csmooth24
02-22-2002, 02:05 PM
here is the whole story....if you read the first part already, you can scroll down to the row of /images/tongue.gif's
Ok, as promised, here is “smoothies hospital endeavor”….
But let me give you a quick background so you all aren’t lost from the beginning…I have a digestive disorder called crohn’s disease…what crohn’s does is create an inflammation in areas of the small and large intestine making absorbing nutrients difficult…what it can also do is create a narrowing making it hard for food/contents to pass through…I have had the disease since I was 10 years old (now I am 25)…treatments include steroids like prednisone and immune suppressants…prednisone works well for me to treat the crohn’s but has some negative side effects including preventing healing after surgeries…I was stable but often sick growing up through jr high and high school…essentially, crohn’s disease stunted my growth…I stand 5’6” and would like to get back to 145 lbs while my brothers are both 6’4” and over 300 lbs each…
I had to miss the second quarter of my freshman year in college because I got sick and very malnourished…the docs, my mom and myself decided the best thing to do would be to put an IV catheter into one of my veins so I could feed myself intravenously at night while I slept…the IV line is called a hickman line…and guess who put it in for me??? Dr. Hickman!!! /images/smile.gif I beefed up rather quickly and felt much better…with the new “health”, the disease was able to heal (yeah!) but little did I know, the healing could lead to scaring that could lead to narrowing /images/frown.gif…by the time I got home for summer break my freshman year, a part of my small intestine had narrowed to the point that I would throw up most of what I ate…luckly the “IV food” was keeping the pounds on me…so by the end of that summer I made the decision surgery was needed…so the doc chopped out almost 30 cm of my small intestine and reattached it back together…after that surgery I was able to start eating again!!! woo hoo! /images/laugh.gif I continued with the “IV food” for the next 2 years at college just so I wouldn’t have to worry about nutrition (it was very weird hooking up with a girl having this tube hanging out of my chest)…I must have freaked some girls out… /images/tongue.gif…it’s a good thing I had a great group of friends surrounding me…ANYWAY, I made it through the rest of college relatively healthy and I had thought crohn’s might be behind me…
but over the past year I have not been feeling as well as I would like…I was on a high dose of prednisone and felt great…but everytime I would try to get off it, I would feel sick again (by sick I mean bad cramping, loss of appetite, and of course, weight loss) so here I am one day feeling OK getting ready to party at a “holiday get together” at my aunt and uncles house…before I know it I am keeled over in the worst pain ive ever felt in my belly…now I think Im fucked because I am over an hour away from home and I realize I need to get to the emergency room…so I have my brother take me to the hospital by my house an hour away…let me tell you, riding in a jacked up jeep wrangler while having SEVERE stomach pains is not very fun /images/frown.gif…but I made it to the hospital emergency room and they gave me some pain killer which relieved me a little…but they decided to admit me and do some xrays…
the xrays showed a blockage halfway through my small intestine…the first response from the docs was to see if the blockage would break up without surgery…no such luck…so on wednesday that week, (I was admitted sunday, december 8th) I went in for surgery to remove the blockage…when I came out of surgery I saw my mom and my brothers and I was OUT OF IT!!! I had these weird pillow like balloons wrapped around my legs (later I found out these prevent clotting in the legs)…so in my stupor, I asked my mom, “why did they have to shackel me???”…I guess it was pretty funny to my family and the nurses… anyway…the next day I was able to speak more coherantly…
im not sure how many of you have experience with surgeries but there are two ways to let the incision heal…first way is use stitches or staples…the other way (and I found out the hard way) is to keep it open and let it heal from the inside out…let me tell you, this is not a pleasant site…my first reaction was, “excuse me…did you forget something??? I have an open wound!!!” NO, you could not see my guts…the stomach cavity was closed but the skin/fat layer looked as though I had just been sliced open (hmm…I guess I was…) turns out this is a common way to let incisions heal. Another thing about surgeries you should know is they put a n NG (nasalgastric) tube in which goes in your nose and down into the belly…your digestive tract shuts down after any surgery in the stomach cavity… the “juices” your stomach produces needs to be sucked out until peristalses (the contraction of small/large intestine that moves contents) starts again…NG tubes SUCK! literally and figuratively…
anyway, over the next couple of days I improve as everyone expects…I know from experience that I can’t go home till I “pass gas” and start pooping again…the NG tube stays in as well…and lets just say, when you cant eat, EVERYTHING looks good! /images/tongue.gif but after about 5 days I started passing gas and pooping and the NG tube came out and I thought I was on the road to HOME!
