Why is this so damn hard for me? - Page 22 - ThinnerTimes

sdgrrl · 09-29-2008, 01:29 PM

I absolutely agree. An exploratory laparoscopy is def called for at this stage of the game. Were you folks on the board when little Carrie from Canada had such terrible pains? They had tested her gall bladder, excellent results, did all the same tests Danita has had, and nothing showed. She quit posting her weight when it fell below 103!!! No one took her seriously until she had gone thru this agony for a year. Finally they did the ex-lap and found that despite test results her gall bladder needed to be removed. They did so, and it still took her a very long time to recuperate from the huge insult to her body nutritionally and pain-wise, today she is fine.

I don't think taking her to the ER is going to get her closer to the ex-lap, as only her doc can order surgery for her. But get on the phone! Bring her to his office for a sit-in if you have to, but imho, she has a strangulated intestine due to kinking or scar tissue or endometrial tissue, with scar tissue being my first guess. Keep us posted--this is vital, life and death stuff, honey, and try to get some support for yourself. I know you're a wreck right now, too!

Godsblessedme · 09-29-2008, 01:32 PM

yep this reminds me of our lil' Kelly here and finally her docs did that exp lap surgery. I would definatly make sure they do that okay take care

XavierJayNycol · 09-29-2008, 02:20 PM

Hi all I am writing this with hopes it becomes a success story! I am as early in my journey as one could be. Today is Monday September 29th and i am attending my first educational session this coming Thursday. Maybe this ends with me never having this done for Insurance reasons or whatever but if I do get this done and I am a success I didn't want to have to think back to try to drum up old emotions, I wanted to chronicle this first hand. I have been inspired by peoples journeys on this site and would like anyone on here thay is struggling that I am pulling and praying for you.

One reason I wanted to write this is because I have read several peoples story on here and not many people seem too much like me. I am a 35 year old African American male and I haven't come across too many men's stories on this site or anywhere else. I am not sure if it is because we don't have this done as often or we just don't talk about but I wanted the world to hear my story.

I am a loving husband but more importantly I am a proud father of three of the most amazing kids in the world, the oldest of which turned 13 today! Happy Birhtday BUBBY!

I will keep everyone posted as I continue my journey!

Hawaiianese Girl · 09-29-2008, 05:08 PM

Thanks for everyone's comments and concern. We are definitely pushing for the ex-lap, but our surgeon wants to do things in steps, so I don't know if he'll let us skip the EGD and go straight to the surgery or not. We can't contact his secretary until tomorrow when she's back in the office. I'm going to tell her how much weight Danita has lost and that NONE of the testing she has been doing has shown a thing. I hope he realizes the urgency in this situation.

Hawaiianese Girl · 10-06-2008, 01:00 PM

Hello all,
It's been about a week since I've posted because Danita ended up in the ER last Thursday afternoon. She only felt the pain in her stomach when she ate and drank but Thursday was different as she woke up already in pain. I called her surgeon and of course got his secretary. I spoke to her twice before she finally got it across to our surgeon that Danita NEEDED the explatory surgery NOW. She finally told me that the surgeon said to bring Danita to the ER immediately. So off we went.

We sat in the waiting room for 2.5 hours while people threw up beside us and others who looked like nothing was wrong, went in ahead of us. It was extremely frustrating. We had no idea when or if our surgeon was going to show up. Afterall...he's the one that told us to come in, right? Well I finally had to make a trip to the cafeteria for some much-needed food when I ran SMACK into our surgeon in the hallway. It was perfect timing. I practically tackled him in the halls and begged him to help Danita. I went on and on about how sick Danita looked and how much weight she had lost (10 lbs in 7 days)and told him where she was at. He said he'd be back in a little bit.

By the time I got back from the cafeteria, Danita had been taken back to an ER room. They FINALLY put some fluids in her arm, gave her a pelvic exam (because of that cyst that showed up on a CT scan) and made her do another new CT scan. The OBGYN docs that gave her the pelvic concluded that the cyst was NOT the cause of all her tummy pain. Duh - we knew that.

