I apologize in advance for the lack of structure for this post, I hardly have the energy to blog so it might be a bit of a ramble.
The operation itself did go great, but 2 weeks afterward I'm still battling complications. The day after the surgery my vitals went crazy and showed definite signs of infection. The next day they got me on aggressive antibiotics. The abdominal pain continued to get worse and worse when it should have been getting better. That night I rolled on to my side and a bunch of liquid oozed out and stained my gown. Thinking it was just my ostomy leaking I buzzed the nurse, after cleaning the stoma area we realized the leak was coming out of my largest incision, the one right over my belly button. Soon they removed a few staples and puss started oozing everywhere. Definite infection. It was so bad the had to leave the wound open and add an extra bag for the fluid to drain into. This all happened around 1am and made for a long night, the nurses did an amazing job though.
The next morning I made it in for a CT scan which showed a very large abscess that had formed and needed to be drained. That afternoon I was sent down to have a tube inserted into my belly to drain pus into, a THIRD bag hanging off of me. So now I've got 1 ileostomy pouch, 1 incision drain pouch, and 1 abscess draining pouch. Thank god my catheter was out by that point. Add wheeling around an IV into the mix and I was not all that inclined to move around.
The rest of my stay has been kind of a blur, the initial drains and having the antiobiotics kick in helped significantly, but I was still in pretty serious pain. I've been home a week now, and the drains are still flowing, I'll need them another week for sure. They are just so cumbersome and annoying. Monday night I threw up, and a bunch of blood and thick stuff shot into the incision bag from all the heaving pressure, we called home care and got sent to emergency to make sure it was all ok. Everything turned out to be fine, it just made for a long stressful night. The next morning home care changed all the dressings and stuff.
Even since being home, I've been in constant pain until yesterday really. The good news is I haven't needed a painkiller in about 24 hours, I want to avoid those wretched things as much as possible. I've hit an all time low of 124.5 pounds, so now a legitimate 50 pounds under my normal bodyweight. Moving and eating are huge struggles, but I know I need to keep up with that stuff in order to heal. I have a CT scan on Wednesday to see how the abscess is doing, and can hopefully ditch this drainage hose shortly after.
Mom has been amazing looking after my every need here at the condo. I've had lots of support from friends and family, just no energy for visitors yet. I've been sleeping almost constantly which is good. It's just been a long slow recovery and I'm growing weary. Not a lot really cheers me up, and nothing interests me right now. I'm thinking maybe one more week of it being this rough and once this infection is behind me I should see another boost in strength. Anyways that's about all I have to say for now. Home care should be here right away and then its nap time. Cheers.
