Hey guys,
I went into surgery at the Cleveland Clinic in Weston, Fl on October 3rd and just left the hospital yesterday (October 26th). My surgeon was Dr. Wexner, and there were minimal complications.
The surgery was done laparoscopically and at the same time the hernia on my intestine was repaired. My stoma was then moved from my right to left side.
The reason for the long hospital visit was because after surgery my intestine had too much output. Then a few days my intestine went to sleep and they labeled it an Ileus (aka a medical term for a intestine that stops functioning). I had the ileus for a very long time, and when it started working again I was released. I use the word released because a 23 day hospital stay feels like being a prisoner. According to the doctors, when you have an Ileus THE ONLY TREATMENT IS WALKING to wake the intestine back up. With that said I averaged walking 5 miles a day aeojnd the entire 3rd floor until my intestine woke up.
TIP: I didn’t walk enough for a few days. You need to walk miles if you want to wake your intestine up. If you don’t push yourself you will be in the hospital for a very long time with an Ileus.
An ileus is very common after abdominal surgery which I didn’t know going in. Also, just because your Ileus resolves does not mean that you won’t have your intestine reverse on you and stop working.
In fact, I made several friends that had the j pouch creation surgery and all of them had ileus’. One friend was in the hospital for 10 days, got cleared to go home, and then got an Ileus a couple days later and had to take a 4 hour ambulance ride back to the Cleveland Clinic. After you are fresh out of surgery, other physicians do not want to do work on you, so you have to go back to the original hospital.
During my stay at the C.C., I had too much bile in my stomach causing me to throw up so I had an NG tube put in. If you’ve ever had one, they are one of the worst feeling procedures you can have!
I started hiccuping and gagging every few minutes so the hospital put me on this anti cough medication (thorazine?) and little did I know it’s also an anti psychotic among other things. I started to get anxiety on it before a doctor came in and suggested the NG tube.
Installation of the NG tube was so uncomfortable given how sick I was that I threw up all over the nurse and myself twice before yanking the thing out myself. My throat was immediately sore, but so felt instantly much better after throwing up.
I went to bed and started gagging again when I woke up so I called the nurse back and tried and NG tube again. This time it went much better than before, but I still HATE NG tubes.
I kept the NG tube in for a couple days and then ended up repeating the process once I began getting sick after having it out (so I had TWO rounds of an NG tube in my throat). After the second tube came out, I was so scared that I’d throw up and they’d put another tube in. NG tubes should only be done under sedation!
Fun Fact: I was NPO (nothing by mouth 19 of the 23 days that I was in the hospital so I lost 25lbs.
Today: since coming home yesterday Ive realized how much the i.v. Dilaudid helped along with oxycodone. When they send you home you won’t have any I.v. Medication and barely any pain medication. I think the CC said they can only prescribe a weeks worth of pain medicine, and they do it at very measly doses considering the pain that I had.
I was sent home with 10mg of oxycodone a couple times a day for 7 days. I metabolize pain medicine fast and 10mg is nothing after getting that for 23+ days and 0.5mg of Dilaudid every 3 hours.
February 5th is (hopefully my last surgery) my reconnect to get rid of the ostomy bag. It’s a 1 hr surgery, and hopefully a lot less intense than this last one. I cannot miss another 23 days of work. Hopefully this information helps you.
-Nick