Hanging in there

Well, like I try to tell everyone else to hang in there, I have to remind myself of this very thing. Even though I am almost 2 years out, I am back to seeing Dr. Smolik at the weight reduction clinic. On 9/25, I had the panniculectomy, which went well and I was pleased with the result. Still jiggly belly, but looked ok. No belly on my lap anymore. Then on Sunday night, Oct 22, I got the worst abdominal pain of my life, all of a sudden. I ended up going to the Mercy Capitol ER and on Monday morning had an emergency bowel obstruction surgery by my WLS surgeon, Dr, Smolik. I was in the hosp at Capitol for a week. Got home this past Sunday and am doing fairly OK, but I am bummed. My stomach looks like hell now and it sucks. One of the OR nurses told me this is pretty common, for WLS people to get these bowel obstructions a little while out and it happened to her too. Any unusual abdominal pain should be looked into immediately. Don't screw around with it. A whole section of my bowel was dead and had to be cut out. How's everybody else doing? jean

Jean..I am so glad your ok..that would have been very scary!! Thanks for the warning! Lori

OK I have not had the severe pain-but when I had an upper GI X ray last week it showed that my intestines that are hoooked up to the stomach are all stretched out and dilated. They say this is somewhat normal, but the doc was still somewhat concerned with some bowel obstruction. What should I have done to find out if I do? She thinks it could be a small one or one that is just occasionally blocked off by scar tissue type stuff. But she is also saying she doesnt know much about it either. I think I probably shoudl take the x rays and go see Dr. Coster in Grinnell but right now stuf is so crazy at work and I just found out I got into the nursing program down here to (yay me)_ and will be starting that soon. so its crazy down here Well anyhow, glad you got the obstruction fixed and are doing better Judi

Judi, I really would mess around with this. If I were you I'd go see the WLS surgeon, just to make sure everything is OK. If you get an obstruction, it could be all of a sudden and emergent like mine, and you will end up in the ER with who-knows-who for a surgeon and that dr may or may not be up to snuff on your new GI anatomy. Dr. Coster is your surgeon and will know if you need any intervention and how to manage it if not. I'm not trying to be an alarmist, but bowel obstruction is about as big of a worry for us as hernias are now that we are a little ways out from surgery. I wish I had known. On the one hand, mine was all of a suddent. But looking back over the last couple months, I was having more puking episodes than usual. I think that was a mild symptom of a narrowing of the bowel and I thought I was just not chewing good enough, etc. You know, how you get those days when you just did not chew your meat or something up well enough and it sets off a couple hours of puking because it irritated the pouch. I was having those episodes more and more frequently. But I thought nothing about it. I thought I was just being too careless with my eating the further out I get. Take good care of yourself. You don't want something to happen. jean

Jean, I'm so sorry to hear this happened. I am glad your okay though!!! Take it easy and dont overdue anything.. janine

Jean, Glad to hear you are doing better! Thanks for the info as all of us here need a reminder every now and then. Take things easy and get some rest. Take Care~~ Deanne