My Surgery

This is probably going to be the hardest post I write. I debated long and hard if I explain what surgery I have had. In the end I realise that this surgery doesn't restrict my lifestyle and the only choice I had was surgery or death.

The day I was raced to the emergency department at St. Vincent I was losing blood out my body. After the original procedure didn't work it was decided that I needed to have the dead parts of my bowel removed. After the dead parts of my bowel is removed an opening called a stoma is created in my stomach, this is where bodily waste now exits.

For my surgery I have had an Ileostomy surgery which is part of the small intestine coming out my stomach. For more information ironically the company I work for deals with this and has an excellent website (http://www.convatec.com.au/enau/cvtoc-ileostsu/cvt-portallev1/0/detail/0/2162/4186/ileostomy-surgery.aspx).

The one advantage I have with my Stoma surgery is it is fully reversible. Only half my bowel was dead so the after 6 months they will reconnect me and life will be back to normal. In the meantime I have 6 months of my living life with a pouch attached to my stomach.

In terms of lifestyle this will not affect my ability to do anything. I can still run, paddle, swim, scuba dive and do any normal activity. The only thing I have to be conscious of is the food and drinks I have to ensure minimal gas and no blockages. I've noticed over the last week of living with this sneaking out a silent fart is no longer possible. The great thing is the pouches have a filter so it doesn't smell just sounds like a chainsaw ripping up.

So there is my surgery, I definitely don't want to be treated any different but now you know it will help to explain the noises coming from my stomach when we are out drinking or at dinner.

ICU

Surgery was fairly successful because I remember waking up in a room, unable to speak with a tube down my throat. Apparently this was my introduction to ICU.

ICU is one of the worst places to be in a hospital and the one at St. Vincent is no exception. Because of my chemo I was in a single room. This room had the back of the bed against a window and I was facing a door to the main ICU area. This was going to be my home for the next week, enough to make you go crazy. 

I remember drifting in and out of consciousness for that day with no clue what had happened. Finally I got the tube out of my throat so I could talk which was a relief. I had lots of pain so I got a morphine button which meant I could deliver morphine to myself when I needed it. Sounds like fun but you can only have 1 hit every 5 minutes and it made me feel sick. So even though the pain went away it felt like I was going to throw up. Needless to say I didn't use much morphine. 

I spent the next week in ICU before finally being transferred to the ward.

Surgery

The ambulance took me to St. Vincents where I was promptly taken into surgery. The idea was that the surgeons were going to try and stop the bleeding by soldering or glueing the bleeding spot and if that didn't work they would have to cut me up and do surgery.

To solder or glue the spot the surgeon wanted to keep me awake so I was made pretty numb whilst they stuck some stuff in my groin to stop the bleeding. All I remember is having to take deep breathes and eventually being told they couldn't get the bleeding spot and that I needed surgery. At least I was going to be put under for that one so I would wake up feeling great.

Code Red

Whilst in Peter Mac you occasionally heard announcements for different codes (i.e. Code Grey, Code Red). Well on the night I was going to leave it was my time for a Code Red.

I got up from bed and was about to go to the bathroom when I felt like I was going to faint. I quickly got back on the bed with help from Dad and then I made mum hit the emergency buzzer. I had started bleeding out a part of your body you shouldn't bleed from.

I was suddenly bombarded by my nurse and about 5 different doctors. Within no time at all I had drips and all type of stuff hooked into me to keep me alive. When things finally settled it was realised I wasn't going home and an ambulance was called to take me to St. Vincent.