One-step J-pouch procedure today

My daughter had her surgery today, she is doing great.  The procedure took 7 1/2 hours, we are about to leave the recovery room.......she has been insisting, for the last 2 hours, that I "post on healing well how good I feel."  She has almost no pain....they gave her an epidural and will leave it hooked up for a few days.

Prayers for a quick recovery:)

Wow, that is amazing. I wish I could have a one step procedure and be done iwth this illness for good. Hope she's feeling great and back to her old self quickly.

So happy for you guys- what a day you have been through! I sure hope she has a very easy recovery adn only good things for you both from here on ...you deserve it!!

Please keep us posted and I look forward to seeing your updates :)

Oh WOW...great news that she's feeling so good so soon after surgery!

Thanks for giving us the update.

Please pass along my well wishes and that she has a smooth recovery.

AWESOME!!!
quincy

I'm glad that she is already feeling better--that's wonderful!

Where did she get her surgery done? Not many surgeons do a one-step.

Again, thank you all for your kind words! Today was a little rough, due to the non-stop cast of characters parading into her room overnight, she did not get one wink of sleep. Seriously, someone needs to clue in all overnight medical workers that the majority of people need to sleep at night, and a person in a hospital definitely needs rest! They also reduced her epidural meds by half, and she started having some pain so the pain specialist set up a patient controlled system where she could give herself her own medicine by pushing a button, it definitely helped, and she has pretty much been sleeping since 10:30a.m., trying to recoup the lost sleep from last night. So she really hasn't pushed the button to give herself the pain med because she has been sleeping. Her hematocrit was only 18 so she needed a blood transfusion, they are going to draw more blood in 2 hours to see if her levels have come up, if not she will get another transfusion.
Elephantpipe, I did pause when the anesthesiologist asked if she wanted an epidural, but he wasn't going to put it in until she was already out (so she didn't feel it going in), as hesitant as I was I was still more scared about the pain she would be in after the operation!
Bookworm, she had the surgery at Mass General Hospital, in Boston. Her wonderful GI is at another one of the hospitals here in Boston, and of coursse he would have liked for us to have chosen a surgeon from the "home team," but he has also worked with the surgeon that we chose, supports our decision and told us we picked "a great surgeon." We consulted with surgeons at other hospitals (we actually did our consultations over a year ago, knowing that there was a possibility that she may need surgery at some point and we wanted to be prepared in advance and have a surgeon chosen so we weren't scrambling in case of an emergency) and ultimately chose Dr. Doody (seriously, with a name like that he was BORN to be a colo-rectal surgeon, no?!) because he had a spectacular "bedside manner" he very thoroughly, patiently and expertly went over everything with us, and my daughter, my husband and I agreed that we wanted him to do the surgery. He used to do a two-step surgery, but he explained to us that during a surgery about 16 years ago, he wasn't able to bring the small intestine close enough to the surface to do the temp ileo, and after working for a period of time trying to get the small intestine into the right position, the surgical team thought that there was certainly a good enough blood supply to the j-pouch for it to work and that a lot of time had passed and they wantedto get the incision closed so he decided to forgoe the ileostomy and just do the one-step, if it didn't work he would do another operation for the ileostomy. Well, long story short, it worked out beautifully and he has done the one-step ever since. The only exceptions (I think there were 3-5 times when a 2-step was done) were when he didn't feel there was an adequate blood supply in the small intestine for the j-pouch to work properly, and he explained this to us and said that is something that couldn't be determined until he actually was doing the operation (it is an open operation, not a laparoscopic one) and saw the small intestine, if he wasn't confident there was an adequate blood supply he would do a 2 step. So we knew in advance that the odds were in our favor that it would be a one step operation but there was a tiny chance that it would have to be two step.

I will keep you guys in my prayers. God I can't imagine having this UC at 15. It is hard at 30. I wish her the best of luck.

Still waiting for some stool to pass so they can remove her NG tube.  She is in really great spirits, considering she hasn't eaten anything in 7 days.  Christine, it was very helpful that you posted about removing you NG tube too soon......we had talked to a girl who had her NG tube removed too quickly and had to have it put back in; her biggest piece of advice was not to rush the removal of the tube, no matter how miserable you are!  Reading about your experience, Christine, only reinforced this.

She is sitting in a chair for hours at a time, taking a few steps (very difficult with the epidural, she doesn't have much feeling in her legs), and it is so nice to see the color return to her face.

after 3 years, we can only hope and assume all is well -

and wishing you and your daughter the best !

Thank you so much, God Bless