People who have had complications from surgery please post your story
Hi, Kimberly,
Yes, they mean the "legs" at BB&B. Just put them on the legs at the headboard of the bed so it will be slanted.
My only advise is that if you have to get surgery again, insist that your galbladder is removed. They told me for 10 years they couldn't find anything after many tests and exams but as soon as I finally got it removed I felt great. Mine was full of sludge that couldn't be seen on sonograms or CT.
Hope you feel better soon.
Nancy
Hugs to you Kimberly. It sounds like your body is fully rebelling the DS! I hope time will be the healer for you. I agree with Becky's .02. I think she is absolutely right! I would look down that ave before going into another surgery. I hope this all calms down for you very, very soon!
HW/ 302 SW/287 CW/140 GW/135
The following is from my own RNY to DS revision experience. It's long.
On August 10Th I underwent revision surgery from an RNY to a DS. There were issues immediately afterwards. My heart rate was out of control and for some reason my normally low blood pressure was in outer space. I was heavily drugged on pain medication and placed in the critical care unit. I was given medication by a specialist which brought down my BP and heart rate to more normal levels. Forty-eight hours later I was sent back to the operating room because I repeatedly failed the upper GI test and because I was throwing up old blood, saliva, and the gastrografin contrast. Basically, the contrast nor anything else would go down into my stomach and would remain only in my esophagus. There was an area in my stomach that had been necessarily over sewn because it was a weak spot along the old RNY stapleline. That area got very swollen and the contrast from the upper GI was not going into my stomach, but rather backing up into my esophagus. I spent 9 days in CCU. I was moved to a regular room on a Wednesday and was supposed to be discharged 2 days later on that Friday, but my incision got red and hot and started leaking sero-sanquenous fluid and had to be opened in two places. This despite having two JP drains. It was packed daily and dressed. Due to the draining of my incision I was not allowed to leave the hospital until the following Wednesday. Making my first stay at the hospital 17 days. I came home with a PICC line, a J-tube and home health care nurses to assist with enteral feedings and thrice daily IV antibiotics as well as dressing changes. I was not allowed to eat anything (NPO), and only allowed small amounts of water and or ice. By this point I had been NPO for the 17 days I was in the hospital and would continue to be NPO for a total of 55 days. The days that followed my return home, the arm I had the Picc line in started to hurt like hell and by Sunday night (home only 4 days) my temperature went up to 102.6. We knew that something bad was going on. I called Dr. Greenbaum's office and the answering service connected me directly with him. He told me to pack a bag and get back to the hospital. Turned out I had a subclavian blood clot (a DVT) caused by the PICC line. The PICC Line was superficially infected and was removed, but because I needed IV antibiotics I had to have another one put in my left arm. I was put on Warfarin and Lovonox while in the hospital. Spent another week in the hospital and was released. Came home on Warfarin and again started to settle in. I was on blood thinners for 3 months. I got a visit from the visiting nurse a few days later and she packed my wound and dressed it. I went to bed later that evening my husband came up a few hours later to hook up my enteral feeding (I had a J-tube) to discover that my night shirt was soaked. He took off the dressing and discovered white viscous ick (gastric stuff) everywhere. We called the doctor the next morning and back to the hospital I went. I got a gastric leak in the area that had been previously swollen and operated on. It caused a fistula which was draining out of the open incision. I spent another week in the hospital again. This time I came home with a Wound Vac pump. Total time in the hospital over Aug. and September was about 27 days.
For 60 days I wore the wound vac pump while it sucked out ick from my stomach and helped close my incision. In mid October the J-tube was removed and I was put on full liquids. The PICC line was removed at the beginning of October. I had been moved from nothing bu****er to clear liquids to full liquids to actually eating. I ate, but everything I ate I threw up. From October to April 10 I was moved back and forth from full liquids to soft foods. I had a lot of food intolerance. Most meats were impossible for me to eat. Most of my protein came from cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, and protein drinks.