To try and make a long story short...10 hours later, Danita finally got a room. She got the explatory surgery done the next morning (after 3 days of NOTHING to eat) and our surgeon found an adhesion (scar tissue) had grown on the place where he reconnected her bowel for the bypass. Some fatty tissue had also attached itself to the adhesion and then to something else. So, he thinks that every time she ate and drank, it was twisting that area around, causing all the pain. Thank God he found it because it showed up NOWHERE and on NONE of the half dozen tests she got put through. So he removed the scar tissue and the OBGYNs removed a small cyst from her ovary, just for general purposes, since she was already having surgery

So, after 3 days and 2 nights of sleeping in a chair next to her bedside, Danita and I are home. The patient is slowly recovering and I'm running around like crazy taking care of her...lol She can't yet differentiate betwen the pain from her surgery and the pain from eating before the surgery, but I am very relieved to report that when she eats and drinks, it no longer feels like it did before...whew.

All I want is for her to be back to normal. My stress level is so high right now. I had a total breakdown when we got home from the hospital on Saturday night. I cried for 2 hours straight. I've worried myself sick about Danita, about getting and needing a job, and about the fact that our Internet keeps going out when I need it the most. I just now got it back after 5 days with an outage. I'm so sick of this I could just scream!!!*sigh*....stress...stress...stress.....

Anyway...Danita is better but now we have to worry about her being off work for a week or two and losing that income. I'm getting a migraine and my shoulders are tensing up just thinking about it. So, I think I have you all caught up now. Thanks for all your prayers and comments.

P.S. - Danita went in the hospital weighing 164 and she came out weighing 175...this is a good thing. She has lost too much weight for only being out 6.5 months but I have a feeling it's all the fluid they put in her arm. I hope she can keep the weight on for awhile. I'm doing my best to force down protein shakes and other foods so she can build her nutrition back up.

Love,

Godsblessedme · 10-06-2008, 01:45 PM

wow M and D thank God he finally did that surgery! man i hope she is happily on the mend

Amandazon247 · 10-06-2008, 01:58 PM

My Gad girl.. I am so glad they found out what happened and fixed it.. now hopefully ya'll life can calm down a little.. and get more back to normal... girl you 2 deserve a break ..

Hawaiianese Girl · 10-06-2008, 08:52 PM

Thank you Deb and Amanda! A lot of relief comes with finally getting the surgery for Danita...but scar tissue can come back so we're both kind of holding our breath.

sdgrrl · 10-07-2008, 12:53 PM

I'm so relieved and glad for you both that someone finally saw the light and did the ex-lap. Unfortunately for us GBS folks, scar tissue is ever prevalent, and can cause problems forever and ever. Some of us are prodigious adhesion makers (scar tissue)! When I had my bowel obstruction surgery, my doc said he had NEVER seen so much scar tissue in an abdomen. He literally had to take my intestines out of my body, lay them on the table, and spent 4 hours scraping the scar tissue off of them. Some of it was so bad he couldn't get it off without perforating the bowel. I ended up with another emergency surgery 3 days later for perforation. I got terrible peritonitis, and now have 3 anastomoses instead of 1. My gut looks like an ocarina! And all that scar tissue grew in just one year. I was in the ICU on my one year surgiversary. So I'm really relieved that Danita has been fixed--that pain is soooooo awful!

Now you both need to take a big deep breath, heal yourselves physically and emotionally from this crisis, and rejoin our planet, already in progress....

Baja Big Dog · 10-07-2008, 04:15 PM

Quote:

Originally Posted by sdgrrl

I'm so relieved and glad for you both that someone finally saw the light and did the ex-lap. Unfortunately for us GBS folks, scar tissue is ever prevalent, and can cause problems forever and ever. Some of us are prodigious adhesion makers (scar tissue)! When I had my bowel obstruction surgery, my doc said he had NEVER seen so much scar tissue in an abdomen. He literally had to take my intestines out of my body, lay them on the table, and spent 4 hours scraping the scar tissue off of them. Some of it was so bad he couldn't get it off without perforating the bowel. I ended up with another emergency surgery 3 days later for perforation. I got terrible peritonitis, and now have 3 anastomoses instead of 1. My gut looks like an ocarina! And all that scar tissue grew in just one year. I was in the ICU on my one year surgiversary. So I'm really relieved that Danita has been fixed--that pain is soooooo awful!

Now you both need to take a big deep breath, heal yourselves physically and emotionally from this crisis, and rejoin our planet, already in progress....

What was the scar tissue from? The gps?