my surgery

[Guest guest]

I had surgery on Monday and just got home this afternoon. The surgery went

well, but I ended up having two hernias instead of just one. One was a large

incisional hernia. That was the one that was bulging out. The other was an

inguinal hernia. The surgeon found no adhesions around the bile duct or

pancreas. However, he believes that the incisional hernia could have been

causing many of my problems. We won't know for sure until a few weeks goes by

with no episodes of pain, nausea, vomiting, elevated panc/liver enzymes. The

surgeon had told me that if the hernia was incisional (and not inguinal) that

the surgery was a great deal more painful. He was not kidding! I was expecting

pain along the lines of my gastric bypass. After all, how painful can

laparscopic surgery be? Hah! I'm hear to tell you it can be quite painful. It

has been every bit as painful if not more than my abdominal hysterectomy I had

back in 93. Moving is pretty much torture. getting out of be or back into bed

is quite difficult and painful! I am not to lift anything over 5 lbs until I

see the surgeon in two weeks. He also said I can't go back to work til after I

see him either. He said he'll decide when he sees me how much longer my

activities will be restricted. My lower left belly looks a good 5 months

pregnant, but it's a lopsided pregnancy! I gained 10 lbs in the 3 days in the

hospital. I'm sure it's just fluid, but I sure won't be wearing anything but

loose fitting sweat pants and such for the next few weeks.

My GI doc came to see me each day I was in the hospital. He told me he has no

anwers for me but that he is going to keep digging til he determines what is

going on with me. He's got me scheduled to do an ERCP to remove the stent from

the bile duct and to do a liver biopsy on Dec 27th. They did a 24 hour urine

test for porpho something. Can't remember the name and haven't had a chance to

look it up.

My hospital experience was wonderful, as it always is at Baptist Medical Center

Montclair in Birmingham, AL. The nurses are the greatest.

Suprisingly, I had almost no nausea at all with this surgery. I was able to eat

without it causing pain or nausea, also.

I ended up having to delete most of my messages as I had 450! If there was

anything important that I need to know, would someone please send it to me

again?