Upcoming Surgery

[Bluefluff75]

Hello all!

My husband is actually the one with Crohn's Disease and we have surgery scheduled for November. He had a fistula make contact with the abdominal wall back at the end of May, which caused an internal abscess that had to have surgery to drain. At the time, the surgeon said we would need to wait approximately six months in order to have the main surgery in which they would remove the diseased tissue and any fistulas (he apparently has several).

We had an appointment yesterday and the doctor is concerned about how hard and stiff his abdomen is and is talking about possibly putting off the surgery for another six months, which we definitely don't want to happen. We asked the surgeon if there was anything we could do to loosen up that area and he said it was mostly just time. He's still on the schedule for November, but it's possible that it won't happen.

My question to the group is if anyone knows what causes this hardness and if there is truly nothing we can do except wait or if there's something we can work on to relax everything in there so that his surgery can go as planned in November? Has anyone heard of this before? I'm not finding anything that even references this even though the surgeon seemed to indicate that it was pretty common.

This has been a long and agonizing time for him as it is. I'm not sure how he'll handle another six months of this.

Thanks for any suggestions or advice!

 

[eleanor_rigby]

I had surgery due to an abdominal mass, which caused my intestines to feel hard when I pressed. A CT scan showed an abscess. I also was told I needed to wait for surgery and in the meantime was put on antibiotics. I think there is a risk when they open up your husband that the abscess could burst and this could be life threatening?? So that will be why they are holding off. It's really important though that you monitor your husband for any fevers as the abscess could also cause him to go septic and this needs immediate hospital attention.

In the end I had a colonoscopy that showed a perforation and I was operated on the next day after two months of basically being septic. My surgery went very well, they removed the diseased tissue and drained the abscess. They found all these issues had caused my intestines to stick to my abdominal wall and my bladder as well so they separated them. Following surgery I felt amazing unmedicated for three years.

 

[Bluefluff75]

He had an MRE done in July after the drainage and antibiotics and that came back completely clear. The infectious disease doctor said the abscess was basically gone and the surgeon said there was no active disease. He has an opening in his side where the fistula continues to drain as they didn't want to close him up so another abscess doesn't form while waiting for surgery.

He hasn't had a fever since they drained the abscess in June and overall he seems to be really healthy.

 

[eleanor_rigby]

OK so what is the purpose of the surgery if he feels really healthy, has no active disease and the abscess has healed? I know often doctors prefer to heal fistulas with medication first.

 

[Bluefluff75]

They want to remove the affected areas of his intestine. He hasn't had any luck closing the fistulas with medication and currently, with the one that's open to the abdominal cavity, they definitely want to take care of that. He's currently got an open wound on his side with a bag that captures the drainage from that fistula. They also said that his large intestine has somewhat flipped on itself and fistulas are connecting different parts. It's pretty messy in there. The surgeon said that the firmness in his intestine makes it difficult to work once they get him opened up, so I've got this image that everything's kind of tangled up together, but I really have no idea. I was hoping someone here would have experienced something similar so we know what we're dealing with. Surgeons don't tend to explain much and we always think of the questions we have after we leave (of course).