For a total of 17 months I dealt with the gastric leak and fistula, both internal and external (5 in all). In April I was put on TPN (IV nutrition) and made to go NPO once again. This was only supposed to be for a couple of week, however, it it's turned into 8 plus months. In June I got sepsis from the tunneled PICC which was in my jugular vein and being used to infuse the TPN. That PICC was removed and a Groshong cath was inserted into my subcavian vein just above my left breast and was there from June to December. In September I underwent a Enterocutaneous Gastric plug procedure. The plug was supposed to plug up the fistula and the gastric leak, however, it the procedure failed and didn't work for me. At that point I went back to the GI surgeon who I had been referred to by my bariatric doctor. He said that surgery was the next step, but told me that I potentially could come out of the surgery without a stomach. Dispite the potential outcome I decided to have surgery. December 15th, 2010 I underwent another surgery to excise out the gastric leak. While the surgeon was inside of me he discovered three additional blind fistulas. One that went from my stomach to my colon so my colon had to be repaired. The other two were tributary fistulas and were causing internal abcesses which had to be cleaned up and cut out. I had two external fistulas (fistulas that went from my stomach to the outside of my body) that were cut out as well. I ended up having a lot of strictures around the lower portion of my stomach that was causing poor blood flow to my lower stomach. I had a stricture around my pyloric valve that was so tight that the tip of a pen could not have penetrated it. In the end I lostthe lower 1/3 of my stomach. I lost my pyloric valve because of the strictures and had to go back to having a pouch. My intestines are still a DS configuration.
As a revision I am an anomaly, but you should know that sometimes things do not always go the way we think they will. You must count the cost of having any surgery, especially WLS. I know what it is like to have chronic issues. It sucks, but hang on to hope because without hope there is nothing. Things will get better, it just might take some time. .
I'm able to eat now and rarely throw up anymore. I have no more medical appliances in my body. It's been a long year and a half and there were times when I wondered if I was going to make it to the next day. I'm finally at a place where I am enjoying my DS. I do have some residual things. I get crampy from food. My intestines don't seem to like it, but I ignore it as much as I can. I poop about 12 or more times a day. I don't care though. I'm nearly at goal and to me pooping is just a side effect. I have terrible smelly farts when I eat flour or sugar so I stay away from that as much as I can. Other than this stuff I'm doing pretty well. So there you have it.
Keep the faith hon and don't give up. It will get better.
Maddie
On August 10Th I underwent revision surgery from an RNY to a DS. There were issues immediately afterwards. My heart rate was out of control and for some reason my normally low blood pressure was in outer space. I was heavily drugged on pain medication and placed in the critical care unit. I was given medication by a specialist which brought down my BP and heart rate to more normal levels. Forty-eight hours later I was sent back to the operating room because I repeatedly failed the upper GI test and because I was throwing up old blood, saliva, and the gastrografin contrast. Basically, the contrast nor anything else would go down into my stomach and would remain only in my esophagus. There was an area in my stomach that had been necessarily over sewn because it was a weak spot along the old RNY stapleline. That area got very swollen and the contrast from the upper GI was not going into my stomach, but rather backing up into my esophagus. I spent 9 days in CCU. I was moved to a regular room on a Wednesday and was supposed to be discharged 2 days later on that Friday, but my incision got red and hot and started leaking sero-sanquenous fluid and had to be opened in two places. This despite having two JP drains. It was packed daily and dressed. Due to the draining of my incision I was not allowed to leave the hospital until the following Wednesday. Making my first stay at the hospital 17 days. I came home with a PICC line, a J-tube and home health care nurses to assist with enteral feedings and thrice daily IV antibiotics as well as dressing changes. I was not allowed to eat anything (NPO), and only allowed small amounts of water and or ice. By this point I had been NPO for the 17 days I was in the hospital and would continue to be NPO for a total of 55 days. The days that followed my return home, the arm I had the Picc line in started to hurt like hell and by Sunday night (home only 4 days) my temperature went up to 102.6. We knew that something bad was going on. I called Dr. Greenbaum's office and the answering service connected me directly with him. He told me to pack a bag and get back to the hospital. Turned out I had a subclavian blood clot (a DVT) caused by the PICC line. The PICC Line was superficially infected and was removed, but because I needed IV antibiotics I had to have another one put in my left arm. I was put on Warfarin and Lovonox while in the hospital. Spent another week in the hospital and was released. Came home on Warfarin and again started to settle in. I was on blood thinners for 3 months. I got a visit from the visiting nurse a few days later and she packed my wound and dressed it. I went to bed later that evening my husband came up a few hours later to hook up my enteral feeding (I had a J-tube) to discover that my night shirt was soaked. He took off the dressing and discovered white viscous ick (gastric stuff) everywhere. We called the doctor the next morning and back to the hospital I went. I got a gastric leak in the area that had been previously swollen and operated on. It caused a fistula which was draining out of the open incision. I spent another week in the hospital again. This time I came home with a Wound Vac pump. Total time in the hospital over Aug. and September was about 27 days.
