Sunday, April 22, 2007

Update Re: Surgery Details


On 11 April 2007, we arrived at the Barix Clinic at oh-dark-thirty to check in for me to have a laproscopic Roux-en-Y procedure. More commonly known as gastric bypass surgery. Dr. David Kam, arrived to inform me that he was 90% certain that he would not be able to perform the procedure laproscopically, due to a previous umbilical hernia repair I'd had, using mesh. What this meant, was that my 1-2 week recovery was being extended to 6-8 weeks. Shortly thereafter, my mom arrived, only to witness me start to come uncorked with the drastic change in plans. I asked Dave to call my friend in Utah, Richard Green. Richard and I met working for the Utah County Sheriff's Office. Richard is the Chaplain in the jail. As I knew he would be very likely to answer, he was my first choice. True to my expectations, Richard answered his phone and was soon speaking in prayer, offering me just what I needed.

I don't remember much from that point on. The next thing I remembered was a really soft voice telling me the surgery was all over and I was doing fine. I immediately asked "Open or closed?" I heard "open" as the response and everyone within earshot immediately started to sympathize with me. The really neat thing was that I was already in my hospital bed and didn't need to be transferred once getting to my room. (These guys REALLY think of everything!) I had a PCAU (Patient controlled anesthetic unit) pump giving me a constant dose of pain medication and I was allowed to push the button every 10 minutes for an extra dose, if I felt the need. And believe me, I NEEDED IT! There were sometimes that I felt like 10 minutes would never end. I was up and walking within 5 hours after surgery and tortured every two hours by the Respiratory Therapists to breath in one machine and out through another. Then came the really hard part...... COUGHING. Can you say Y'OUCH!!!!!!! About 24 hours after the surgery, I was escorted to x-ray for a swallow follow through x-ray. The tech pushed me up against the film holder thingy, because apparently I wasn't doing it right, and if I'd had the strength, I'd have poked him in the nose! I had just been taken off my pain pump and was in a lot of pain and apparently, he was in a hurry. Then my 'Angel of Mercy' showed up. Her name is Dr. Elaina Vayntrub. She is the Internist that was assigned to take care of my medical conditions while I was in the hospital. She asked if I wanted to see the results. She lead me to the wall where the x-rays were hanging and lit up. She showed me how the stuff I drank was trickling through my new stomach and into my small intestine. WOW! My stomach is now the size of a golf ball! On the x-ray, it looks like a golf ball with a little spout on one side.

At the 48 hour mark, my "male" (Yes, male!) nurse asked me if I had started to pass gas or stool yet. HELLO????? I was scoured clean before the surgery and I'd been eating nothing but a clear liquid diet for all of 24 hours!!!!!!! You can probably guess what happened next. Yup! The ol' silver bullet! Roll over? Yeah, RIGHT! Somehow, 'HE' managed to get 'it' where 'it' belonged. Then, an hour later, 'HE' came back and asked if 'it' worked. HELLO? It's only been an hour!!!!!!! So back he came with ANOTHER! Again, 'HE' managed to get it into position, AGAIN! 'HE' went off shift by the time it happened! Talk about 'dumping' responsibility on the next shift!

After 3 days, I got to take my first shower. Did it ever feel wonderful! My incision is 13" long! Dave was there to help me and got almost as wet as I did in the process.

Dr. Kam came in on the third day and told me I was doing well enough to go home whenever I felt like it. Based on the fact that I had not been able to sleep any longer than an hour in a stretch, I was happy to call Dave right then for a ride home. The ride home was long, but good to make. I went right to bed as soon as I got home and slept until Dave woke me to go for a walk and get some protein in me.