lc6342

<p>I'm so sorry you went through this. I can definitely empathize with your pain and suffering. </p> <p> </p> <p>I had surgery August 16, 2013. I met a lady in Mexico who had surgery the day after me so we kept in touch through Facebook. I was really jealous of her because she seemed to be doing really well with how she was feeling and I felt awful. I was really weak too, never being able to get in all my fluids, once i started eating normal food I would vomit foamies almost every time I ate. I had that awful left side pain. It felt like my shoulder got popped out of it's socket. My ribs were killing me. Ouch! No fever though. </p> <p> </p> <p>At 3 months out (November 19) I went in for a upper GI series. Drank the clay looking stuff and the radiologist said, it's going down fine your sleeve looks great! I was really happy. Four days later i get a call from my doctor's office. He wants to see me. I am panicked. I call mexico they say it's probably a hernia. It's not. It's a 2cm contained leak. My body built some sort of sac to contain the contents spilling out. So I wasn't 'sick' sick. </p> <p> </p> <p>I ask my doc to refer me to a gastro doc. In my city here in canada they don't do weight loss surgery. So i'm basically a guinea pig. I call mexico they say a nasojejunal tube for six weeks. I tell that to the gastro. He has no respect for the doctor in mexico's wishes. I think he thinks i got my vsg in some back alley chop shop. No convincing can make him think different. So I get admitted to the hospital. After much hydration and antibiotic treatment, I'm given three choices... leave it and see what happens, try to glue it (put some glue on the leak, let scar tissue form over the glue) or get a stent. I choose the glue.</p> <p> </p> <p>They go in through my mouth witht the camera and an attached glue gun. I stay in the hospital for a day and they let me go home. That week I feel really awful. Can barely eat or drink and I'm back in the ER within 5 days. I get a nasogastric tube shoved into my stomach to drain the bile and acid, give my stomach a break. This time I'm in the hospital for 3 weeks. I'm low on electrolytes and they want me on the tubefeed, just like my doctor in mexico said, but it's their idea apparently. So I get a nasojejunum tube and boy do I hate it. I am being fed in the hospital and they are going to send me home like this. Okay I say, I can handle it. No I can't. My throat feels like someone is in there cutting it with razors and I'm being a total baby. I am supposed to keep the tube in for six weeks. I pull it out week 4 and drink my cans of nutrition for a week, I have an appt. with the doctor who gives me heck for pulling it. I am scheduled for an upper GI to see if the leak healed.</p> <p> </p> <p>It hasn't apparently. The pains in my side and shoulder have never been worse, now it's in my back and my temp is a degree higher than normal. It's not a bad fever, just 99 or so, but it worries me and I go back to emergency. They take an xray and say nothing looks bad, but i overhear the female doctor say 'im keeping her overnight to cover my ass'. Good thing she does. I get a CT scan the next day. My gastro comes in looking like someone died and says 'not good news'. He then tells me my stomach has a perforation, I have two big abscesses, one has opened and is spilling poison into my body. There is 'free air' everywhere. I may lose my stomach. It's 5:30pm and he has me booked for emergency surgery. I think I might die. I call my family and they come to the hospital, and it's worse now because they look so scared and I want to comfort them but I'm scared out of my mind too. I go for surgery and wake up in recovery. True to form I chat way too much, I always do that after a surgery, yap yap yap. I somehow think it's going to prevent post op complications or something if i crack jokes and make the nurses laugh. I am visited by the doctor who said I didn't have a perforation after all, it was still the original leak but formed abcesses (do i trust him at this point?), i still have my stomach. I am wheeled into observation. I give the nurses alternate names to remember them based on what movie stars they look like, i'm being pretty generous hoping they treat me well haha. the morphine isn't completely hitting the pain and they up my dose to 2mg per 8 minutes. i am... stoned. thank god.</p> <p> </p> <p>i have a drain, an NG tube sucking the stomach crap out (it doesn't really bug me this time as i'm too much in lala land), and a new disgusting cut down my belly which means i will never wear a bikini again, not that i ever would mind you. i also have a tube implanted in my lower abdomen ready for the tube feed once i feel better. For 10 days i do an IV of antibiotics and different Vitamins and minerals. I get my blood drawn daily to see what I'm lacking. Boy the potassium hurts when it goes through your IV.</p> <p> </p> <p>I have developed thrush and a yeast infection from the antibiotic cocktail (Flagyll and Ciproflaxin). So they give me some cream and these little blue cups of anti fungal Syrup. Four days after surgery I drink one and this total absolute hellish pain starts in my body. It starts in my chest and waves of pain work their way down my abdomen. I start screaming. Nurses rush in telling me to calm myself. I can't. I'm stoned, in total pain and I'm screaming thank you very much. A portable xray gets rushed up. I never though I might be dying of something, i was too much in lala land for that. But now, I think i'm a bit traumatized by the whole thing. It was worse than having a baby. I was rushed down to nuclear xray or whatever they call it and they shove a tube in my left side. I'm talking no pain control on that, just a cut and a tube shoved into my body. I guess I developed a post surgical abcess. The stuff that was coming out of that tube. OMG. It looked like cream of chicken Soup, complete with chunks of chicken. It was disgusting. And sometimes it would be green or yellow depending on the day. My abdomen was so sensitive if a stethoscope was placed on it my now superhuman reflexes would grab the doctors wrist so fast and push it away i was amazed. Within a few days the pain started to subside as the abcess drained itself out. I was completely exhausted. Cranky and tired. My hair wasn't combed, my long curly hair became a big ol' rats nest. </p> <p> </p> <p>I spent all of february in the hospital. Back on the tube feed. Started gaining my strength back but still had problems walking and started getting depressed. I don't blame myself. I had an allergic reaction to dilaudid and started hallucinating once they took me off the pump. Every thing i saw was evil. the curtains morphed into monsters, the floor had monsters, i thought i was on a boat. I didn't know where I was, and fought with the nurses. Finally I told them to take me off this crap and put me back on the morphine. Then I was back to cracking jokes. I was taken by taxi to another hospital 2 weeks in to place a stent in my throat. What a horror that was. I kept gagging and vomiting yellow bile. I was to keep it in for 4-6 weeks. I wasn't sure i was going to make it.</p> <p> </p> <p>Once I got some strength back they sent me home with the tube feed and the stent. I kept calling the doctor who put the stent in complaining about the chest pain and the gagging and he was like 'take a tylenol'... i wanted to tell him to go straight to hell but i needed him to pull the damn thing out. I only kept it in for 4 weeks exactly. He was mad at me afterwards as he said the hole went from 2cm to less than 1cm and if i had only waited another 2 weeks it may have closed. I don't know if i would have survived another 2 weeks. I felt like jumping off a bridge with that thing in there. I guess after all I had been through I just had developed low tolerance to any more pain and suffering. </p> <p> </p> <p>So two weeks later I went back to the stent doctor and he put in a clip. When he took out the stent, he did put two smaller clips in but one popped off real quick so he just figured he needed a bigger one. He had to order it in. After I got the clip the first few days I was like 'what have i done!', i was throwing up yellow bile again and so sick. That subsided. Now I'm just waiting for him to call and let me know what's next on the agenda. A tenth gastroscopy? Surely this leak has healed. </p> <p> </p> <p>I haven't eaten any food since november. I feel beaten and tired. I lost my hair. Now i have a short bob because of the rat's nest. I'm pissed off but not at anyone in particular. Maybe at myself for not just waiting a bit longer each time to give myself a chance to heal. Maybe I shouldn't have pulled that first nose tube, and I can't believe I drank knowing I might still have had the leak. </p> <p> </p> <p>Sorry this was so long. It's kind of the first time I had to get it all out in a story. </p> <p> </p> <p>I hope you can find some support. It's a tough thing to go through. </p>