but then I started to develop fevers….im not talking about little fevers of 101 or 102…im talking big time scary fevers of 104.5 and 105.6…and the docs could NOT figure out where these were coming from…blood tests were fine, my pee an poop were clear of infection…it was nuts…so I managed to go a day without a fever and the docs said I could go home if I was fever free for 24 hours more…I was hoping to go home for christmas (it was the 22 and we celebrate on christmas eve, the 24th) so I needed to be out on the 23rd…so I wake up the morning of the 23rd and feel a fever coming on…the nurse took my temp and I did in fact have a fever but it wasn’t as high as it had been…so I was able to go home…(I felt deep down I should stay, but I didn’t want to spend the holiday in the hospital)…
so, on monday (christmas eve) we went down to my aunt and uncles house (the place where I originally felt ill)…I felt real tired and not too good overall…im glad I went though, I was able to spend the holiday with my family…over the next couple days I continued to get mild fevers and felt pretty crappy overall…fatigue, the chills, cold sweats…and on wednesday I noticed my left arm was swollen…I told this to the doc on thursday and he asked me to come in for an ultrasound…turns out I developed a clot in my arm from all the IV’s…so back in the hospital I go to treat my blood clot…I am immediately put on blood thinners…
then things get REAL interesting…the next day as I am coming out of the bathroom, I notice that part of my dressing had fallen off…I looked at it and it had some puss type fluid on it…luckily my mom was there and I asked her what she thought of it (she is a nurse)…then she says “what is that dripping on the floor???”…I pulled my hospital gown up and there was lots of “puss” coming out of my incision…I got back in bed….my mom called the nurse…the nurse called the surgeon…and she was there in five minutes to look at me…she looked and said, “I think we just found out why you were getting fevers…looks like you perforated (the connection she made on my intestine had come apart and bowel contents were in my stomach cavity and leaked out of my incision) and developed quite an infection…” so I was back in surgery a short while later…just three weeks after the first…
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So…to continue…I woke up the next morning feeling completely drained…the second major surgery in as many weeks was pretty intense and my body was pretty pissed off…because I had so much infection in my belly, the surgeon decided to put me in the “critical care unit”…I only had to stay there for 24 hours…once they realized I was stable again, they moved me to the normal hospital unit…this time around we decided to take things a whole lot slower…when I was finally able to start eating, I didn’t progress as quick as I did before…the good thing was that the fevers were gone and I was moving around pretty good…all things considered…I slowly progressed for the next two weeks and I began to eat enough to support myself so the docs again let me go home…I was feeling much better and felt like I was on the road to recovery…
Then I spiked another high temperature (103.5) during my second week at home…the surgeon decided to get another CT scan to see if there was anything unusual in my belly…she saw two things…first was a small leak in my intestine, again my biggest fear…she decided not to operate again because it would have been murder on my body…she figured that if I gained my weight back (I was down to 101 lbs from 145) and got healthy, it would heal on its own…the second thing she saw was an abcess near my liver that appeared to be infected…so I had to go in the next day to get that drained…for this procedure, they had to stick a needle in my back to suck out the puss…they don’t fully put you under for this procedure, but they drug you up pretty good, so I had to spend the night…
Anyway…I went home the next day and had two drain tubes in me…one draining the contents in my stomach cavity (the stuff leaking out of my intestine)…and one draining the remaining infection from the infected abcess…a tube in my belly and one in my back…now doesn’t that sound fun…sleeping was REAL easy! /images/tongue.gif I got the tube in my back removed after 5 days and have the belly tube still today…
I am currently still trying to get healthy and gain some weight…hopefully this little leak will heal on its own so I don’t have to go under the knife again…that would suck! And that is an understatement…there is not much more I can say now…
Again, I cannot thank you all enough for your support/thoughts/prayers/cards/gifts…it all helps VERY much…and a special thank you to jami for the phone calls and keeping updates here at smirks…you are a wonderful friend…and THAT is an understatement! /images/wink.gif
My support outside the computer world has been great as well…I wouldn’t have gotten through this with out my mom…here she is…hehe /images/smile.gif
http://communities.msn.com/_Secure/0TgB8BukYXxGfInYguBSOZFz1UHjfs!6JgADH*8gYLKS5vd2oA RDAU0WlZCBbYEP1j6YliOPpxzEnLwuyR!pCmktqS4QzoaaHgc3 lG9hKl9qb6XpStm0j6A/smooth-and-mom.jpg
~ 'trust is something that comes easy, when you've never been a victim' - t. keith
Ok, as promised, here is “smoothies hospital endeavor”….
