husband with panreatitis

[Guest guest]

First off let me say how glad I am to have found this site!

My husband went to the dr Tuesday of last week (March 2nd) and they

said he had appendicitis. Ok, no big deal, routine laproscopic

surgery, taking 2 hours. Well 3 1/2 hours later, my father in law

and I hear that there is some puss or abcess in his abdomen that

they can't explain. Sooooo, they open him up the next day for

exploratory surgery, having no clue what they are looking for. The

surgery took 6 hours from start to finish. What they found was

pancreatic necrosis, dead pancreas, that the surgeon scraped off.

He was then on oxygen and prettily heavily sedated. Anyway, the dr

at the hospital in the town I live decided to transfer him to a

hospital in downtown Chicago, where he could get better care. So,

he gets taken there, via helicopter, and is put in Surgical ICU,

still heavily sedated. They did a CAT scan and saw that there was

no more dead pancreas, so that was good news. They said his

pancreas is still inflammed, but not infected. Anyway, fast forward

to now, a week and a day later. He is not in ICU anymore, he is on

a surgical floor, trying to figure out what is going on. They tried

to do an MRI tonight, but he freaked out and got claustrophobic from

it. Does anyone know what else they can do? They are wanting to

look at a duct or something. Oh yea, I should mention, his appendix

AND his gal bladder were both removed. Therefore, his pancreatitis

did not stem from gal stones, nor from drinking. He had pretty high

triglyceride levels though, as I have seen someone else mention, so

they are thinking it is hereditary. I guess what I am looking for

is if anyone has any answers as to what is next, how much time are

we looking at him being in the hospital, what is recovery when he

gets home, etc, etc? I know it is a lot of questions, but he is

only 24 years old and the dr's are just SO shocked by the entire

thing!

Thanks