn't a kink or leak. As each day passes concern grows given how weak he is getting and if it does turn out to be a leak or kink he would need to go back under for surgery which by the time the surgery happens would be very (life/death) risky. Two weeks since the op 'seems' a long time to us to just allow things to carry on and take their course.

We'd all be very interested to understand any or all of the following ...

- When his appetite is likely to return
- Any suggestions for anything pro-active we can be doing for him (whether that be diet or anything else)
- Should we be asking any specific questions of the doctors whom we feel are letting him get too weak
- Has anyone had similar experiences post op - any similar timescales and issues faced following surgery ?

Any help or advice would be greatly appreciated - even if it's just to put our minds at rest that this is fairly normal - although we suspect it's not.

Thanks,

Mike