For 60 days I wore the wound vac pump while it sucked out ick from my stomach and helped close my incision. In mid October the J-tube was removed and I was put on full liquids. The PICC line was removed at the beginning of October. I had been moved from nothing bu****er to clear liquids to full liquids to actually eating. I ate, but everything I ate I threw up. From October to April 10 I was moved back and forth from full liquids to soft foods. I had a lot of food intolerance. Most meats were impossible for me to eat. Most of my protein came from cottage cheese, Greek yogurt, and protein drinks.
For a total of 17 months I dealt with the gastric leak and fistula, both internal and external (5 in all). In April I was put on TPN (IV nutrition) and made to go NPO once again. This was only supposed to be for a couple of week, however, it it's turned into 8 plus months. In June I got sepsis from the tunneled PICC which was in my jugular vein and being used to infuse the TPN. That PICC was removed and a Groshong cath was inserted into my subcavian vein just above my left breast and was there from June to December. In September I underwent a Enterocutaneous Gastric plug procedure. The plug was supposed to plug up the fistula and the gastric leak, however, it the procedure failed and didn't work for me. At that point I went back to the GI surgeon who I had been referred to by my bariatric doctor. He said that surgery was the next step, but told me that I potentially could come out of the surgery without a stomach. Dispite the potential outcome I decided to have surgery. December 15th, 2010 I underwent another surgery to excise out the gastric leak. While the surgeon was inside of me he discovered three additional blind fistulas. One that went from my stomach to my colon so my colon had to be repaired. The other two were tributary fistulas and were causing internal abcesses which had to be cleaned up and cut out. I had two external fistulas (fistulas that went from my stomach to the outside of my body) that were cut out as well. I ended up having a lot of strictures around the lower portion of my stomach that was causing poor blood flow to my lower stomach. I had a stricture around my pyloric valve that was so tight that the tip of a pen could not have penetrated it. In the end I lostthe lower 1/3 of my stomach. I lost my pyloric valve because of the strictures and had to go back to having a pouch. My intestines are still a DS configuration.
As a revision I am an anomaly, but you should know that sometimes things do not always go the way we think they will. You must count the cost of having any surgery, especially WLS. I know what it is like to have chronic issues. It sucks, but hang on to hope because without hope there is nothing. Things will get better, it just might take some time. .
I'm able to eat now and rarely throw up anymore. I have no more medical appliances in my body. It's been a long year and a half and there were times when I wondered if I was going to make it to the next day. I'm finally at a place where I am enjoying my DS. I do have some residual things. I get crampy from food. My intestines don't seem to like it, but I ignore it as much as I can. I poop about 12 or more times a day. I don't care though. I'm nearly at goal and to me pooping is just a side effect. I have terrible smelly farts when I eat flour or sugar so I stay away from that as much as I can. Other than this stuff I'm doing pretty well. So there you have it.
Keep the faith hon and don't give up. It will get better.
Maddie
HW (pre RNY) 430 / HW (pre DS) 302 / SW 288 /
Lowest weight 157 / CW 161 / GW 150
"I'm just one stomach flu away from my goal weight"
Maddie: I have followed your journey and when I read this it makes me think my issues are so minor compared to what you have been through. You are a brave and strong woman, you are my hero. No one should ever have to go through all that and even after all of that you have a smile on your face and an amazing outlook. Hugs!
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