But let me give you a quick background so you all aren’t lost from the beginning…I have a digestive disorder called crohn’s disease…what crohn’s does is create an inflammation in areas of the small and large intestine making absorbing nutrients difficult…what it can also do is create a narrowing making it hard for food/contents to pass through…I have had the disease since I was 10 years old (now I am 25)…treatments include steroids like prednisone and immune suppressants…prednisone works well for me to treat the crohn’s but has some negative side effects including preventing healing after surgeries…I was stable but often sick growing up through jr high and high school…essentially, crohn’s disease stunted my growth…I stand 5’6” and would like to get back to 145 lbs while my brothers are both 6’4” and over 300 lbs each…
I had to miss the second quarter of my freshman year in college because I got sick and very malnourished…the docs, my mom and myself decided the best thing to do would be to put an IV catheter into one of my veins so I could feed myself intravenously at night while I slept…the IV line is called a hickman line…and guess who put it in for me??? Dr. Hickman!!! /images/smile.gif I beefed up rather quickly and felt much better…with the new “health”, the disease was able to heal (yeah!) but little did I know, the healing could lead to scaring that could lead to narrowing /images/frown.gif…by the time I got home for summer break my freshman year, a part of my small intestine had narrowed to the point that I would throw up most of what I ate…luckly the “IV food” was keeping the pounds on me…so by the end of that summer I made the decision surgery was needed…so the doc chopped out almost 30 cm of my small intestine and reattached it back together…after that surgery I was able to start eating again!!! woo hoo! /images/laugh.gif I continued with the “IV food” for the next 2 years at college just so I wouldn’t have to worry about nutrition (it was very weird hooking up with a girl having this tube hanging out of my chest)…I must have freaked some girls out… /images/tongue.gif…it’s a good thing I had a great group of friends surrounding me…ANYWAY, I made it through the rest of college relatively healthy and I had thought crohn’s might be behind me…
but over the past year I have not been feeling as well as I would like…I was on a high dose of prednisone and felt great…but everytime I would try to get off it, I would feel sick again (by sick I mean bad cramping, loss of appetite, and of course, weight loss) so here I am one day feeling OK getting ready to party at a “holiday get together” at my aunt and uncles house…before I know it I am keeled over in the worst pain ive ever felt in my belly…now I think Im fucked because I am over an hour away from home and I realize I need to get to the emergency room…so I have my brother take me to the hospital by my house an hour away…let me tell you, riding in a jacked up jeep wrangler while having SEVERE stomach pains is not very fun /images/frown.gif…but I made it to the hospital emergency room and they gave me some pain killer which relieved me a little…but they decided to admit me and do some xrays…
the xrays showed a blockage halfway through my small intestine…the first response from the docs was to see if the blockage would break up without surgery…no such luck…so on wednesday that week, (I was admitted sunday, december 8th) I went in for surgery to remove the blockage…when I came out of surgery I saw my mom and my brothers and I was OUT OF IT!!! I had these weird pillow like balloons wrapped around my legs (later I found out these prevent clotting in the legs)…so in my stupor, I asked my mom, “why did they have to shackel me???”…I guess it was pretty funny to my family and the nurses… anyway…the next day I was able to speak more coherantly…
im not sure how many of you have experience with surgeries but there are two ways to let the incision heal…first way is use stitches or staples…the other way (and I found out the hard way) is to keep it open and let it heal from the inside out…let me tell you, this is not a pleasant site…my first reaction was, “excuse me…did you forget something??? I have an open wound!!!” NO, you could not see my guts…the stomach cavity was closed but the skin/fat layer looked as though I had just been sliced open (hmm…I guess I was…) turns out this is a common way to let incisions heal. Another thing about surgeries you should know is they put a n NG (nasalgastric) tube in which goes in your nose and down into the belly…your digestive tract shuts down after any surgery in the stomach cavity… the “juices” your stomach produces needs to be sucked out until peristalses (the contraction of small/large intestine that moves contents) starts again…NG tubes SUCK! literally and figuratively…
anyway, over the next couple of days I improve as everyone expects…I know from experience that I can’t go home till I “pass gas” and start pooping again…the NG tube stays in as well…and lets just say, when you cant eat, EVERYTHING looks good! /images/tongue.gif but after about 5 days I started passing gas and pooping and the NG tube came out and I thought I was on the road to HOME!
