- Joined
- Jun 27, 2009
- Messages
- 206
Hello everybody, I'm back.
After typing all of this, I realized how ridiculously long it is. I don't expect you guys to actually read the entire thing, I just figured I'd share my story with people other than my family, friends, and hospital staff. Also, I want to have my story available for my own reference in the future.
I'd like to begin by apologizing that I haven't been on here supporting all of you in such a long time, and now I'm here to tell all of you what I've been going through. I had a very rough end of spring semester and have not had the time to make my way on here.
Anyways, I went in surgery on May 20th for what was to be a laprascopic small bowel resection with partial colectomy with hand-assist. I was told there was approximately 6 inches of diseased bowel that would be removed, and since I am young and healthy, I would be out of the hospital in 3-4 days. Well, it turned out to be quite a different scenario.
I could write a novel about what I've been through since then and what is to come, but I will try to keep this as short as possible for reading purposes.
The surgery (Thursday) went well, and they actually ended up removing about 12 inches of inflamed and strictured bowel as opposed to the 6 inches they saw on CT scans. That evening also went well until the middle of the night when I came to find out that they did NOT leave the urinary catheter in during surgery for some reason. The nurses did a bladder scan and I was full of urine yet unable to go. They had to insert a catheter at 3am and to say the least, it took them 3 attempts and was excruciating pain.
The next day, Friday, went pretty well. This is where I start to get my days mixed up because everything started happening so fast and it's hard for me to remember what happened when.
But Saturday is when all the problems began. I started to become unable to tolerate even clear liquids, I had constant nausea, I vomited any time they tried to give me a pill by mouth. I still was not passing any gas and over the next couple of days these symptoms just worsened to an unbelievable level.
I finally started to pass very liquidy stool, but still no gas, and still could not keep down pills. I started to run a constantly high fever that would reach close to 104 degrees Fahrenheit. My hemoglobin ended up dropping to 5 (normal is 12-14) so this was considered dangerously low and I received 2 units of blood which helped it to rise to a decent level. With the fever and and an elevated white blood cell count, there was obvious signs of infection and I was started on Cipro and Flagyl through IV. I ended up receiving a CT scan which showed a hematoma (blood in the abdomen) as well as a very inflamed colon. At this point, the hematoma was looked at as normal and that the blood would reabsorb itself back into the body. The inflamed colon led to suspicion of the infection C-diff (a bad infection of the colon that gets worse with most antibiotics and can only be treated with Flagyl). The results ended up negative for C-diff.
My colon remained inflamed, my blood count continued to drop, the pain in my abdomen became more and more excruciating, the high fevers continued, the nausea and vomiting continued as well as not being able to tolerate more than a half a cup of liquid at a time.
Finally, just the other day, an abcess was finally identified on that CT scan from days ago, and it was right at the site of surgery. They rushed me downstairs to radiology to have it drained and catheterized. To say the least, that process was the most excruciating and traumatic episode of pain I have ever been through in my entire life. They could not do conscious sedation as they usually do because it was an emergency situation and anesthesia was booked solid. So they told me that they would give me a mix of Fentanyl and a sedative to keep my comfortable. However, the administration of the drugs failed and the doctors and nurses though I was just overreacting when I told them that I do not feel any effect of the drugs they had administered twice already. So, they began the procedure by inserting a very large needle into my abdomen that would reach all the way down into the abcess, and like I said, I had to be held down, I was in an inhumane amount of pain, and am completely traumatized from what I experienced. After the procedure, the nurse told me that she's never seen anybody in as much pain as I was in, and has never administered as much of the medication to anybody as she did to me, yet she still did not realize that I somehow did NOT receive it.
Well, after they removed the IV that they put in place for the procedure, they saw that the line was COMPLETELY crimped and folded and creased, because this procedure was done in a CT machine and the IV was in the bend of my arm, and my arms had to be bent over my head during the procedure. So let's just say that action WILL be taken against the people who were involved in this procedure, because of PURE negligence.
So now as I sit in the hospital and my abcess drains, my fever remains high and my pain is still excruciating to the level where I actually take my IV pain meds right on schedule (I'm usually a person who despises strong narcotics and I will not take them unless the pain makes me unable to function, which in this case it does.)
Also, I've had a lingering headache that does not seem to go away for very long at all. And my hemoglobin is still dropping after after having received an addition unit of blood (3 total). So now I have to sit here over the next 48 hours as the doctors monitor my blood levels. If the levels continue to drop as they have been doing the day after I receive a unit of blood, I will have to return to surgery so that the source of this bleeding can be identified and stopped.
So believe it or not, that is the shortest possible story of what I've went through since last Thursday (the past 10 days). And I've probably even left out some things I just totally forgot to mention. For those of you that actually took the time to read this, I appreciate that more than I can put into words! Once I am better again, I will definitely be back on here supporting all of you guys, since you have all been so wonderful and a great source of support to me.
