10 Weeks of Hell - Surgery and more

I have been thinking about writing about this for over a month. This morning I woke up and decided it was time to get it out in the air. To set the scene for this, imagine you are in severe pain with no way to understand what is happening.

What started it all

November 10, I woke up with severe pain from another intestinal blockage. This was after I went to bed on November 9th with no problems. I felt a little bad, but it was nothing abnormal. When I realized what was happening I called 911 to get transported to the hospital. They were able to get me partially easy, but after a few days, it wasn’t resolving itself. This wasn’t the normal case of these episodes, but a surgeon promised me that he would be able to fix what was happening. He told me that he was going to do it through laparoscopically, but after he got into the surgery, he had to open me up fully with a 5-6 inch vertical cut. The surgeon described my gut was in a bad state, and described the adhesions that he found as a ‘cobb-web of cobb-webs’.

Healing Journey

I woke up in severe pain on November 13th, and the only thing that really helped was Fentanyl. This was the only thing that would mostly get me at ease. While the side- effects of this drug are horrid, it got me somewhat easy. A few days later I was trying to get up and move, and I was able to make some progress with pain medications. They had me on foods within a few days as well, and everything seemed to be working ok. Little did I know that my intestinal tract was traumatized from the surgery, and when the intestinal tract is traumatized, it’s common for it to become ‘stunned’. This lasted until the first part of January, and I was in and out of hospitals from November 10th till January 17th. During this time, I was in Mission Hospital, Advent Health, CMC Main, and Mercy. I want to go into details about each of these experiences, and I will get to that later. Eventually, my intestines started working again, and my body would have changed beyond my own belief. During this time, I lost 80 lbs, and my diet was changed pretty dramatically. I’m now on mostly soft and liquidy foods.

Mission Hospital experience

While this hospital is the biggest hospital in Asheville, we need a better hospital here. The general surgery team was made up of multiple doctors, and it amazes me that some of them are very arrogant. I was on a track to get my body back to a working order, and the doctor on-call changed to the ‘head’ surgeon. This is when things went down hill fast. Soon as he got in charge again, he changed the method of treatment. While the prior surgeon had me on a path of recovery, he threw that out the window and went on his own path. This resulted in me having more issues, and the recovery was prolonged.

Advent Health

After my experiences at Mission hospital, I decided I needed to try another hospital. When I got there, they were able to get me in some sort of less pain state, and I saw the surgeon that did my surgery 16 years ago. He stated that the situation with me was to complicated, and I was needing better medical treatment than they could provide there. That’s when they were looking for another hospital that would accept me. After a few days, they said I was being transported back to Mission. This wasn’t going to happen cause I refused to go, but I had to sign out of the hospital against medical advice (AMA) if I didn’t want to go to Mission. This was a decision forced by the hospital staff at Advent Health. This is when mom was informed, and she drove from Charlotte to Advent Health to take me to Mercy hospital in Charlotte. When I signed out AMA, they rolled me out in a wheel chair without a mask to protect me from COVID into the lobby where there were COVID patients waiting for treatment. I was given 2 hours before they were going to leave me in the lobby waiting for a ride. In my opinion, this was the worst treatment I had during this time.

Mercy Hospital

When I got to Mercy, I was in severe pain, and they were able to get me back pretty quick due to all of the symptoms my body was exhibiting. I was given pain meds to get me somewhat easy, and then they started doing diagnosing of what exactly was happening. They admitted me within a few hours, and I was in a room 8-10 hours after I got to the ER. They done pretty much the same thing that Mission done; NG Tube then they done pain meds to combat the pain. Once I was able to eat again, it was pretty much the same thing that Mission did, clear liquids ramping up to solid foods. This was done a few times, and each time I seemed to handle it ok. When I got to mom’s house, things would go south quickly to where I would end up in the ER again. This happened until I was put on TPN and just a liquid diet. This allowed me to stay at my mom’s for several days. The first cleaning of the PICC line, it got infected. I ended back up in the ER with a high grade fever, and they administered several days of antibiotics. They kept me on TPN for a few days, and started me on a soft bite size diet which seemed to agree with me. They kept me until we made sure I was able to handle a few days of soft bite size meals.

CMC Main

I ended up going to this ER one time. This was an experience which was not pretty or fun. I was put in the ER triage, and ended up vomiting a lot of liquid up. Once again, I was given pain meds for the pain level I was under, and then I went through a series of waiting areas. We (mom and I) both caught COVID from this experience. This ultimately spread through mom’s house hold, my sick grandmother was there, and once they decided I was going to be admitted, I was transported back to Mercy. I ended up having COVID over Christmas, and this was the worst case of COVID I had. Ended up vomiting and diarrhea EVERYWHERE, and I ultimately ended up getting dehydrated due to all of the symptoms. I was then put in a room and wasn’t allowed to leave. Each time someone came into a room, they were covered head to toe with protective gear. This made me feel all sorts of dirty. It was amazing how that feeling spread through my mind and body. I wouldn’t recommend this to anyone.

Final Thoughts

While this experience was horrible and terrifying, it has changed me. When you are faced with what I went through, it makes you appreciate a lot of things differently. I have been told by several people that they didn’t think I was going to make it through this, which is odd to hear. While I understand where they are coming from, it’s still a shock. I have spared a lot of details of this, just to make things a bit easier to be heard. I sincerely hope that no one ever goes through what I have been through.

I will be writing another post soon about what is happening post hospital stays. With some details of what they have identified me of having.