It really sucks having 5 kids under 8 and feeling as though you might die.

[altarflame]

So it seems that there are two kinds of post operative blockages that occur. I've escaped the first one, which is early post operative SBO (small bowel obstruction), which is characterized as happening within 30-50 days of the surgery, depending on what you read. I'm not sure what causes that, only that it generally gets treated with decent results but sometimes reoccurs again.

I'm 3 months out from surgery at this point, for what it's worth.

The other kind of blockage can happen anytime - months or years or decades after initial surgery - and after ANY abdominal surgery, not just a small bowel resection like I just had. Basically if you form adhesions, as most people do and we all know I do, they can become fibrous loops that your intestines get caught/stuck in at some point, and get strangulated by. If you would like to see a picture of actual adhesions - and I don't know why anyone in the world would, except that I actually found it interesting after hearing so much about them - you can by clicking this link and scrolling down a bit: http://www.rcsed.ac.uk/eselect/sig12.htm There is nothing else gross or potentially traumatizing on the page that I saw.

Basically if that happens you usually know because you are really constipated, have a lot of tenderness and/or pain in the belly, and end up ultimately puking. Bloating and diahrrea are also symptoms. It gets really dangerous when there is death of tissue, which can lead to sepsis like I had before - symptoms of which generally include fever, racing heart and elevated white blood cell count.

My belly is a little tender sometimes, but only like down REALLY low right above my pubis and only in a "when kids sit on it" way - it's not just uncomfortable in "normal" situations (although the kids sitting on it IS normal for us...). There's no "just sitting there" pain whatsoever, and the tenderness comes and goes based on when I last ate, if I have to go to the bathroom, etc, so basically it's nothing to write home about, just more than I think Grant for instance deals with.

But, I have been feeling like my belly is bigger, and my waist is wider, just in the last two days - and it's very obvious since I've been losing weight and examining myself and the way my pants fit and my reflection all too often - and in those same two days I've had (way tmi.....) the same really weird narrow soft little poop that I was before I got completely constipated and out of commission before.

I'm still embarrassed talking about poop. I don't think I'll ever get over it. Sometimes I think this is all too ironic, as I've always had such a bodily function hangup.

Anyway, yeah, I have to sit around now and think about when I last had really wide poop and how loose it is at this or that time and imagine my intestines halfway through a loop of adhesions and getting squeezed and released based on random ways everything inside me falls as I bend, sit, stretch, stand and lay. It's enough to drive a person crazy.

I told Grant tonight that if the whole poop situation doesn't resolve itself by tomorrow evening I think I'm going to the ER just so they can CT scan me or whatever, because a difference of a few days in cases like this is huge and my appt on Tuesday is far away, if I do have a strangulation. It would be horrible to get readmitted and go through more of this BS, but it would be worse to deal with sepsis and ICU and far more dangerous hoohaw because of tissue death that can be avoided.

This is going to be on my mind for the rest of my life. I don't know how to let it go. I'm trying to just have faith, and when I pray about it, it does really help...for like 5 minutes. And/or I get really stupid and ridiculously sentimental trying to talk to God about death fears and worry for my kids and cut myself off so I can get it together.

For the record, if you have an adhesion related blockage they go in and cut the adhesions and sew you back up. It usually works pretty well and people move on, although then of course you're back to square 1 of waiting around to see if it happens again, as you form new adhesions from the second surgery.

There is this stuff out there - one popular brand name is seprafilm - that surgeons can use during operations...it's basically dissolving mesh that they place between organs so that by the time it dissapears, everything is healed, and nothing had a chance to adhere to anything else. I've only personally seen one study on it, but that study did prove that it at least lessens the severity of adhesions - which can do less dangerous but equally horrible things like just cause a ton of pain, like they did for my mother in law after her hysterectomy. The problem? The stuff costs money, and takes time to place. So right now only people like Britney Spears get it when they have c/s (or anything else). It's not how things have traditionally been done and requires a certain above and beyond, so it's not catching on for standard protocol as it isn't necessary for the immediate business at hand. I'm disgusted by all of that, as you may have guessed. I mean when are they going to realize the time and money that can be saved by using the crap? Unless, of course, it's about the time and money patients have to shell out later - I was reading that at this point in time, the biggest cause of intestinal blockage is adhesions from previous surgeries. But maybe I really am too jaded.

