More Complications

     When I woke I had a tube in my mouth and my arms were tied to the bed. I didn't like the tube and somehow managed to lean forward enough to and pull it out. Then I went back to sleep. Things are really blurry for me after this point, apparently it's an anesthesia thing. I remember a bunch of family coming and talking to me, that's about it. 

    When I started to really come around the doctors started telling me more about my surgery. My colon had been completely removed and I now had an ileostomy. I had a bag attached to my lower right abdomen for poop to empty into. Even though I just had major surgery I felt better than I had in months. I had finally gotten some sleep and a break from pooping. 

    I was so swollen from all the fluids they pumped me with that my knees could barely bend, but of course you have to get up and walk after surgery. Again, I felt better than I had in a long time and my spirits were way up, so the doctors thought I could handle hearing about my surgery and what dealing with this bag was going to be like. 

    It turns out that my large intestine had gotten really swollen to the point where it began to clot and blood could not longer move in or out. 

    I've been searching over an hour now for the name of this condition. All I could find at first were a million different sites talking about priapism, when an erection lasts too long. Finally I got the wording right and found a name for it, intestinal ischemia, on the Mayo Clinic site. I skimmed through just to be sure it was the right thing, and at the bottom it says: 

   

When to see a doctor

Seek immediate medical care if you have sudden, severe abdominal pain. Pain that makes you so uncomfortable that you can't sit still or find a comfortable position is a medical emergency.

      Now I'm getting upset all over again. I remember being at the doctors office rocking back and forth, standing up, sitting down, getting into a fetal position, every which way I could think of just to try to get into a comfortable position. And the doctor sent me home with prednisone and Gatorade. It was almost two MONTHS before I had emergency surgery. 

    Looking back at that visit I can see how stupid I was for not just going to the ER. But I was 24, not in my right mind and scared that I would be paying off medical bills the rest of my life. I had no idea there was assistance for people with no insurance or that I could get Medicaid. (I thought it was the same as Medicare and it was only for the elderly.) 

    But the fucking doctors! They went to medical school, they're supposed to help people, they should know better! 

     I digress.

    My large intestine (colon)  had died and had to be taken out. But the surgeons had plans for me, a j-pouch. I'll explain more about that another time, but basically I was going to have two more surgeries over the next six months and go on to lead a relatively normal life. They were to be in three month intervals, so for now all I had to do was heal and learn to live with this temporary crap bag. I hated the crap bag.