It is now 2006 and the year came in with a 'bang'! One Saturday
evening in January, I was sitting at the computer and a horrible pain struck me in the abdomen. I thought it was possibly
food poisoning, so I tolerated the pain for the next five hours. The pain only got worse, so I had my husband take me
to the local emergency room.
After days of testing and extreme pain, nausea, and dry heaving, the
doctors said I had two problems. First I had pancreatitis in the upper abdomen. Secondly, and more importantly, I
had a bowel obstruction in the lower abdomen which was causing an enormous amount of fluid to build up in my abdomen and cause
me the extreme pain. They had to operate immediately.
I was in the hospital a total of 9 long days and the pain I experienced
was beyond anything I've ever had before in my life. The doctor said that he had to remove over 6 liters of fluid, which
is over a gallon and a half. He also said if he hadn't operated when he did, I would have died. He said I had
adhesions on the sides of my intestines that were acting like fingers and clamping off my intestine and that was the bowel
obstruction. It has truly been the scariest thing I've been through so far.
So, as I write this, it's been only a week since my surgery and I'm still
healing and my gastric system is trying to readjust itself and not having a very good time at it. I'm bloated and look
pregnant from the surgery and I'm hoping that will go back down within a month.
Here it is four and a half years after my original gastric bypass surgery.
I still wonder to this day if I did the right thing in having it. I wonder if I could have lost it if I would have
joined Jenny Craig or something. I just don't know if all this suffering is worth it now. It's definitely something
people should really consider before having this surgery, that's for sure!
