Two Weeks Post Op - Scared and problems

Had my Da Vinci surgery two weeks ago. Here's a brief recap of where I am at two weeks later

I've had four blood transfusions

Transferred to ICU after being in recovery for 10+ hours. My blood pressure dropped to 56 during this time.

My JP drain has been resutured 3X since my surgery to stop blood from leaking. And my JP is still in.

My JP drain continues to fill up. The fluid was tested (Bun and Creatin) and has a high content of urine. Going now for a cat scan with dye to see what is leaking and where. Doctor seems concerned now about the fluid in the JP drain, however it's the same fluid I had every day I was in the hospital when he saw me. I was told it was normal fluids when I was in the hospital

Still wearing cather ugh

I have four small incisions and one in the center that has nine staples (rather large incision). No mention by doc why he cut so much (we inquired). Anyone have a guess here?

Going into this procedure I was very healthy for my age and shocked at this turn of events

What else should I be looking for and asking? My doctor is very busy and spends limited time with patients. He did tell me two days after my surgery that he nicked an artery. Not sure why he didn't say something the day of surgery. I suspect that was the cause of my problems immediately following the procedure.

Good luck to anyone getting this procedure. I don't know you, but I pray you have results different than mine.

God Bless

Sorry to hear of this. Sometimes surgeries go wrong for a variety of reasons. The surgeon admitting that he nicked and artery doesn't sound good. I had my original catheter in for over 30 days post surgery, so understand that part. My surgeon had great difficulty with my bladder neck, and was not able to get to my right side nerves as he intended, surgical notes said that I had an unusually deep and narrow prostate bed on that side.

I hope they can you in better shape quickly so that you can move on to the next steps of your recovery. Please keep us posted.

Hang in there! Hope each day shows improvement!
Jim

Elgin, sorry to hear about all your complications. Not much to add, just want to say I do hope you get past these issues soon, and move on to full recovery.

Just some words of encouragement. It does, eventually, come to an end.

My husband had JP drain problems too. Had the drain in for 2 weeks, catheter in for 3 1/2 weeks. He had to have 3 scans to follow the progress of the sutures. One problem he had was that the JP drain was laying up against the place where the suture had been blown out and was pulling the urine straight from the bladder. When that was discovered, they finally pulled the drain. The scan will tell them everything they need to know.

We did not have the nick of the artery although there was a time that we thought he was going to have to have a transfusion.

I know it seems as if this will never end and you will never get on to the healing process, but you will. If there is a leak in the connection, it will heal. We were beginning to believe that it wouldn't, but it did. Hang in there!

Elgin,
You ask about the middle incision which apparently is a good bit larger than you expected. That was by far my largest incision, though still not all that large compared to typical abdominal incisions. I think mine was a bit larger than usual since I had just recently had an umbilical hernia repair at about the same spot and they had to work with that. But as for why yours is larger than expected? I can only guess, but you had an artery nicked? That can make for some rapid blood loss ( hence your 4 units of blood I guess ) and call for rapid response with no time for subtleties. IOW, maybe they had to open you up wider in order to find that bleeder and get it stopped quickly? But that is just a guess, if the surgeon won't tell you you will have to get hold of the surgery report.

My drain was supposed to come out the next day right before I left the hospital. But instead it came out weeks later, actually after my catheter. But it just kept on draining a bit more than the max allowed for removal. My wife and I removed it at home after they finally gave us permission after repeated phone calls to them( we are a 4 hour drive from our surgeon). But all ended up A-OK as far as that goes, just took way longer than usual. But I see you may have some extra concern related to the type of fluid that is draining? But like Island Time said, the scan will let you know if there is actually a problem. If not, maybe you are simply like me, slow to stop needing the drain.

Hang in there, good luck on the scan, but probably you are just slow. And again, you may have been had a little extra pummeling due to the need to stop the unexpected bleeding. That right there will require some extra healing time.

I'll second all the questions that Fairwind raised. The DaVinci machine is a pretty precise device, which is why they're so widely used. I'm trying to get my mind around how a surgeon with a lot of experience would "nick" an artery with that machine.

Hope things get better for you soon. I'm feelin' your pain man.

One way or another, that leak must be repaired. Your ordeal is not over...Consult with the best Urological Surgeon you can find....A botched surgery is a botched surgery. There is just no nice way to put it...But that's water over the bridge, you can deal with that later. Right now you have to get yourself put back together again...