I'm Home from Surgery!!

I am soooo happy for you!!

My husband got his lapband in February, 2010 and lost 130 pounds! He was doing so well and then the coughing at night started. He started on Nexium and that subsided for a couple of months. Then, it came back in full force. He couldn't even get his supplements down one morning and was in agony. I took him to the doctor and he got all his fluid taken out. Pain almost gone, but still couldn't get any solid food done. Called the insurance company and they now pay for the gastric sleeve.  Called the doctor to send the ins. co. all the necessary paperwork and the approval process was on it's way (not as easy as this, but to keep the story short).

Finally, the approval was made, the surgery date was made for yesterday and by now, he was suffering every night with no sleep, constant coughing, no food for weeks and still having a hard time getting his medicine and supplements down. It's been a hard few weeks.

Excited yesterday morning! Surgery lasted 2.5 hours. Dr. came in to find me and told me that he is doing fine, but they couldn't do the sleeve portion because his stomach was so inflamed, swollen, red, black & blue (to put it in layman terms). His stomach was too angry. They was a hole in his stomach (tiny and sewed up), but now he has a tube through his nose to his stomach to drain. He can't eat or drink anything (not even ice chips). The slipped band was removed. Not sure what caused it. Something might have blocked it and not allowed anything to go down to the stomach from the pouch and the pouch was engorged and inflamed causing the band to slip, or maybe the excess coughing caused it to slip. Not sure.

Dr. says the stomach recovers very fast and once he starts to recover (a couple of days to 4 or 5 days), he will be able to go home.

All this pain, and time in the hospital and he didn't get the sleeve. We are so disappointed.

I hope all those lapbanders out there who start having coughing fits (and I mean fits) get their fluid removed (sooner than my husband did) so they don't have have this trouble. We are still happy (my husband especially) that he had the band in because he lost so much weight. But, we are so much more excited about him getting the sleeve. He, especially, can't wait! Very excited, hope he has as much success as you. Thanks so much for posting!  It's so wonderful to hear positive results right after surgery.  You made my day with this new hope!