AnnaBanana, holy crap you're just venting this now? I'm happy to hear you are still here and fighting! This is why I wrote, I needed support as do you. I'm happy it's over but would I do it again....no. Hope today you're feeling better. Do you think your weight loss has suffered with all you had to go through?

Sleeved in Nov, but had some setbacks. A leak had me placed on a feeding tube for 3 1/2 months with high calorie formula. I'm post sleeve 5 months and down 46lbs. I hope this continues. Anyone else with similar setbacks?

On November 11, 2013 my chance had arrived. I was going to have my Gastric Sleeve surgery. I had planned on three weeks from work hoping they would be understanding given the fact that I would return stronger and more motivated to continue a position I had held for nearly 14 years. I checked into the hospital bright and early and waited for my surgeon to arrive. Now I'm all prepped and have my husband and youngest daughter with me for support when the surgeon comes in and let's us know he'll be using "The Robot" to do my sleeve. Well I probably got a 4 min introduction to this procedure and it was time to go so I said ok, I trust you. About 90 minutes later the surgeon came out to my husband and daughter and announced there had been a slight problem and that a leak had been found but that he "fixed it by throwing a few stitches in it" and that I should be fine. I'm transferred into my room and must say I felt pretty good. Not heavily medicated but still pretty good. I had meds to control any nausea I had, warmed blankets' good. By day 2 I had that pain in my left shoulder and was told it was the gas they use during surgery trying to disparate. So as told I kept breathing deep, walking around trying to stay active as much as I could. It vas very difficult to stay hydrated because I just didn't have the desire to eat or drink, I was just tired by day 3. They decided to keep me an extra day just because of the leak they thought would take care of itself. I had my upper GI the morning before I left which showed no leak so I was discharged home! Yay.

