Start here
Where are you in your journey?
Choose the path that fits today. We’ll take you to the most useful discussions.
- GLP-1 medication Zepbound, Wegovy, access, side effects, progress, and support.
- Before surgery Compare procedures, plan ahead, and get honest pre-op answers.
- Post-op Recovery, food stages, symptoms, and support.
- Long-term Regain, labs, habits, and life after the honeymoon.
- Revision Explore revision options, complications, and next steps.
My Surgery and a Series of Unfortunate Events
- Replies 28
- Views 4.9k
- Created
- Last Reply
Featured Replies
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.
Hi all. I haven't posted since the morning of my surgery. Unfortunately I was one of those where things didn't go oh-so-smoothly for me. This isn't meant to be a discouraging post but my tale and where I am at.
I had my sleeve done on the morning of January 25th. Everything up to the point of surgery had gone swimmingly. When I awoke in recovery I was in a tremendous amount of pain and nausea. I do not do well with anesthesia so waking up was doubly difficult. While I do not suffer from sleep apnea my breathing was irregular and if I would start to drift off to sleep I would stop breathing. I ended up being in recovery for probably 6-8 hours. As to the surgery itself my doctor said things went perfect. Liver was tip top and the time of surgery went quickly.
When I got to my room the discomfort continued. What complicated things further was that the pain meds seemed to be making me nauseousness all the more. Getting fluids down was really difficult. My stomach must have been seriously swollen because any amount of Fluid seemed to sit at the top of my stomach and gave me terrible heartburn. Thursday continued to be a difficult day. The nausea continued and got so bad to where I wretched a few times although there was nothing to come up.
By Thursday night things had started to improve slightly, but on Friday things went downhill yet again. I had fallen asleep in my reclining chair and awoke around noon with terrible pain and cramps in my left side and shoulder. Then suffered another wretching bout on top of it. As time passed the pain increased and moved to the center of my chest. Breathing became difficult and painful. The concern was a leak or internal bleeding so they took me down to do a CT scan. Scan showed that it appeared my spleen had decided to spring a leak. Good news is that it was not a continual bleed but I had blood in my abdomen. By the time I got back to my room the chest pain increased and breathing was rapid and shallow. At this point the pulled me out of my room and sent me down to ICU to try and stabilize me.
The next 18 hours were scary and painful. By Saturday I was starting to feel slightly better with a reduction in chest pain and breathing became easier. I got the all clear to go back to my original room, but by that time the floor was full and they had no bed for me. So I was essentially stuck in ICU for almost a day longer than I needed to be. By the time I got into a room on my original floor it was Sunday evening. My luck seemed to be on a crash course as the heating was malfunctioning and all of the rooms were well over 80s degrees. Sleep Sunday night was minimal and miserable. Come Monday morning my doc told me that he wanted me to stay yet another day for observation. At this point I was ready to jump out the 12th floor window of my room as being in the hospital was taking its toll on me.
On Tuesday I felt the best I had. Sadly my heartbeat was still elevated and temp was over 100, but my hemoglobin was showing normal again which pointed to the internal bleed being gone. At the last second I thought they were going to change their minds and keep me again but my doc gave me the okay to go home. Total time was 6 nights and 7 days in the hospital.
I'm now home and doing better, but far from being out of the woods. My temp continues to bounce around at 100 degrees and heartbeat is about 100-110. I wanted to give myself a solid day of rest at home as the hospital stay was making me a wreck, plus the heat problem made the last 36 hours all the worse.
Getting fluids down is now a piece of cake. Still have no appetite at all, and cool drinks are all I want. I've actually gained weight but that's due to being pumped full of so may fluids while at the hospital. At this point in time weight loss is the last thing I'm worried about. Still having some pain but it's bearable, and the meds I'm on aren't causing nausea which is a Godsend. Still pretty scared about the temp/heartbeat and that it could be a sign of infection. The wretching bouts I had left me worried that I had done some damage, but my stomach seems to be happy at the moment. Put a call into my doc this afternoon to update but haven't heard back from them yet so I'll follow up again tomorrow. Hoping another decent night's sleep will help get me over the hump to a full recovery.
Could definitely use some well wishes right now. Was feeling horribly discouraged at the hospital but so thankful to be back at home.
Edited by orionburn