The rest of the story...

So earlier I posted how my first 2 days of surgery/recovery went. It was all going so well that when he came in Tuesday morning (surgery was Monday am), he said that I'd probably get to go home on Wednesday.

Well, by Tuesday afternoon to Wednesday morning, the muscles in my legs, arms, and the back of my neck became very sore and painful....to the point that I literally could not lift my feet off of the floor. I could barely move my arms, and it was painful lifting or turning my neck.

The nurses called Dr. Voellinger early Wednesday morning to tell him what was going on. He ordered stat labs and an x-ray with contrast that tracked the contrast as it moved thru my digestive system looking for leaks.

By the time I got back from x-ray,  Dr. Voellinger was there. He came in and spoke with me about the results of everything. He said the leak test was negative (oh and he had done a leak test with dye while I was still in surgery on Monday so this was the 2nd one). The lab results said my electrolytes were off...the potassium and calcium were pretty low, and he said those could affect my muscles.

However, he wanted to double check what was going on inside me, so he sent me for CT scans. They came back negative.

So he started giving me potassium, calcium, B12, and Folic Acid. By Thursday afternoon I could walk again!  When he came back to see me (they were monitoring the electrolyte levels), he said that they were almost where they should be, and I should be at level tomorrow (I was) and that I could probably go home on Friday. And I did.

I slept a lot once I got home yesterday ( to make up for the 4 night of nearly no sleep) , and am feeling ok today. My stomach is still extraordinarily swollen (I'm really expecting 1000 alien babies to burst out of my stomach any time now).

My innards feel like they are going to become outtards every time I stand up and walk, and I am starting to get a small amount of gas pain in my left shoulder, but it's not too bad.

All in all, I'm not doing too badly. The worst things are feeling like my stomach has a basketball in it, and my legs and feet are very swollen, and I can't elevate them above my heart because my stomach threatens my breathing if I lay flat.

But no buyers remose at all!

Doing good!

I warned you about this. I stayed an extra half day because of my potassium too. The feeling that aliens are coming out of the stomach is normal.  Being uncomfortable when laying flat is also pretty normal so early out. Try a recliner if you have one. Are you wearing a binder? It may help with the feeling that your innards are turning into outtards. Love that new word, BTW. Now is the time to sleep and catch up. Your body needs it. You won't want to eat much and you probably won't be able to recognize what hunger feels like yet so set up a schedule to follow and limit yourself to a couple of spoonfulls of food per meal until you recognize the feeling of full (it is very different post op and you will have to learn to recognize it.) Get your fluids in!

The hospital gave me a whole lot of medicine cups, this way I can keep track of how much I eat and drink. I am not having problems drinking,  but I know I'm not drinking enough yet. But they filled me with fluids yesterday, so I have a little time to work on it.

What a couple of rough days you had but im glad to hear your feeling a little better. There still maybe a few bumps to get over but hopefully everything is on the way to being great:)

 Good going girl.  Keep your head up and it's going to be good!

So glad everything was taken care of so quickly! Take care of you!! It's all "down" hill from here baby!! So excited for you!


Ruby

Thanks everyone!