but then I started to develop fevers….im not talking about little fevers of 101 or 102…im talking big time scary fevers of 104.5 and 105.6…and the docs could NOT figure out where these were coming from…blood tests were fine, my pee an poop were clear of infection…it was nuts…so I managed to go a day without a fever and the docs said I could go home if I was fever free for 24 hours more…I was hoping to go home for christmas (it was the 22 and we celebrate on christmas eve, the 24th) so I needed to be out on the 23rd…so I wake up the morning of the 23rd and feel a fever coming on…the nurse took my temp and I did in fact have a fever but it wasn’t as high as it had been…so I was able to go home…(I felt deep down I should stay, but I didn’t want to spend the holiday in the hospital)…
so, on monday (christmas eve) we went down to my aunt and uncles house (the place where I originally felt ill)…I felt real tired and not too good overall…im glad I went though, I was able to spend the holiday with my family…over the next couple days I continued to get mild fevers and felt pretty crappy overall…fatigue, the chills, cold sweats…and on wednesday I noticed my left arm was swollen…I told this to the doc on thursday and he asked me to come in for an ultrasound…turns out I developed a clot in my arm from all the IV’s…so back in the hospital I go to treat my blood clot…I am immediately put on blood thinners…
then things get REAL interesting…the next day as I am coming out of the bathroom, I notice that part of my dressing had fallen off…I looked at it and it had some puss type fluid on it…luckily my mom was there and I asked her what she thought of it (she is a nurse)…then she says “what is that dripping on the floor???”…I pulled my hospital gown up and there was lots of “puss” coming out of my incision…I got back in bed….my mom called the nurse…the nurse called the surgeon…and she was there in five minutes to look at me…she looked and said, “I think we just found out why you were getting fevers…looks like you perforated (the connection she made on my intestine had come apart and bowel contents were in my stomach cavity and leaked out of my incision) and developed quite an infection…” so I was back in surgery a short while later…just three weeks after the first…
/images/tongue.gif/images/tongue.gif/images/tongue.gif/images/tongue.gif/images/tongue.gif/images/tongue.gif/images/tongue.gif/images/tongue.gif/images/tongue.gif/images/tongue.gif/images/tongue.gif/images/tongue.gif
So…to continue…I woke up the next morning feeling completely drained…the second major surgery in as many weeks was pretty intense and my body was pretty pissed off…because I had so much infection in my belly, the surgeon decided to put me in the “critical care unit”…I only had to stay there for 24 hours…once they realized I was stable again, they moved me to the normal hospital unit…this time around we decided to take things a whole lot slower…when I was finally able to start eating, I didn’t progress as quick as I did before…the good thing was that the fevers were gone and I was moving around pretty good…all things considered…I slowly progressed for the next two weeks and I began to eat enough to support myself so the docs again let me go home…I was feeling much better and felt like I was on the road to recovery…
Then I spiked another high temperature (103.5) during my second week at home…the surgeon decided to get another CT scan to see if there was anything unusual in my belly…she saw two things…first was a small leak in my intestine, again my biggest fear…she decided not to operate again because it would have been murder on my body…she figured that if I gained my weight back (I was down to 101 lbs from 145) and got healthy, it would heal on its own…the second thing she saw was an abcess near my liver that appeared to be infected…so I had to go in the next day to get that drained…for this procedure, they had to stick a needle in my back to suck out the puss…they don’t fully put you under for this procedure, but they drug you up pretty good, so I had to spend the night…
Anyway…I went home the next day and had two drain tubes in me…one draining the contents in my stomach cavity (the stuff leaking out of my intestine)…and one draining the remaining infection from the infected abcess…a tube in my belly and one in my back…now doesn’t that sound fun…sleeping was REAL easy! /images/tongue.gif I got the tube in my back removed after 5 days and have the belly tube still today…
I am currently still trying to get healthy and gain some weight…hopefully this little leak will heal on its own so I don’t have to go under the knife again…that would suck! And that is an understatement…there is not much more I can say now…
Again, I cannot thank you all enough for your support/thoughts/prayers/cards/gifts…it all helps VERY much…and a special thank you to jami for the phone calls and keeping updates here at smirks…you are a wonderful friend…and THAT is an understatement! /images/wink.gif
My support outside the computer world has been great as well…I wouldn’t have gotten through this with out my mom…here she is…hehe /images/smile.gif
http://communities.msn.com/_Secure/0TgB8BukYXxGfInYguBSOZFz1UHjfs!6JgADH*8gYLKS5vd2oA RDAU0WlZCBbYEP1j6YliOPpxzEnLwuyR!pCmktqS4QzoaaHgc3 lG9hKl9qb6XpStm0j6A/smooth-and-mom.jpg
~ 'trust is something that comes easy, when you've never been a victim' - t. keith