Really yucky abdominoplasty

[Guest guest]

Hi, all...

I haven't posted much lately, though I do keep up on my reading as much

as I can. But I'm having a bit of a rough time right now, and would

really appreciate any feedback I can get.

On Oct. 15, I had a panniculectomy/hernia repair/abdominoplasty, and

while I was uncomfortable and my abdomen felt very, very tight when I

woke up, the surgery itself was basically uneventful. Was in hospital

for three days, left on Saturday, Oct. 18, feeling tired, but basically

pretty good. No need for heavy-duty painkillers, etc.

Saturday night as I was going to bed, I started getting shaking chills,

and three hours later when I woke up, I had a fever of 39.4 C (around

103-104 F, I think). My DH couldn't get a coherent answer out of me

when he asked if we should go back to the hospital, and so he took that

as a signal that we should go...at 3 a.m. or so. So I wound up in

Emerg, where they spent hours trying to figure out what was wrong with

me. No bladder infection, no kidney infection that they could find

(though I did have some dull pain in my lower right back), nothing

turned up on the chest x-rays, no wound problems -- but my temp. stayed

high, and my pulse was getting faster and my bp lower by the hour. At

one point I was awake enough to hear a nurse yell to another that no,

she couldn't help stitch someone up, because she had a patient going

septic on her. I realised with some alarm that she meant me.

Eventually, though they couldn't find an organism to target, they tried

me on one IV antibiotic...nothing. Then they used Cipro, the heavy-duty

wonder-drug, and gradually things started to get better. I spent

another three days in hospital on IV antibiotics and fluids, and got

out last Tuesday.

Was feeling pretty good most of the week, though I didn't have the

energy I usually have, but that was no big surprise. Then, on Sunday, I

started getting chills again, and this time I had quite a lot of pain

on the left side of my abdomen, just south of the ribcage. I wound up

with another fever, but since I was seeing my surgeon at 8 the next

morning anyway, and since this time I didn't seem quite as " out of it " ,

we decided to avoid Emerg and just keep the appointment. My surgeon was

as puzzled as I am about this -- says he's never seen that kind of

reaction without some other organ system being involved. He took out

one of my -Pratt drains (he is a bit compulsive about drains --

two years ago, I kept my J-tube in after my RNY for a good two weeks),

and said that there was a bit of clogging at the end -- blood clots, he

said.

Meanwhile, my DH was futzing around about whether or not he should go

on a business trip to Toronto while I was so sick. My surgeon told him

to go, that he'd take good care of me. Left me his home and pager

numbers, which does make me feel a bit more secure. So I'm home alone

with a 9-year-old, though my fever has gone down today. But I still

have quite a lot of pain on the right side, directly above where the

J-P drain was. I've got more blood tests in the works to see if I'm

fighting some kind of infection, but apparently nothing showed up the

last time, either.

It's all very well to be told I'm some kind of medical anomoly, but

right now I'm feeling pretty crappy, wondering whether this will all be

worth it, and most of all -- am I really the only one out there who's

had this kind of experience? I definitely think my body is trying to

tell me " no more surgery! "

--

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RNY September 19, 2001

Abdominoplasty Oct. 15, 2003

Dr. Freeman, Ottawa General Hospital

-155 lbs.

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