Two weeks after my surgery, I was down 20 lbs but having severe pain on my left side. Breathing hurts, coughing hurts and LORD does sneezing hurt - feels like my insides are ripping apart. It hurts!!
Three weeks after surgery is my scheduled follow-up with my surgeon, Dr T. 25 lbs down at this point, he's happy with my weight loss, and my progression and he had given me permission to progress in my food choices, from full liquids to small, small, shredded, tiny foods, size of an M&M, he said, before it's put in my mouth. I am ELATED because I want to eat... I want to chew! I miss chewing, which sounds so funny, but I'm excited to move to the next stage of eating!!
First of June, I decide to call my family dr about the pain in my side. It totally slipped my mind when I was speaking with my surgeon the week earlier, I was so excited about eating that the pain didn't matter at that point. I scheduled appointment with my family dr, to check on my side pain, who thought I may have a problem with my spleen, but to make sure he ordered a CT Scan.
Little did I know what a CT Scan with dye contrast would entail. 5th of June I went in with Chris for my scan. I was given a large glass of slimy, super sweet-ish milk-like substance the nurse tells me to drink it down in less than 5 minutes. I tell her I've had a gastric bypass and that's not possible for me, but I'll try. I warned her I may end up throwing most of it up. She said, "Try your best." I did... and I did... throw most of it up. I'm called into the room for my scan where I'm handed ANOTHER large cup of the same slimy substance and told to drink it quick before the scan. I struggle, explaining to the nurse of my surgery-situation who gave me a blank stare like I was talking gibberish. She said if I don't think I can drink it all, then do my best. Hm - do my best. Instead of possibly blowing out my pouch, I chose to stop drinking.
The nurse then tried to give me an IV and blew 2 veins and finally got one in my hand. She tells me, "During the scan, I'll be giving you some medication. Because your vein is so small, it'll burn quite a bit... it'll hurt because we have to push it fast. It'll make you warm and a little nauseus and make you feel like you've peed your pants, but you didn't." I'm thinking... this sounds like fun. I put my arms above my head and am laying down, moving in and out of this tunnel/doughnut thing who is robotically telling me to hold my breath and let it out, then suddenly I'm HOT! She's right - I want to vomit, I'm close to sweaty and swear I've wet myself. Few moments later, those sensations go away and the not-so-nice nurse tells me I'm finished. Now... I'm freezing and can't stop shivering. That was such a miserable experience, I hope I NEVER have to do that again!!! But it's done.
Over the weekend, I am unable to keep ANY food down. Chris thinks I'm trying to eat things I'm not supposed to, but I'm following the rules. However because nothing stays down, I resort back to phase 1 foods of mostly liquids... jello, applesauce, broth... and everything still comes back up. I feel weak, I can't walk or stand for too long, even water is coming back up. Chris tells me on monday the 8th to call my surgeon and explain to him how I'm feeling.
Dr. T's nurse calls me back within an hour, sounding concerned and tells me I may have "over-healed" and I need to have a scope done in the hospital, she scheduled it for that thursday. Yay! Another trip to the hospital.... I'm done with this... I'm done. I don't want to be poked or pushed on or tested anymore. But I also don't want to vomit anymore, so I do as I'm told.
A month after my surgery, June 11th, I go to the hospital to see my surgeon once again. As I'm laying down, about to be put asleep, Dr T explains to me he wasn't able to look at my CT Scan, but he read a report from it saying I had gall bladder stones. Great! He says that unless they are causing me pain, we'll just let them be, but it's good to know that I have them. Yay! Just one more thing.
I fall asleep.... I wake up in a little room, where Chris is waiting for me. He tells me the dr had given him PICTURES of the inside of my esophagus and pouch (oh how nice...) and explained to him that I had healed on the inside instead of the outside so it was closing up my esophagus. He had ballooned it open so I should be good there. He also saw an ulcer in there, that I need to take care of.... which means more medication. Ick. Dr T says I'm severely dehydrated so he wants to give me 2 IV bags before I can go home... so we're in the hospital for a few hours more. No worries, though, my husband is watching Anime on his phone, so we're good.
Saturday June 13th I get a letter in the mail (a LETTER, nice...) from my family dr about my CT Scan results. Basically saying 'we didn't see anything that could be causing you pain'... then it says, "However, we did find a lesion on your left ovary..... please call to schedule an ultrasound". How can you tell me this in a letter? .... and on a saturday when I can't do anything but worry about it until monday? Ugh!
SO.... today, I call to schedule an ultrasound. I have googled what a lesion on your ovaries could mean and that scary word keeps popping up, cancer, so I've stopped looking up information about it. Decided to just go get it figured out and move on from there. I'm a worrier. I blame my grandma V, her and I worry and worry and worry... that's what we do. So it's best for me NOT to make it any worse. Tomorrow is my ultrasound at the local hospital. The lady on the phone assured me there's nothing to drink and no IV's necessary, so this shouldn't be SO bad.
As far as weight loss... I'm down 35 lbs, which is good. I was hoping for more, but I figured not binge eating through all this stress is a success for me. Right now - I'm happy when I can take a drink of water and not have any problems.
Sorry this was so long... a LOT has happened in the past few weeks. A month of hurdles that I have no other option than overcoming!
No comments:
Post a Comment