Complications

I couldn't bear to spend one day away from the hospital so I decided to go back yesterday. Just kidding! I had a complication that wasn't serious but was very uncomfortable. I started feeling nauseous, dizzy and really tired when I got home from the hospital and it got worse throughout the evening. I got through the night but the next day I felt even worse. I wasn't in a tremendous amount of pain in one spot; I just felt like I was going to explode and throw up. The advice nurse for the surgery clinic told me that it probably wasn't serious, but I should go to the ER (it was after hours). In general, patients should feel better after the hospital, not worse. Also, nausea can be a symptom of a blockage or obstruction, both of which can be very serious. The ER waiting room was the friendliest I've ever seen it. Everyone makes friends on the west coast with each other. At the same time, it can be hard to distinguish between extremely friendly people and slightly unbalanced people. 

I went to the ER at UCSF in San Francisco because that's where my surgery was done and it would be easier for them to coordinate with my surgeon. The doctor who helped me there was even part of my surgeon's team. She thought that my J-pouch was distended. For a quick recap, in the first surgery, surgeons took out my lower intestine and pulled down the end of my upper intestine to kind of replace it, something called a J-pouch (because it's shaped like a J). Then they inverted my upper intestine to near my belly button to divert my digestive tract and give the stitches in the new pouch time to heal. It is a tricky area to heal and if there are any leaks, the body cavity is essentially poisoned, something called anastomosis. In my case of distension, the J-pouch had collected about 300 ml of blood. Because the cells are from the upper intestine, they are not accustomed to holding liquid and only hold liquid when you are about to throw up. That's what gave me the sensation of nausea. And it wasn't going to go away because the J-pouch hasn't yet learned how to...well, complete the digestive tract. So the doctor fixed me. Then some blood tests were done to make sure I didn't have an abscess, which could be determined by a high white blood cell count indicating infection. (Gross alert) An abscess is a localized collection of pus that can destroy tissue and potentially create a leak to contaminate the abdominal cavity. Again, it's a similar idea to anastomosis but not as serious. The tests came up with nothing and the ER paged my surgeon, who said I could go home. 

The ER doctor reminded me that although a colectomy is a serious surgery that involves a long and difficult recovery, I will be much better in the long term. I got to talking to one of the ER nurses who had Crohn's - hello, it's the west coast so I make friends with everyone in five minutes - and her story reminded me how lucky I am to be able to be cured, despite the surgery process. Complications are common and lots of people end up back in the hospital (my friend Ghislaine did too) within the first week or two of surgery but that's nothing unusual. Today I feel so much better and I even took a walk all the way around the block. I am still having trouble standing up straight but that will come with time and effort.