It has been a while. My surgery was December 21. My plastic surgeon worked with the GI team at UCSF. They went in using the same incision across my pelvis (sort of top of hip bone to the top of the other hip bone) as they made a year ago for the reconstruction. I should have Bob measure it again, but I think it's about 10-12 inches. They put all my internals back where they are supposed to be and then sewed in a bit piece of mesh to keep it all in place behind the abdominal wall.
When they closed, the plastic surgeon basically gave me a tummy tuck. I wasn't expecting that - but I'm really happy he did it. He took out about four inches of skin and tissue that was above my old incision, which includes the massive wad of scar tissue from the wound vac, and my belly button (which had migrated a couple inches to the left of center with the wound vac and hernia damage). I don't care about the belly button, but losing that scar tissue is amazing. It looks so much better.
They also did the surgery with an epidural (and general anesthesia), which was new for me. It didn't make a difference to me until I slept off the general. I was still pretty loopy in recovery and when they moved me to my room (HA. Shared space with four other patients). I told Bob to go home because I kept dozing off. But when I woke up I was AWAKE. No pain meds. The worst pain I had was from the IVs in both hands. I was easily walking the next day.
Late Tuesday night they moved me to a different room, shared with one elderly woman, which is when things started to go downhill. She had to have the TV on loud (I could clearly hear dialog even though I was wearing my earplugs), and she talked back to it and herself constantly. Because I didn't have pain meds to knock me out, I couldn't sleep at all, and basically lost my shit around 2am. They gave me some ativan which helped. They decided to try to pull the epidural on Thursday morning (Christmas Eve if you're keeping track). They had a big plan to start dosing me with oxycodone on a schedule and turn the drip off. Only they decided to do this during shift change and while the docs were doing rounds and everything fell apart. They turned off the epidural 45 minutes before they delivered the oxycodone. By the time it got there I was in so much pain I couldn't move. It took the max doses they would give me of both oxycodone and dilaudid for about five hours before it got under control. I was pissed and used that to get into a private room when one opened up.
The pain docs decided to turn the epidural back on since I still had the line in and then ease me off slowly through the day on Friday (Christmas Day). OK. Except once again they didn't communicate that with the night nurse and so she started delivering dilaudid and turning the epidural down overnight. At that point it didn't really matter to me from a pain perspective, because at least the dialudid was on time, but it's really irritating that they cannot get their shit together and communicate clearly to each other.
They finally pulled the epidural out around noon on Friday. They pulled the foley around the same time and the only thing left for me was to poop and to climb stairs (so I could come home safely, there's a full flight between my front door and a bathroom). Stairs went fine. The other, not so much. Laxatives, prune juice, softeners, two suppositories and an enema before anything happened. And then not much happened. But it was enough for me to go home on Saturday afternoon.
So now I've been home for six days. Things are going well. I can spend six or seven hours a day out of bed, sitting in my recliner or on the couch. Once the constipation cleared up a lot of my pain did too, so I've been dialing back on the pain meds. I was taking 20 mg oxycodone every three hours when I came home. Now I'm down to 10 mg every 2:40 with no problem. I'm going to go through another cycle at that dose to be sure and then bump it to 2:50. If that's all good I'll be at 3 hours again at bed time tonight. I don't expect to be able to halve it again over the next week, but I'm glad I didn't have to stay at that dose for long.
I have one surgical drain and I'm wearing a belly binder for six weeks. My next check up with the surgeon is a week from today, January 8. I expect him to pull the drain out at that time.
So, overall things are really good now. I'm hoping this means that 2016 is when I leave all the cancer related stuff behind and really move on with my life. It's time.
When they closed, the plastic surgeon basically gave me a tummy tuck. I wasn't expecting that - but I'm really happy he did it. He took out about four inches of skin and tissue that was above my old incision, which includes the massive wad of scar tissue from the wound vac, and my belly button (which had migrated a couple inches to the left of center with the wound vac and hernia damage). I don't care about the belly button, but losing that scar tissue is amazing. It looks so much better.
They also did the surgery with an epidural (and general anesthesia), which was new for me. It didn't make a difference to me until I slept off the general. I was still pretty loopy in recovery and when they moved me to my room (HA. Shared space with four other patients). I told Bob to go home because I kept dozing off. But when I woke up I was AWAKE. No pain meds. The worst pain I had was from the IVs in both hands. I was easily walking the next day.
Late Tuesday night they moved me to a different room, shared with one elderly woman, which is when things started to go downhill. She had to have the TV on loud (I could clearly hear dialog even though I was wearing my earplugs), and she talked back to it and herself constantly. Because I didn't have pain meds to knock me out, I couldn't sleep at all, and basically lost my shit around 2am. They gave me some ativan which helped. They decided to try to pull the epidural on Thursday morning (Christmas Eve if you're keeping track). They had a big plan to start dosing me with oxycodone on a schedule and turn the drip off. Only they decided to do this during shift change and while the docs were doing rounds and everything fell apart. They turned off the epidural 45 minutes before they delivered the oxycodone. By the time it got there I was in so much pain I couldn't move. It took the max doses they would give me of both oxycodone and dilaudid for about five hours before it got under control. I was pissed and used that to get into a private room when one opened up.
The pain docs decided to turn the epidural back on since I still had the line in and then ease me off slowly through the day on Friday (Christmas Day). OK. Except once again they didn't communicate that with the night nurse and so she started delivering dilaudid and turning the epidural down overnight. At that point it didn't really matter to me from a pain perspective, because at least the dialudid was on time, but it's really irritating that they cannot get their shit together and communicate clearly to each other.
They finally pulled the epidural out around noon on Friday. They pulled the foley around the same time and the only thing left for me was to poop and to climb stairs (so I could come home safely, there's a full flight between my front door and a bathroom). Stairs went fine. The other, not so much. Laxatives, prune juice, softeners, two suppositories and an enema before anything happened. And then not much happened. But it was enough for me to go home on Saturday afternoon.
So now I've been home for six days. Things are going well. I can spend six or seven hours a day out of bed, sitting in my recliner or on the couch. Once the constipation cleared up a lot of my pain did too, so I've been dialing back on the pain meds. I was taking 20 mg oxycodone every three hours when I came home. Now I'm down to 10 mg every 2:40 with no problem. I'm going to go through another cycle at that dose to be sure and then bump it to 2:50. If that's all good I'll be at 3 hours again at bed time tonight. I don't expect to be able to halve it again over the next week, but I'm glad I didn't have to stay at that dose for long.
I have one surgical drain and I'm wearing a belly binder for six weeks. My next check up with the surgeon is a week from today, January 8. I expect him to pull the drain out at that time.
So, overall things are really good now. I'm hoping this means that 2016 is when I leave all the cancer related stuff behind and really move on with my life. It's time.
Holy Crap! I haven't been keeping up with your travails! I miss the bad old days at JavaOne with you. I don't even know what to say about all your insane misery and misfortune. You are in my thoughts and prayers. You are one of the toughest people I know which is probably how you have made it this far. Hope to see you when in the Bay Area later this year.
ReplyDeleteThanks Bruce! It's not all misery and misfortune. There's a lot of boring and some really good stuff too. I would love to see you if you're in town.
ReplyDeleteI miss the old JavaOne days as well - I still go but it's different now. I feel incredibly lucky to have a job that was so much fun for so long.