Has anyone had significant complications from surgery?

I am going to copy/paste a facebook post I made a few days ago to save myself from typing out my story over again.  Before I do, I'll say that I'm a 35 y/o male and I lost about 150 lbs. over the last 2 years.  I did it the old fashioned way with less food and more exercise.  The only other surgeries I've had in my life were removing my tonsils/adnoids, and widsom teeth.   I had a physical done with my primary care physician and had some blood tests before doing the surgery to make sure there weren't any potential issues. 

Facebook post:

"Update: For those who were wondering, and didn't know. I had a lower body lift on Tuesday to remove and tighten skin from my weight loss. It's a procedure that involves incisions 360 degrees around the entire body. It was an outpaient surgery, I went home, and things seemingly went well, and I was actually feeling a lot better than I thought I would. Later that night, however, I tried to get up and head to the bathroom. I paused to rest after standing and apparently I passed out. All I recall is sitting back in my chair feeling like I was trying to sleep but people were around talking. I opened my eyes to see my parents and grandmother in my face and my mother talking frantically in the phone. She says I fell back in the chair, my eyes rolled back but stayed open, and I was not responding to anything. The ambulance came and took me to a local hospital where they took some tests and gave me fluids and sent me home thinking I was just dehydrated. When I got to the car to go home, I passed out again and they brought out the doctor who said I just got up too fast and should be fine. When we got home, I could not find the strength to get out of the car and after 2 hours of trying to hydrate myself and rest sitting in the garage, my mom took me back to the hospital. When they took me out, there was blood all over the seat and down to the floor and draining to the back seat. Since the surgery was not performed there, they did not want to mess with my wounds and I was taken by ambulance to the hospital my surgeon is affiliated with. I was given a room and a lot of fluids and had emergency surgery Wednesday morning to stop my bleeding. They found a large 4 to 5 inch clot and gave me a blood transfusion. Since then, I have been poked and prodded constantly and had a couple more tests and transfusions. I am slowly getting better and regaining my strength, and there is a chance I can go home today. My hemoglobin levels are improving, but still low. That's basically where I am now. I figured it was easier posting this, than explaining things 100 different times."

Now, my surgeon has said he has never had anything close to this happen in his 30+ years doing plastic surgery, and the blood specialist at the hospital has asked me to schedule an appointment next month to do further tests on my blood.  

Has anyone else had significant complications like this?

Have definitely seen it, and I'm surprised your surgeon would never have seen that at some point in a 30+ year career. It's not that rare. If you do a lot of body work on bariatric patients it's going to happen. If you're lucky, you start to see bright red blood in the drains while still in the recovery room and you can promptly take the patient back to control things which is usually a very simple thing.

The problem with it following these types of big truncal body contouring surgeries (with large spaces dissected free) is that there is so much space to bleed into that you don't get any pressure to tamponade the bleeding once it starts. The same thing happens sometimes on gallbladder and hernia surgery, with the patient presenting to the ER in hemorragic shock hours after discharge. You can bleed (literally) liters before you really have much of a sign anything is going on. A small vessel (2-3 mm) under pressure can bleed tremendously. In my experience with these, it's usually a small arterial bleeder in the mons that is the culprit

Hi. My name is Dr Peter Fisher. I have been in practice for 24 years, 14 doing post bariatric body contouring. 2 weeks ago I had my first transfusion for a cosmetic patient. So yes I believe this could well have been his first problem with this. I however do all these big surgeries in a hospital, keeping the patient there 1 to 2 nights. I am glad you are getting better

Did you even have drains when you were released from your out patient surgery?
Not uncommon and your hmg may have been normal before the surgery and even though you are a male, after any reconstructive surgery, our blood levels can change very quickly.
If you want to talk, although I live in Israel, I would be happy to call you. I am not a doctor or a nurse. Just one of many after weight-loss (I had surgery) and plastics and had dehiscence slough and gangrene which although are different complications than what you experienced I can well imagine your fear and frustration.
Mikimi in Israel
I am also on FB: Mikimi Steinberg

Thanks for the replies. I don't think my ordeal would have been nearly as bad if not for the laziness and incompetence provided by the first hospital I was taken too. The quality of care between the two hospitals was night and day. I have been out of the Hospital since Saturday and I am doing pretty well. I have minimal pain and my energy levels are up. The only really bothersome thing is the swelling/bloating, some of which is from constipation I am sure. I did, and still do have two drains. The first time I emptied them they were exactly the same levels. The night of the surgery one was filling up much faster than the other though and even now drains a lot more. I didn't know about stripping the tubes until a couple days ago and they had gotten clogged. Since I cleaned them out the fluid has become more transparent and is accumulating at a much slower rate (I would have expected a faster rate). I was originally supposed to have them out this last Monday, but with the complications, that wasn't happening. They are scheduled to come out next Monday now. Have a Merry Christmas.

