Little backstory

I was sleeved on March 30th of 2015. I woke with excruciating pain from the start. They did not do a swallow study and sent me home the next day. The pain did not subside over the next few days and I felt I was a wimp for being in so much pain. I had no other problems like fever or BP or heart rate issues. By April 9th I was still in pain and was told to go to the ER. I did and it was there that they discovered a 9cm abscess/leak. I was rushed to ICU and put on antibiotics. In less than a day I went in to 100% renal failure and was put on dialysis. I was in the ICU for 5.5 weeks and went through a number of procedures to fix collapsed lungs, plural effusion and installing various drains. I left the hospital after a total of 6 weeks with a pic line for TPN and a drain. I have gone back in twice for lung issues due to sympathetic effusion.

Now

I still have a 1cm leak. It isn't closing and the doctors want to play a wait and see game still. I have a mesh stent in my esophagus that hurts like hell and I am on two kinds of pain killers just to get through each day. I feel like I am never going to heal. When looking through the Internet it seems so few have had leaks that I can't tell if this experience is normal or if I am worse than others. I just feel like I am never going to get better. Not only does the stent hurt every day (something I can't figure out if everybody hurts from or just me) but the drain bag keeps ripping stitches out and so it fees like a knife is on my side all the time. I am so depressed and frustrated and feel like I am in this alone. Sorry to rant but nobody seems to understand what I am going through and I thought maybe somebody here would.

Hi @@NoMoreFatGuy, glad to hear you are recovering well from the gastrectomy! I just met with my medical team this morning to discuss my upcoming gastrectomy as my final, experimental treatment at the Mayo Clinic has been deemed a failure. The meeting today didn't go very well. There were lots of potential risks discussed due to my complicated history. Death was discussed. Not many positive things were said, unfortunately, and I left feeling overwhelmingly depressed. I'm due to go under the knife in three weeks and am hoping I have a smooth recovery. I must say, hearing that you have had the same thing done and are recovering nicely is great news, both for you and myself! It makes me a little more confident that something they do to me will actually work for a change!

Hang in there and good luck with the rest of your recovery! Hopefully I'll be right behind you.

@@Some Guy

I don't know your history so I can't speak to the risks but I am slowly recovering and the prognosis is good. I did have another leak after the gastrectomy which depressed me tremendously but my swallow study last Monday showed no leak. I am slowly building up my tolerance to food and slowly healing. My drain tube comes out on Monday and my feeding tube should come out in the next couple weeks. They say it will be two to three months til I am anything close to normal and maybe a year to get to totally normal. It is still better than living with the leak for 6 months. I feel like I actually have a future now.

Hi guys. Im a 49 year old woman now and can sympathize with your stories. Your posts are a little old but I just ran across them. I ,too, had a leak from gastric sleeve June 2015 and still have it to this day. I am I guess what you call a "functioning" leaker. I don't run fevers and work and live normally every day. However I have shoulder and diaphragm pain that comes and goes. I've been on pain patches, pills, etc. Doctor doesn't really know what to do with me. He's scared to go in and do too much because he did one time and I almost died. This leak just will not go away. I stay on antibiotics daily. No other doctor really wants to see me.....will I ever heal?????