Posted 4/6/2015 10:05 PM (GMT 0)
Hello everyone. So here's the story, my boyfriend was diagnosed with FAP last year, and in November, it was confirmed that he had colon cancer and needed surgery to remove it. I can't think of what it's called but he went with the option to remove the colon, and connect the small intestine to the rectum. Fast forward to February of this year - went in for laproscopic surgery, went great according to the Surgeon, perfect connection and all that. Few days in the hospital and things were recovering nicely- until they didn't. he started to have more and more pain and test after test, they couldn't figure out why. So, the surgeon came to the conclusion that they'd have to do exploratory surgery to find out what was going on since he shouldn't be having so much pain at this point. So 6 days after the first surgery, they went in again and opened him all the way up. Turns out, part of his small intestines had twisted during the recovery process and cut off blood flow to part of the tissue and Gangrene set it. They ended up cutting out the dead tissue, plugging the rectum, and gave him an ileostomy bag. He was extremely sick due to the infection for quite some time not to mention the massive surgery. He spent three more weeks in the hospital.
Now, he doesn't really remember everything that happened or conversations the surgeon had with him explaining everything so myself and his mom discussed everything with him when he was less "out of it" from all the pain meds and antibiotics he was on.
For the most part, he has accepted the fact that he has an ostomy bag, but he still struggles with it, especially when he has leaking and such. The fact is, he was prepared for the surgery, but not the crazy random issues that led to him having to have a second surgery. Any advice you can share on dealing with difficulties, both physically and mentally would be greatly appreciated. There is a chance he can have the surgery to reconnect again down the road but there is no guarantee that this freak accident won't happen again and that is part of his worry. He's been out of the hospital for 4 weeks now and he is just plain tired of the pain. He feels like he keeps drawing the short end of the stick, taking one step forward and two steps back. For example now he is dealing with severe Tailbone pain. I guess I'm just looking for some emotional support that I can pass on to him (and I won't lie, for me as well) because we know it's been a rough road and it'll be a long one not only with this surgery, but going through all the future tests for other complications of FAP. Any advice or tips you can give would be greatly appreciated.
Have a great day.