I have 4 different incision scars going in two different directions on my belly. I've realized I'm some kind of psycho in that whenever I'm holding a knife now (i.e., cooking) or a sword (my brother and Grant both have several so I'm always moving them further out of reach of children) it seems like the most natural thing in the world for me to run them along my belly or poke around my middle with them. I don't usually do it; it's just this compulsion I have, irrationally, like the compulsion I have to throw myself off cliffs or rooftops if I'm standing on them (which generally makes me step back warily). I've never had any interest in knives or swords and I've definitely never considered "Cutting" or any of that - I just have this new compulsion/fascination, since some time last year. And I found myself considering the way counselors tried to gloss over a G-Tube for Elise to me, as such a minor thing, and just...I had such a drastic internal reaction. Like an adrenaline kick-in of fight or flight hormones, at the thought of anyone cutting her skin open or getting inside her stomach with scalpels. Her perfect baby skin. That perfect rounded, fat belly that fits in my hand. I really believe in our physical bodies holding onto memories, and wonder what that means for me, underneath the anesthesia. Abdominal surgery is such a wild violation; so incredibly invasive. It's such a confusing and frightening thing to realize you can't lift your leg up the same way, or get up out of bed like you normally do, with those muscles hurt. Whether totally unnecessary (i.e., my c/s with Ananda and Aaron) or a complete butcher job like Jake or seeming to go off fine at first and being COMPLETELY necessary, like with Elise...I mean the whole idea of someone leaving a big giant sponge inside my body and it wrapping around and strangulating my organs and killing me INTERNALLY while I have no idea is just so fucking disturbing. We're used to surgery in this day and age, and that's fine because it really does do a lot of good, but I also think it would be good to realize just what a massive thing it is - how it impacts you as a living creature to be cut open and have peoples' hands under your muscles and fat, moving your insides around. I've read about patients emerging from very successful operations to be cured completely and healing quickly, but still having lasting depression they don't understand - they being the patients or the doctors. It's something described as "the reaction some peoples' bodies seem to have", like maybe they produce more or less of various hormones after the surgery until enough time passes. This is what I mean about physical memories lingering in my freaking flesh.

Every now and then I just all of a sudden want to remember pushing her out in that sunny apartment so bad that I weep. I could also remember having her - holding her and knowing she was mine and using my own judgement - in those first hours and days and weeks. And I could look down and see a totally different midsection. And I could not feel like an idiot, or a victim, or someone who might relapse and end up full of tubes again anytime.

It's 5 am again and this got a lot messier than I thought it would.

Comments

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

Honestly part of me can understand how they would leave it in there initially - it would have been all folded into a pack, one of twelve jammed in all around my abdomen, and soaked in blood so blending in. BUT, that is why they have a damned count to begin with, and honestly how in the world did someone think they could judge what was in me or not in me by an incomplete x-ray picture?

I like how in your icon it's a tall person hugging a short one ;)

[mommydama.livejournal.com]

Oh Tina. I can't even imagine. I wish there was something I could say or do.

Lord, have mercy.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_delphiki_/]

I certainly can't understand what it's like to have 5 c-sections and abdominal surgery. I have had one c-section and my gall bladder removed and I felt similar to what you felt like- the violation and general ickiness of knowing that someone was inside me and it all weirds me out. I only have one low scar from the c-section and one short scar from my gall bladder surgery but I dislike them both.

I'm sorry this weirds you out and I do think our bodies retain memories and it REALLY makes my skin crawl when anyone touches my scars, as M likes to do to my gall bladder surgery scar because being away from me that long (when he was 18 months old) is something he has never forgotten. He's 4 years, 2 months now.

I get embarrassed when talking about bodily functions too- probably the way I was raised- we NEVER talked about it.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

I'm not too weirded out by the touching. I AM weirded out by all the nerve damage...I have really big patches of totally numb skin, and even one spot where, when I touch it, I feel it a few inches below where I'm touching - totally bizarre.

[http://users.livejournal.com/_delphiki_/]

WEIRD!!!

I have weird numbness on my c-section scar but not on any of my gallbladder scars. It was also done lapriscopically, so I think that may have contributed to the lack of numbness.

