David's Nissen Journey ~Surgery 11/1 Part 1 of 2 Closed

Hi David - I'm thinking about you this morning. I hope you are well enough to walk those halls. You will probably be going home this afternoon. Hang in there - we are rooting for you!

Night time / morning.

Its gotten a lot worse.. I'm in a lot of pain and got this green phlegm comming up. I'm not alowed to have any clear liquids even and only what I get from my IV. I'm miserable. Ill have to post more later on this its hard to type this right now. So thirsty ugh

Post Edited (Diaas2) : 11/2/2013 4:24:04 PM (GMT-6)

Hi David,

Do tell the nurse if you're in pain.  They can fix that!  You're not intended to be suffering that much from pain.  If it's your shoulder, be sure to get up and walk whenever you go to the bathroom.  The more you walk, the better your shoulder will feel.

I don't know why you're not able to take anything by mouth.  Are they going to give you a barium swallow first?  Suck on those crushed ice cubes until they set you free to drink.  I am a big water drinker, and I can definitely sympathize with the feelings you're having. 

Please advocate for yourself.  If you are in pain, let them know. If your mouth is too dry and you're incredibly thirsty, make your discomfort known.  Ask the nursing staff to contact your surgeon and see what he/she can do for you.

Hang in there! We're here for you!

Best wishes,

Denise

Day 1

I get to stay another night. They wanted me to do that swallow thing before I could be on clear liquids. I didn't get to drink anything till about 3 and got my first liquid meal at 5. I get tired pretty fast from the meds and hanging in there from my sore abdominal muscles and my innards touched by my surgery. Things are managable but at times I'm feeling miserable until the nurse comes to help me at times. That can take a while sometimes.

I'm so glad they brought me my first tray of tastey liquid foods. Sorbet, warm broth, jellow, apple juice, and coffee. Ive only taken a few bites and I'm starting to slow down already. Fortunately I can burp when I begin to get those painful hiccups. I can burp in general I just don't force them because that would hurt. Definitely going to lay back down when I'm done drinking my assortment of things, the way my body is purched has me stretching my neck a bit.

I did get up and walk the halls for a while twice, its getting in and out of bed that's the challenge. Air gets stuck very easy as I eat. Definitely have to eat super slow. Thanks everyone. Usually I thank specific people but I'm feeling really drained and tired and I'm typing this on my tiny smart phone screen. With my food tray on my table the laptop is off to the side for now. Ill fix that later

I felt the need to come back and say that even though the first day has been rough, I've been experiencing next to no reflux just some gross green phlem that came up one time. This all seems to be worth it! Lots of good things just exhausted really.

Post Edited (Diaas2) : 11/2/2013 4:46:33 PM (GMT-6)

A few nurses gave me straws, actually one of the first ones I saw out of recovery gave me a straw. I knew better than to use it. I remembered you guys talking about not using straws. Thanks everyone for thinking about me. I'm glad to be apart of the wrapped club!

Its a completely new sensation having no reflux. I want to be careful about saying that, I don't want to jinx it.

As usual, I feel pretty calm about everything because of the support you guys are giving me. All the recommendations help and I'm glad I have a place to turn to for it. I can tell you the hospital and all the doctors don't help much at all. I don't think any of the nurses bothered to look at my chart, they really didn't understand why I needed help getting in and out of bed. They were baffled that I had stomach surgery. None of them seemed to understand why I needed help and what my needs were.

They are extremely nice people though, it's important to mention that. They all really do care.

Post Edited (Diaas2) : 11/3/2013 5:55:24 PM (GMT-7)

Rest, you cannot get enough rest at this point. I am 20 days today and slept a lot today. If your tired .... Rest

6AM Day 3

I woke up and pooped out a good amount of blood. Another thing I'm very concerned about. I've truly been folowing the liquid diet thing, jello liquefies in mouth before swallow, well blended chicken noodle soup (you couldn't even tell there was once chicken or noodles, quite frankly its like I'm not even sure there was chicken, its a joke for "chicken" noodle soup), pudding, and a bit of blueberry banana, yogurt smoothie. Oh and water. Always lots of little sips of water.

It sucks shifting positions in bed because I can feel the weight of my innards shifting into different directions which is painful because of how swollen everything is. Someone gave me peppermint tea, which I should have refused, so now I'm refluxing. I went back to drinking my smooth move tea! Which is good stuff. While typing this I need to cough (painful) and walk to the sink to spit my reflux out. It wasn't a lot, jut a little bit, and only had to do it twice. Still shows I'm a millions of times better off than I was before my surgery! I will have you know that I think there was caffeine in that tea, had I consumed any caffeine before my surgery, I'd already be coughing a storm right now, possibly to the point of throwing up. Not anymore!

For those considering the surgery I can tell you already that it's worth it! I know all this after surgery stuff sucks, but I've lived my life with never ending reflux. From what I've read here on this forum, the wrap swells a lot after the surgery, so its easier for little bits of reflux to come up. But what I'm experiencing isn't even 1/1000th of what I had experienced before the surgery.

Expelling blood while using the bathroom is normal at this time, right? I'll go back to bed after this.

Post Edited (Diaas2) : 11/4/2013 5:27:52 AM (GMT-7)

Thanks Stephanie!