Glad to hear you are at home!
Drains are a b*tch but necessary.
Swelling is normal even up to a year for some people at the end of the day. Some surgeons require a binder and others don't.
Constipation:some advise stool softener morning and night-but be careful not to strain or push too hard;pain killers that are narcotics can cause constipation. I keep a little stepstool in the bathroom bext to the toilet for when I have to do a bm and I'm almost two and a half years our from my TT.
Try to drink so you can lee and flush the "toxins" from surgery out of the body. In Israel a home remedy for constipation is grated tomatoe with olive oil but each has to find what works for them.
I repeat that if you would like to talk, I am happy to call you.
Mikimi in Israel

I had a Fleur de lis TT and brachioplasty after losing 200 lbs; my surgery was on the 2nd of December 2013 and I had internal bleeding that they found six days later after being rushed into emergency. They did emergency surgery and yes my hemoglobin had tanked so I to had transfusions and 60 mg of Iron a day for the next 30 days; am starting to feel stronger. The second surgery was on the 9th of Dec and it took them almost 2 hours to find the bleeder it was up by my belly button. Kinda scarry stuff.

Take care and remember take it easy and heal. I used smooth tea to help with the constipation issue; and prune juice and oranges.

I had a thigh lift a little over a year ago.  I was home for about a week.  I was doing well – moving around a little more each day;  my drains were putting out a light pink sometimes yellowish liquid;  the drains were decreasing each time I stripped and emptied them.  Then, in the blink of an eye, one of the drains filled with blood.  As soon as I emptied it, it filled again.  I got light headed.  I was headed to the local ER.  Once I layed down in the car, I felt better, the bleeding seemed to have stopped.  So I told my hubby to take me to the doctors office.  I never made it there – passed out in the driveway – luckily right across from the hospital.  Rapid response was called and I got taken to the ER.  They paged the plastic surgeon who came to see what happened.  At this point, the bleeding had stopped but my hemoglobin and blood pressure were both low.  They kept me in observation for 2 days, gave me 2 units of blood and some antibiotics.  The bad drain never turned good again.  About a week later he opened me back up, cleaned me up and replaced the drain.  From then on I healed like normal again.  Never did find the cause.  These are surgical procedures and things do happen.  I had several procedures before this and just figured it was my time to have something happen.  The doc was wonderful – checked up on me and saw me every other day.  He took care of me physically and emotionally during that rather crazy week.  I’ve had a few procedures since that incident and have had no complications since.  The one thing that the doctor told me was that it is best if you can get yourself to the hospital where they know you.  That way they can quickly decide what is the best way to treat you.  Which I guess is what they decided to do with you.  I recovered fairly quickly once I got the blood and antibiotics.  I wish you good healing.   

Oh, that would be scary. I would hate to be a week out with things seemingly going very well and then all of the sudden have it crash down like that. The first isn't that surprising to me, but after a week I would feel a lot more confident about things being okay. I better not tell my mom that because she already plans on keeping me at her house until next Tuesday which is 2 weeks post op. Neither of the hospitals I went to really know me. The first one I have been to before, but not for nearly 10 years, and no surgeries. They were informed of the procedure that was performed but didn't really look at the area. Even the CT scan they gave me was at my head and not my abdomen. And it seems crazy to me to send someone home immediately after passing out at the hospital doors the same day they had a major surgery. The other hospital was over 30 minutes away, but is one my PS sometimes works out of. My surgery was done at an outpatient surgical center, not at either hospital.

It was pretty scary.  I thought I was good to go at a week out.  But some things are just meant to happen.  I  had my procedure at the hospital - was originally going to be the surgical center across from the hospital but a last minute change of plans.  My doc uses both facilities so he was able to take over my care during the complication.  That is really what you want - the doc who did the work to take care of you and even direct the handling of the complication.  Of course that is based on the fact that you still have every confidence in his abilities and don't feel that he caused the incident.  He knows what was done and how it was done.  Its better than dealing with someone else who is just assuming what was done.