[girl-next-dork.livejournal.com]

*Hug*

I had a hymenectomy when I was still super uncomfortable with my body. That wasn't very fun, but nothing near this. I hope you're able to find some peace of mind on your next visit.

If you're ever up north, you should spend some time with my boyfriend's family. There is some inherent male genetic thing that makes them fascinated with poop. The first time I met Jerry's father, he was talking about poop, and his wife had to shush him. It was so damn funny.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

Oh wow...that doesn't sound very fun :/

And, Ha.

from eBirdie

[(Anonymous)]

Of course it's wierd. And disturbing. I guess, consider the only other instances, natural instances, in which another person is allowed inside your body. In the first, it's a warm, celebratory situation with a person you trust and have emotional as well as physical intimacy with. Usually someone you have at least some sort of commitment to. In the second, pregnancy, this other person actually begins and grows and IS a part of you. There's the real sense that they belong there.

In a surgical situation, everthing is cold and you don't know the people or have any idea of *who* they are and they all wear masks and you don't really even get to be present in the situation because you're knocked out, and they're finding ways to get inside you that aren't natural, they have to cut you open to get where they want to go. And you're there in the first place because of something that would be Worse if you weren't, so there's fear from the outset. It's amazing to me that they don't provide therapy automatically and compulsorily for anyone who needs to undergo surgery for whatever reason. Even if it is a wonderful, live-saving tool in many cases, it is still a huge violation of one's person under circumstances of which it ought to be obvious would cause stress and emotional trauma.

Re: from eBirdie

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

Yes, yes and yes.

[breathbox.livejournal.com]

i fully believe our physical bodies retain memories even when while we are unconscious. for years after my c section w/ marin (for which i was totally knocked out), i would feel my body tighten at my midsection whenever i would discuss her birth. sometimes there would also be quite a bit of pain.
in fact, ive had a good handful of invasive procedures dealing with my reproductive system and i honestly do feel like i healed a LOT birthing ocean. my heart goes out to you knowing the grief, frustration and curiosity you must feel regarding elise's birth.
as for the digestive stuff, is there any way that regular exercise or certain dietary restrictions would help?
i do hope whatever medical settlement is made, it is enough that you are able to at least make your home and your family comfortable for all of the pain and fear you've had to experience after your surgery.
have you looked into some kind of therapy on a lien to the lawsuit? ptsd is definitely something that can be caused by a near death experience. talk to your lawyer and see if there is someone he/she can refer you to.

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

That's really interesting, about the tightening.

I've vastly improved my eating and started excercising already. I don't know if it will help this or not. Honestly a part of me, knowing all I do now about the adhesions potentially trapping a piece of intestine and all, wonders if losing weight and changing my body shape and moving and bending and twisting for yoga is even wise. I'm doing it anyway but, you know, it's easy to get paranoid.

I'm thinking more about therapy all the time. Will definitely be including it in my settlement claim. Possibly for Ananda, too.

[custard-kisses.livejournal.com]

You poor thing, that terror hanging over you must be awful, just awful. I am sure it clouds every decision and every action in your life and will forever more. I have a degree of understanding having gone through something similar in regards to mortality and health fears and body issues this past 3 years. It's awful and I can imagine how it's haunting you. {{hugs}}

[altarflame.livejournal.com]

You know, knowing what you went through with Oscar and reading this comment, I really feel like you get it. And perhaps that is a small thing, but I still really appreciate it.

[failstoexist.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry, it must be terribly scary.

Hopefully you will be able to talk to your doctor about it and find out how to tell what is normal (if you can trace discomfort back to a certain meal or situation, how long to wait before you worry, what kind of pain to look for) and you will be better able to tell. Hopefully getting to talk to someone about it will reduce your stress over it, since stress itself could cause digestive issues and make you feel generally unwell...at least in some people.

do whatever you can in general to keep your body healthy and you'll be more likely to notice any problems that might occur because you'll be doing better in general. Fingers are crossed for you.

[babyslime.livejournal.com]

On one hand I want to comfort you and hug you all over, and on the other I want to tell you to stop googling your problems. Google is like the harbinger of doom.

[medland.livejournal.com]

<3