Not yet, I'll be sure to call the doctor about the blood, and ask for some anti nausea meds too.
My stomach definitely feels weird, I know what you mean about that.

I'll ask one of my friends if they wouldn't mind doing that. Food really gets stuck, and water is always important to help push it down slowly. I only eat two or three spoonfuls before I'm ready to stop! I haven't been to Briarfield cafe before. I'm interested in checking it out. Must be some pretty good chicken noodle soup.

My sister made some chili last night, it sucked looking at it (she even asked me to help make it, kind of a dick move) I sure wanted to eat it. I left the room and I could still smell the delicious chili. Then I was asked if I wanted to help give out candy for the delayed Halloween because of the bad weather. So I can look at all the candy I can't eat? I just don't understand how people can be so inconsiderate!

Post Edited (Diaas2) : 11/4/2013 7:16:01 AM (GMT-7)

What did your doc say about the blood? That is not a typical side effect of the surgery.
The pain meds make me nauseous, too. They didn't even give me narcotics in the hospital because of it. They gave me Toradol, an anti-inflammatory pain killer. They sent me home with liquid vicodin. I had to have food in my stomach to take the med, that made it difficult, especially late at night.

If all goes well, you may not need that pain med after day 4 or 5. You may do just fine with ibuprofen. You can use the children's liquid, or try the small caplets with applesauce. I could swallow the pills with applesauce, I hope you can, too.

At your point in time post-op, I could not get interested in anything like reading, watching tv, etc. I just wanted to rest. I don't normally get bored, but I was then. It was confusing, for sure.

I'm worried about that blood. I hope you can check in soon.

Hey Hey! Glad to hear that the blood problem has been taken care of, just keep an eye out ok!
That is worrysome.

It sounds like things are starting to swell actually. Chocolate can irritate your tissues and it might not have been acid coming up so much as it was hot cocoa sitting at your wrap site causing irritation. Your esophagus is stupid and interprets everything as burning weirdness... Stay away from chocolate and tomato stuff for a few weeks. Do you like tea? Chamomile tea with honey might be a better choice right now.

The pulling esophagus is just swelling. its going to feel very strange for a bit. Dont freak out about anything like that unless its really painful or you can not eat or there is blood. Weird feeling sensations will be your life for the next few weeks. I remember early on if I drank anything cold, it felt like it was spilling all over my chest cavity and not even making it into my stomach. SUPER GROSS feeling!

Trust me, the chocolate thing is most likely temporary. I enjoy it now. In fact I had some for lunch. it was good. :)

Night time, day 4

Thanks Stephanie and Tony,

I do like tea, I've been doing the smooth move tea quite a bit. A few times a day actually. Even water gets stuck, and I have heaving moments of my esophagus trying to figure out what to do with it before it finally passes through my wrap. I can burp through my esophagus, extremely easily, just not very easily though my stomach. When that happens, which is rare, they are really tiny little burps, nothing big at all.

I've learned that when I eat one of the foods of doom, such as chocolate, caffeine, or anything that resembles a solid right now, I have issues. Issues being the spasms my esophagus does when it tries to bring air down with it, then figures out the air won't go down, then abruptly wants to go back up again in some sort of a hybrid hiccup/burp or spasm sensation which can be a bit painful from the air/food getting stuck half way down. This is what I usually deal with when I take my small tiny sips of anything so far.

When I eat really conservatively, I have zero symptoms, no acid reflux at all. Which is great! I am after all on day four, so it's understandable that I wouldn't be ready for some of those foods yet.

Stephanie,

I'm glad you can eat chocolate, if I go to the store again, I'll be sure to pick up that Chamomile tea and some honey. I enjoy the teas a lot. It's not exactly fun how even liquids will cause my esophagus to spasm and the jolting hiccups that turn into burps until everything goes down again.

Your thoughts on the pulling sensation makes me feel better.

Tony,

I'm glad that the pulling feeling in my esophagus is normal, I'm also looking forward to my body retraining itself for normal motility of foods to my stomach again.

Doing the sitting up straight thing sounds good, I'll give that a try. Nice and slow like.
I was a big baby and felt some discomfort in my incision spots, so I took a little bit more of those pain meds, but I'll definitely ween myself off them more. I'll consider picking up some of that liquid Tylenol or Motrin soon.

Sitting here right now I feel no reflux at all. Earlier I was spitting up (tiny) bits of that bubbly phlegm after being obviously irritated by the hot chocolate I was consuming. I drank some water like you recommended. It took about a half hour for all that to stop, I had to run to the sink a few times to get the little bits of phlegm out.

My surgeon told me that he gave me a "really loose floppy nissen." I feel that he wouldn't have given me any of those details if I didn't use those words when questioning what was going on. But anyways I'm hoping he didn't make it too loose. I'd like to be able to eat anything and get away with it, but I know its really early and just like you and Stephanie mentioned, the foods I ate will irritate my wrap and the wounds are still fairly fresh and take time to heal.

Thanks!

Post Edited (Diaas2) : 11/5/2013 9:50:10 PM (GMT-7)

After my surgey I was coughing up gunk from anesthesia. Make sure you hold something against you if you cough to support yourself.

I have not even tried Olgas, that cheese and bread will be hard to swallow, and now after surgery I can not do much dairy because it bloats me terribly.
You will be able to have all that stuff sooon, really its just a minor inconvenience for a few weeks.