TWMac

Thanks for the nice thoughts and comments, ladies....and a good afternoon to you all.


I feel pretty decent today....a little tired, a lot achy down there, but overall, I'd say I feel okay. I know the path back is long and will take time, but coming here helps to pass that time and sharing information with you all makes it much more bearable.

First thing I have to say about my over all experience is this: my surgeon is one of the finest, (IMO), in downstate Illinois. He removed my appendix 15 yrs ago and we decided we wanted him to do this and I will never regret that decision in any way, shape, or form. That guy is simply the best. Also, the nursing staff at the hospital in which I stayed was AMAZING! I probably was in contact with 20+ different nurses and student nurses over the last week and they were all fantastic! Not just to me, but with my family as well. And that made a big difference for them.

Now, to the re-section itself. I was scheduled for 7:30AM last Thursday morning and was wheeled into the OR at about 7:40AM. According to the staff in there, that was pretty typical. Turns out, that was about the only typical thing about the rest of the entire day. Now, keep in mind, when I first looked into this, I was told that on average, this type of operation normally takes 2 1/2 - 3 hours. Not a big deal. I was in for 6+ hours and was personally responsible for the cancellation of my DR's afternoon surgery schedule. Don't know why, but I get a kick outta that. I do feel badly for the people that had to wait an extra day. If that had been me, I'd have been ****ed.

When he got in, he realized that my lower sigmoid colon area was much more heavily damaged from my previous tics flare-ups than the colonoscopy revealed. So he had to snip a little lower in that area than he would prefer. To do that, he needed to stretch the upper portion of the colon down a little more than normal, so he had to snip some of the upper mesentery (sp?) tissue a little bit in order to do that. That and some creative re-arranging of stuff down there, required the 6+ hours to do all that.

He told me that due to the extensive damage down there, I literally was a walking bomb waiting to explode. Next flare up could have been typical in that no hospitalization would be required, but as the tissue repaired itself, I was very close to suffering from blockage and obstruction. Obviously, not a good scenario.

At any rate, they wheeled me into recovery around 2:30PM and there I stayed until about 9:30PM that evening. They had absolutely no beds available in that place. It never ocurred to me that a hospital would be jam packed full like that. I eventually did get into a bed, but not until way late in the evening.

Well, I think I'm gonna take it easy for a while now. I'll be back a little later this afternoon and share some more goodies from my last week.

Take care everybody.
TM