6 DAYS POSTOP

So lots has happened since I last checked in. I had my surgery and am still in the adjustment-transition period.  I was neurotic the week before surgery and did not get a single full night's rest the entire week.  I found myself tossing and turning and being wide awake at most hours of the night. The night before surgery, my mom told me I was "nesting", which she said was fine as long as I "didn't bring home a baby." I cannot explain why, but I just had this unsettled feeling about the whole thing. It wasn't fear, anxiety, or stress.  I had lots of questions, all of which were either answered by one of my doctors or other people in the support group. 

My surgeon was great and he didn't do anything wrong, but I did have a few complications, most of which were related to my size.  First off, let me say I was down 73 lbs the morning of surgery.  My goal weight from 513 was 445 and I weighed in at 440 in preop.  

Even with my drastic weight loss:

• The operation took six hours instead of two
• I had eight small incisions instead of the six anticipated
• I am having loads of pain and numbness
• My liver was "Floppy" and he had to use extra retractors to hold it back to operate on me.  If I had not have lost the weight preop, then he could not have done the surgery
• The OR table I was on was either too short or I was scooted too far down on it and my feet were pressed hard against the foot rest, so by the time I came out of the 6 hr surgery and preop and recovery, my feet were killing me.  They had me try to get up and walk but the soles of my feet were sore to the touch. They hurt to even touch the ground.
• He had to put more air in me for the laproscopic portion than most people to have the most room to work with possible, which means more gas to get out of my tissues later, which means you have to work the air out of your tissues by exercise, burping it out or tooting it out. Most of mine came from burping, which was incredibly painful but so it tooting postop. It hurts like hell too.  
• I ended up staying two nights in the hospital instead of one.  
• When he was using the curved stapler inside to create my pouch, it malfunctioned (from what i understand) and staple line busted out and he had to create a smaller pouch (approximately 1 oz instead of 2 oz) and its shaped a little different than most other RNY pouches. 
• While suturing the staple line, a curved sutural needle popped off into my abdomen and he couldn't find it.  They did an x-ray during surgery but didn't find anything.  My surgeon thinks it fell behind my spleen and when they got me up to walk after surgery, that it probably did fall to my pelvis or should fall to my pelvis and he said that scar tissue should form around it and it should not give me any problems.  I asked him if it would dissolve and he said no that it was surgical stainless steel.  I think knowing I have a needle stuck inside me is more of a mental issue with me rather than an actual medical issue. He said it happens to other surgeons all the time and their patients do fine, but I am the first one it has ever happened to for him and you could tell it really bothered him.  Its not that he's a bad surgeon at all - because he's not, he's excellent and the level of care he has for his patients is exponential to other surgeons I have encountered either through my job or having other operations myself. He didn't have to tell me and my family about the needle incident and didn't have to be up-front and honest about it, but he was.  He didn't try to talk to me about it while I was sedated or under any kind of anesthesia, he waited until around 9 pm that night to come back and discuss the complications with me when I was lucid and responsive.
• I finally got up to walk after surgery, but could only walk from the bed to the restroom.  I had a hard time trying to urinate.  I sat on the toilet for an hour the first time and just couldn't go.  (That was around 5:30-6:30 pm). My surgeon came back to see me later that evening and I told him about my not peeing issue and he said they put in a catheter during surgery and drained my bladder and he wasn't that worried about it because I was producing urine good during surgery, but if I didn't pee before 11 pm, for the nurses to go ahead and cath me again.  Let me be the first to tell you, at 10:45 pm, I was in that bathroom trying my best to pee. Finally at 10:58 pm, I peed.It wasn't like the dam  broke, it was just piddles here and there.  It burned and was bloody from all of the trauma I had been through that day.Since surgery, every time I have gone to pee, its at least a 15 min ordeal, if not an hour; they are incredibly painful.
• My surgeon told me before he released me that my bowels would probably lock up from the pain meds and nature of the surgery.  I had a BM the Saturday night before surgery and I finally had one post-op today.  So I went 8 days without one and it was incredibly painful and bloody.  I went to potty again this afternoon and I thought I had started my period in the middle of all of this (showing God does have a sense of humor) but no, was totally rectal bleeding.  Will call my surgeon in the morning to see when he can see me
• i had five iv's and I kept blowing veins. 

                                                                                                                                                                                                          
My pain level has went up since I came home and got off the morphine pump and they cut my hydrocodone syrup dose (which tastes like lemon pledge mixed with kerosene) in half with me coming home from 30 ml/6 hr to 15 ml/6 hr.  I had some left over morphine pills from a previous surgery that I had been hoarding until I needed them for emergency and believe me, this fit into that category.  

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ITEMS THAT HAVE HELPED ME: