Friday, June 8, 2012

Suck it Karma...


It has been 8 months since my initial surgery but so much has happened between now and then! Let me just say that I have the WORST LUCK EVER. My surgeon has done over 600 surgeries… the same surgery mind you over and over again and he has NEVER had a complication. And so the story continues…

I fully recovered from surgery about 2 ½ weeks after it. I had some "shank wounds" as my sister would call them on my stomach. It looks like someone just stabbed the crap out of me 5 times. I tell people I was in prison and you should see the other guy. I lost maybe 7 pounds within the first 3 weeks and then I started doing water aerobics. Now I love the water and swimming so I love water aerobics but I started having this odd pain… If I would jump or bend weird my port site would have almost a pinching pressure pain. This went on for about a month until one night…

I was in the pool with my friends working out and my port site hurt more than normal. We finished our exercise class and went back to the locker room. I bent over to pick up my gym bag and I felt something give. A horrible shooting pain was at my port site and I could not bend, pick anything up or do anything at all! My friends (god bless them, and sorry for scarring them for life) had to dress me because I could not. They got me into my car and drove me home. One of my friends rushed in the house and got my roommate and they came out and saw me in the car bawling my eyes out. I could not get out of the car to get into my house so they just got in and drove me right to the ER.

We arrive at the ER and my roommate goes inside to tell them what’s up. The orderly’s come outside and ask me if I can move and I said no. They tell my roommate to pull around to the ambulance entrance so that they can help me out of the car and into a wheelchair. So we pull around and they get the door open and are attempting to help me out. I may burn in hellfire for so many swear words that came out of my mouth in the next 2 hours… 2 full grown men had to pretty much lift/shift me into a wheel chair *insert lots of swear words and crying here*.

They got me to the bed I was assigned to and the nurse was asking me questions, where the pain was and things like that. I told her when I had surgery and where the pain was and what not. She called another nurse over to help me change out of my clothes and into a gown. Most painful undressing experience of my LIFE. It was pretty much like ripping of a band-aid really quick… but the band-aid ripped back kind of deal. They tried going slow but that hurt so she said "well we are going to try to just pull off your shirt really fast". Great… FML… Well they got it off and a few choice words later and more orderly’s lifting me into a bed I was laying down.

The pain in my abdomen was very very very painful. I cannot express how much pain I was in. It was the WORST pain I had ever felt in my life. The nurse taking my blood pressure asked me if I had any pre existing conditions or if I took any medication for blood pressure. I looked at her like she was dumb and said no... "Ok well I’m going to try to use a different cuff then because your BP is extremely high right now" "THAT’S BECAUSE I'M IN EXCRUCIATING PAIN!!"

Finally they tossed and IV in me and pumped me full of sister morphine. Oh. Happy. Day. *drool* *pass out* The minute it hit my bp lowered, I stopped crying and all was right in the world… other than the fact I had to hold my abdomen in to make it stop hurting. They took x-rays and pumped me full of drugs and sent me home so I could go see my surgeon the next morning because they were not experienced with Lap Bands and didn’t really know what to look for.

The next morning we hit the road for an hour to go see my surgeon. I can barely walk and I’m very very drugged up. Roommate loads me into a wheel chair and takes me to the 3rd floor where my nurse is waiting to see me. We have a quick chat and my surgeon comes in, pokes around a bit and says "I have no idea what is wrong but this is not normal. I am going to admit you to the hospital here so we can do further testing and possibly surgery to remove your port". Eh? *shakes head* wait what? You want to keep me? Ugh... alright let me call work *ring ring* "hello?" "Hey it’s me... its bad… they are keeping me" "we already got your shifts covered for the week don’t worry about it". It’s surprising how much they can predict these things right?

New hospital room. Different hospital. Different town. Drugs, x-rays, pain, drugs, CT scan, pain, more drugs. Finally after 9 or so hours of tests they figure out that my port site has cut into my abdominal wall and tore it. I have torn my abdominal wall. Da fuq? All from bending over. It apparently does not require surgery, it just has to "work its course" because there is a hematoma under my port site. I asked him about how long. His response, "A month".

November 7th. We make our way back home and work is informed that I will be out for the month. The doctor recommends AT LEAST a month of strict bed rest. I can barely walk to and from the bathroom without passing out from the pain. Almost the entire month of November consisted of me taking my meds, reading, passing out. Rinse and repeat. I don’t watch TV so I read a LOT of books. Every once in a while roommate would make me some food but my diet mostly consisted of water, lemonade and soup.

Thanksgiving rolls around and I am almost back to normal. Minimal pain, I can walk but now I have to wean myself off of the pain meds. I don’t know if any of you have ever had an addiction problem, alcoholism or anything like that but I sure never did. Coming down off these meds after a month straight of being on them was HELL. Constantly shaking, sweating, itching, twitching, can’t sleep, can barely eat, nauseated. Hell. But it had to be done. I was not going to be dependant on these medications for that long of a time because I for one am very against pain medications and the affects they have on your body.

End of February 2012. The pain came back. Crap. *beep beep beep*. I tell my surgeon and he decides just to go ahead and schedule surgery for the next week to move my port to a new location. Same deal as my first surgery except 1 new scar and I got to leave the hospital the same day I went in.

As of now I am down 49 pounds and loving life. I feel so much better, confident and just... well happy. It is slowly coming off, maybe a pound or 2 every couple of weeks and I am fine with that. More to come when I don’t feel so lazy.