Back from surgery

Back today from my surgery on June 9th....all did not go according to plan.
The para-esophageal hernia was giant-sizes and took 2 hours to reduce. Once that was done, there was not enough length of esophagus to do the floppy wrap, especially considering my Barrett's. The surgeon wanted to have at least 4 inches to work with, and I only had 2. The alternative was to artificially extend my esophagus using part of the stomach lining which he did not want to do, and neither did I.
He felt that since the hernia was so large, it was the source of my GERD so we'll stick with meds and lifestyle changes to control it.
Liquids for 2 weeks while the stomach gets used to being back where it belongs, no lifting beyond 5 pounds and follow up in 2 weeks. Probably a 6-8 week recovery period.

The good news is that was able to do all this laproscopically and although he is not the one who first scoped me and found the Barretts, he found it to be "spotty" which seems to be an improvement from last October. Some pain, especially gas with eating, so taking Gas-X throughout the day to compensate. Some left shoulder paid too, but getting better.

I'll update more later as I'm getting tired...

Jas -
I too am glad surgery went well. Take all the time you need to heal and try not to over do it.

Take care,
Bill

Gosh! I was concerned that my esophagus wouldn't be long enough either, even though they measured it during the manometry. When they did the esophageal mediastinal dissection they were able to get enough freed up to do the partial wrap.

I know the procedure you are talking about for stapling the stomach to make a longer esophagus. It's called a Collis gastroplasty. They do it in Pittsburgh if you have to have it re-done.

Best of luck with recovery.