4 days after surgery: Husband having complications.

Matthew is having some complications from his surgery and has been moved to ICU. Last night, he started having pain and vomiting. He had been doing really well prior to this- walking around, eating, drinking, catheter and epidural out.

His blood work came back and gave the doctors concerns for infection. The doctors have placed an NG tube into his nose to get rid of abdominal distention and a catheter went back in. Matthew is in a lot of pain and very uncomfortable. They will be doing X-rays on his chest an abdomen looking for possible hernia or twist and a CT Scan today looking for abscess or leak in small intestine. The doctors said he had an ileus in his small intestine. This is a compounding problem to the possible infection.

This is an extremely disappointing and concerning setback, as he was doing an excellent job of recovering the last few days and they were planning on sending him home today. Please pray that they don't have to open him up again in surgery and that this passes quickly so he can get back onto the road for recovery.

- Kirsten

I will be praying for you and Matthew that this will pass quickly and only be a
Minor bump in the road to recovery!!!

The CT scan showed an obstruction of some kind in his small intestine. His original surgeon came in and talked to him and said he wants to open the incision back up and look around and see what has caused this. He said he can fix any problem that he finds but of course this is not an ideal situation. The CT scan did not show any twists in the small intestine. We are all very worried but have confidence in the surgeons and their ability.

- Kirsten

I know that this is not the result that you wanted by like Cecilia said take it one day at a time, trust in your doctors, and let look down the road.....you will get there.

hope everythig works out fine! i had an ileus after my colectomy that lasted 8 days, but passed. hope it's as simple as that and he doesn't have to go through any further surgery.

Matthew is out of surgery! The surgeon said that inside, where they had stapled off the remainder of the rectum (he kept his rectum) was "leaking" at one corner and causing an infection. They said it was very weak because of how sick his colon was. They ended up cutting off a little more and stapling it, then double stitching it over to make sure it doesn't happen again. They are pumping him full of antibiotics and they have to leave the skin layer of the incision open and pack the wound the make sure that doesn't get infected, either. Praise God they found the problem and fixed it before he got even more sick!

The surgeon said, worst case scenario, if it happened again, they would have to make a temporary stoma from the rectum (didn't know they could do that....) and then fix it later once he's recovered a bit. Hopefully it doesn't come to that.

By the way, they said his small intestine looked fine and had no issues!

- Kirsten

WOW KIrsten, glad they fixed this. WHEW! Best wishes. Rosemary

I am so glad they found the problem and it is fixed. Hopefully the ileus passes quickly and you can both start moving forward again on the road to health!

Good Morning Kirsten!

I hope the night went well! I am so glad this problem was so fixable. I also hope the day goes SO good and sees Matthew improving hourly! Sounds like you have good doctors.

I also have my rectum. I was diagnosed with ovarian cancer when I had my colectomy, so they left it because recovery was much easier and I needed to start chemo. Since my surgeries on March 25th, I have had no trouble with the rectum. It does sometimes drain just a clearish drainage and I just wear a pad.
As I said in my earlier post, having an ileosotomy was the greatest thing to happen for me. I feel so much better and have such wonderful freedom now to enjoy life, and beat cancer!

Thinking of both of you,
Mollie

I'm sorry I'm alittle behind on my posts.  I'm THRILLED that it was found soon enough!!!!!!!  That is ironic, that's exactly what happened to me!  By the time I went in ICU, the leakage caused more than an infection, it caused a large blood clot in my portal vein.  When I went into surgery, over a gallon of leakage had to be cleaned out and a stoma was made, was too much trama (surgeon did origionally staple & suture the ileo to rectum but I had a sick colon to begin with).  I was so ill, I was incompacitated for days.  Then I got phenumia, then my incision opened due to the blood thinners.  Gosh, I didn't think I was going to survive.  I'm so glad to hear that the doctors were on top of everything for you and hopefully you are recovering extremly well!!!!!  Thank God because I would never want anyone to experience what I went through.  Prayers and thoughts-Christine