In Hospital After Emergency Surgery!

Thanks so much for the information. This cleared a lot of unanswered questions for me.

I had a lot of abdominal pain leading up to all this. And I knew I had an umbilical hernia for the past year. It would pop out often with intestines pushed through, but I was always able to lie down and sort of manipulate it back in. Not this time! After two days of horrible pain I called the surgeon. I guess, looking back I did have symptoms of the ulcers as everything would hurt going down...even water burned. But I didn't have any heartburn or anything. Once I started get pain over on the left I knew something was up!

Listen to your instincts! If anything feels different or painful it may be worth checking out. These hernias can be life threatening as they cut off blood supply to the intestines/bowels and they die! You WILL know if you have one. I have birthed twins naturally and these hernias were WAY more painful!

i have to blame the ulcers on caffeine. It is the only "no no" type food I have been having. I don't really eat spicy or acidic foods (well I have been on a tomato kick lately!) I will have to really analyze what I am eating from now on. We don't want these getting worse. 

I have to say if anyone is fortunate enough to get Dr. Jackson at TWH, you are in the best of hands!! He is fabulous and has now saved my life twice! Words cannot describe how grateful I am for such an amazing doctor!

I am glad they found the problem. I hope your days of pain will be behind you soon.

I gave up caffeine a few years back.  It was very hard to do, but I feel much calmer without it.

I had an internal hernia this past summer. My bowel got stuck in it. Had emergency surgery within 14 hours. Believe me, I'm really good with pain. I called the ambulance when the pain was at a 9 out of 10. By the time I got to the hospital, it was a 16!!  

Surgeon told me it was the gastric bypass -- internal gaps they make when they do the laparoscopic surgery that apparently they now close up because of this specific complication, plus the fact that after you lose the weight, there's lots of room for things to move around. And the surgeon who fixed my hernia should know the cause, as he also did my bypass!!

Recovery was a bit longer because this surgery came after a tummy tuck (two weeks earlier), and it was an open procedure. 

Good luck with recovery. And to everyone else, if the pain is intense and unusual, get yourself to emergency (don't take pain meds and go to bed). 

DD

How devastating for you. Silver lining is that you'll be better off. Good to know all of these things and wish you the best!

OMGoodness you poor thing! Glad to see you are on the mend.

So happy to hear you are recovering, and they fixed you up!!!  but for those going through the whole process, remember if you dont feel right after surgery..go to the emerg in the hospital that you had your surgery done.  They will get you looked after quickly as they deal with rny patients all the time!

Absolutely Ellen! In my gut I knew I should have gone to TWH ER but I stupidly went to my local ER because I didn't want to drive 1.5 hours to Toronto. 

Mi wasted precious time that could have had a devastating outcome. My surgeon told me last night that I am one lucky lady!

Despite all of this, I would still do it all 100 times over though. My life has completely changed. I am living life now, not just sitting on the sidelines watching it pass me by.  

Trying to get home today but having a hard time coming off the oxygen. Chest X-ray showed a partially collapsed left lung so gotta work on breathing exercises to open it up!

thanks again everyone!

So sorry to hear you have gone through all of this. Just wanted to say I hope you have a speedy recovery and that I am thinking of you.

Take care,

Tara