After typing all of this, I realized how ridiculously long it is. I don't expect you guys to actually read the entire thing, I just figured I'd share my story with people other than my family, friends, and hospital staff. Also, I want to have my story available for my own reference in the future.
I'd like to begin by apologizing that I haven't been on here supporting all of you in such a long time, and now I'm here to tell all of you what I've been going through. I had a very rough end of spring semester and have not had the time to make my way on here.
Anyways, I went in surgery on May 20th for what was to be a laprascopic small bowel resection with partial colectomy with hand-assist. I was told there was approximately 6 inches of diseased bowel that would be removed, and since I am young and healthy, I would be out of the hospital in 3-4 days. Well, it turned out to be quite a different scenario.
I could write a novel about what I've been through since then and what is to come, but I will try to keep this as short as possible for reading purposes.
The surgery (Thursday) went well, and they actually ended up removing about 12 inches of inflamed and strictured bowel as opposed to the 6 inches they saw on CT scans. That evening also went well until the middle of the night when I came to find out that they did NOT leave the urinary catheter in during surgery for some reason. The nurses did a bladder scan and I was full of urine yet unable to go. They had to insert a catheter at 3am and to say the least, it took them 3 attempts and was excruciating pain.
The next day, Friday, went pretty well. This is where I start to get my days mixed up because everything started happening so fast and it's hard for me to remember what happened when.
But Saturday is when all the problems began. I started to become unable to tolerate even clear liquids, I had constant nausea, I vomited any time they tried to give me a pill by mouth. I still was not passing any gas and over the next couple of days these symptoms just worsened to an unbelievable level.
I finally started to pass very liquidy stool, but still no gas, and still could not keep down pills. I started to run a constantly high fever that would reach close to 104 degrees Fahrenheit. My hemoglobin ended up dropping to 5 (normal is 12-14) so this was considered dangerously low and I received 2 units of blood which helped it to rise to a decent level. With the fever and and an elevated white blood cell count, there was obvious signs of infection and I was started on Cipro and Flagyl through IV. I ended up receiving a CT scan which showed a hematoma (blood in the abdomen) as well as a very inflamed colon. At this point, the hematoma was looked at as normal and that the blood would reabsorb itself back into the body. The inflamed colon led to suspicion of the infection C-diff (a bad infection of the colon that gets worse with most antibiotics and can only be treated with Flagyl). The results ended up negative for C-diff.
My colon remained inflamed, my blood count continued to drop, the pain in my abdomen became more and more excruciating, the high fevers continued, the nausea and vomiting continued as well as not being able to tolerate more than a half a cup of liquid at a time.
Finally, just the other day, an abcess was finally identified on that CT scan from days ago, and it was right at the site of surgery. They rushed me downstairs to radiology to have it drained and catheterized. To say the least, that process was the most excruciating and traumatic episode of pain I have ever been through in my entire life. They could not do conscious sedation as they usually do because it was an emergency situation and anesthesia was booked solid. So they told me that they would give me a mix of Fentanyl and a sedative to keep my comfortable. However, the administration of the drugs failed and the doctors and nurses though I was just overreacting when I told them that I do not feel any effect of the drugs they had administered twice already. So, they began the procedure by inserting a very large needle into my abdomen that would reach all the way down into the abcess, and like I said, I had to be held down, I was in an inhumane amount of pain, and am completely traumatized from what I experienced. After the procedure, the nurse told me that she's never seen anybody in as much pain as I was in, and has never administered as much of the medication to anybody as she did to me, yet she still did not realize that I somehow did NOT receive it.
Well, after they removed the IV that they put in place for the procedure, they saw that the line was COMPLETELY crimped and folded and creased, because this procedure was done in a CT machine and the IV was in the bend of my arm, and my arms had to be bent over my head during the procedure. So let's just say that action WILL be taken against the people who were involved in this procedure, because of PURE negligence.
So now as I sit in the hospital and my abcess drains, my fever remains high and my pain is still excruciating to the level where I actually take my IV pain meds right on schedule (I'm usually a person who despises strong narcotics and I will not take them unless the pain makes me unable to function, which in this case it does.)
Also, I've had a lingering headache that does not seem to go away for very long at all. And my hemoglobin is still dropping after after having received an addition unit of blood (3 total). So now I have to sit here over the next 48 hours as the doctors monitor my blood levels. If the levels continue to drop as they have been doing the day after I receive a unit of blood, I will have to return to surgery so that the source of this bleeding can be identified and stopped.
So believe it or not, that is the shortest possible story of what I've went through since last Thursday (the past 10 days). And I've probably even left out some things I just totally forgot to mention. For those of you that actually took the time to read this, I appreciate that more than I can put into words! Once I am better again, I will definitely be back on here supporting all of you guys, since you have all been so wonderful and a great source of support to me.
It might of been a good thing it didnt they could of over medicated you had the line uncrimped. When someone says they are in pain, they should respond!!!! You have been put through way too much, there was absolutely no reason for all that had happend. It didnt surprise me that more was infected because they can't see exactly how much is infected thru CT scans. 
