SHALL WE CONTINUE

Hello, Hello!  I am alive and well!

My apologies to those who were following my journey.  When I got home I didn't really want to do anything, as was quite weak and tired, so put everything on hold until I was feeling like I wanted to do something again.

I want to thank everyone who sent me messages, and well-wishes and wondered how I was.  I appreciate you all!

I feel that I have a lot to say and one item in particular is very important to me, so that will be a post in itself.  I will just carry on as far as I remember from the day we got our drains out.

As you know we had drains put in, as above; one on each side of our abdomen.  The tubes were long and attached to the bottom were bulbs that collected the fluid that drained from our abdominal cavity.  The left-side drain was usually fuller than the right-side, as left was the side that most of the stomach was taken from, although they pulled the useless stomach from the right-side incision.

Anyway, the day we were to get our drains out, which was the day before we were to leave, I stood up after getting out of bed and noticed I had blood running down my leg from the right-side drain.  The bulb was fuller than the left side and darker in color.   What in the world was going on now??  I re-enforced the drain site with more gauze and bandages and waited to see the Doctor.  It didn't really hurt  more than usual and it wasn't spewing blood out, so I figured I could wait.

When it was my turn to get my drains out, I explained to him what had happened, that I had more drainage etc and he didn't seem to think it was a big deal.  So out came the drains.  It didn't hurt, just felt a couple of flutters from inside the abdominal cavity and just like a lubricated tube sliding through a hole.   That's how I would describe it.  But once those drains were out, I felt wonderful; no more shoulder pain, no more pain anywhere really.  I would say that two of us had a vasovagal response from getting the drains out.  I had mild heart palpitations (of which I get from time to time anyway) and the other lady got light-headed. Neither reaction lasted that long.   Then we were off to the Malekon (sp)(Boardwalk) for sight-seeing, shopping and to watch the sunset.

Sitting at an outdoor cafe on the beach waiting for sunset.  Boy do I look big.  Don't look like that anymore!

Sunset I was waiting for!

That night when we got home as we were sitting around watching TV before bed I developed a terrible pain in my right-side.  It felt that my muscles in my side were cramping and I couldn't take a deep breath.   I started to walk around and it seemed to dispel a bit, so went to bed.  In the morning when I went to get up it happened again and I thought how am I ever going to sit on a plane for 4.5 hours home.  I had stopped taking my pain medication the day after we got home from surgery so didn't want to start taking it again.  It seemed that if I stood upright or walked around it helped, so did that until we got onto the plane.  Fortunately, I didn't suffer on the plane, but unfortunately after my husband picked me up and we went to have supper, even touching the spot that hurt made it go into severe spasms.  I had to sleep on my left side all night.  By morning it was a little better but was now right under my drain incision site and a lump was forming.  The cramping was subsiding somewhat.

I had a idea that since the drains were taken out and I had been draining more on the right-side that day that there was no place for the fluid to go or it wasn't being absorbed into the body fast enough, so sat in my tissues and muscles causing cramping.  This was confirmed by my doctor here in Lloydminster.  I am fine now no pain or lumps, incisions are healing nicely and there was no infection of any kind.

Again, this is my experience only, the other ladies did not have this problem.  Everyone's body is different and everyone experiences different circumstances.  Some experience NO symptoms, as another one of our ladies did.  She was ready to go home the day after surgery!  (She is still doing well and has 22 lbs gone so far).

I will leave this post for now and continue tomorrow with more posts.  Be kind to one another!  Ange.