Within the next several days I saw tried to do Clear Liquids but still it was very challenging to force yourself to do something you know you must do. I was weak tired and slightly nauseas but hung in. I still had that pain in my shoulder. Breathing deep and walking wasn't helping. I resorted to a heating pad just to get some rest. Day 7 post VGS I was seen at my surgeons office. I told them about the pain in my shoulder and that I was having trouble meeting my Fluid intake. They assured me this was normal removed my steri strips and sent me on my way. Work was only a week or 2 away now. I couldn't even imaging being strong enough for that but it was my goal.

So 2 days after seeing my Dr I was told I could try soft foods Jello pudding refried beans".. So I did just that. Tablespoon servings of corse but it sure tasted good. BMT still that pain in my shoulder and I'm continuing to be very weak. By day 11 post op I called my daughter and asked her to run my to our local hospital because I had started vomiting and was sure I just needed some fluids. Dehydrated ya know. So off we go. Upon arrival I could barely stand I was so weak, I had a 102* temp which I had been oblivious to and that there was my RED FLAG. I knew fevers were not good. Could be a infection right. They admitted me over night where I continued to become worse. I became delirious my fever was climbing. I was indeed severely dehydrated , had developed pneumonia and needed to be transferred back to the hospital where I had the surgery! When I arrived it was like a race going on, blood work, x-rays, CT scan I was becoming aware of the severity of it all. The CT showed I had a leak in the upper back portion of my sleeve which had leaked the contents of which I had consumed into my gut and up under my diaphragm. Emergency surgery was needed, the options were explained to me and at that point I just didn't want to die! I agreed to the surgery which consisted of cleaning out my abdomen and placing a feeding J tube into my small intestine and a drain into my abdomen. When I awoke I felt like my entire mid section was filled with cement! The pain was horrible. For the next week I honestly can't tell you much I was on so much Morphine it was horrible. For the 2nd week was filled with training on how to use my feeding tube because for the next 3-6 months I was allowed NOTHING by mouth. Just knowing I chose to do this... It was tough. So I would be fed through this tube directly onto my intestines my formula, my meds and my Water. It sucked! Ok so now I'm out of work a month. Not my plan but I had no other choice. I had diarrhea all the time and I was miserable. After 2 weeks I was allowed to go home. I had a hospital bed in my living room because my bathroom was on the first floor. I had visiting nurse coming to change my pic line dressing and to make sure my drain was working properly. I was on the phone with my Dr office almost daily for check ins. Ugh awful. After about another week and a half my diarrhea continued and I was vomiting again. Yes even though you don't eat you can vomit! It was awful to I think about where it was coming from. So it was back to the hospital where I would spend yet another week being treated for a intestinal virus I picked up IN THE HOSPITAL! Lord help me.

Ok so now I'm about 2 months from work hoping I'll be good. My feeding tube and drain would be removed after about 3 1/2 months. Thank you God! I have one more procedure in Boston to have. They would go down my throat to check the leak which had formed a bubble. They needed to make sure it was going to hold up and not rupture. They came to the conclusion that it was healed well and that I could return to work.

Finally after almost 4 months I return to work. Happy to part of society again and making a paycheck. I drew 1 check from STD while I was out and the others arrived about 2 weeks after I returned to work. Ultimately 4 short weeks after returning to work I was laid off do to "salary cut backs" bullshit! Pure bullshit!

So my weight loss isn't typical because of my delays. The first three months were spent in high calorie formula so I could heal and recover. Here it is 5 months later and 8 have lost a total of 47 lbs. not ideal but I'll take it. I'm averaging about 2 lbs a week now. I'm currently job hunting and trying to keep my chin up. I don't see to many stories of complications anywhere. Is it just that uncommon or are they not allowed? People should know all the facts and all the remedies to problems that could arise.

Let me hear from you if you had similar outcomes. I need support too but am having trouble finding it.

Thanks

Lori