Post Hospitalization Report
Nov. 29th, 2011 10:03 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
sinanjuYou know the drill. I'm home from the hospital now. Came home yesterday about noon. I was there for five days, two days longer than planned. We had to get my pain under control, so I could treat it with oral meds rather than IV narcotics like Dilaudid. They used that on me in June, and once or twice this time.
Narcotics cause constipation and gas. Did you know that? You know what most of my pain was from? Gas--because I was constipated and couldn't get rid of it. "It's a balancing act," one of the nurses told me. And so it is. But it turns out that bowel surgery tends to produce gas--not to mention that they filled my abdomen with gas during the procedure so they could have more room to see what they were doing and to do it. And laproscopic surgery tends to produce even more gas.
So: gas from the surgery, more gas because it was laproscopic, and more still from the oxycodone (or IV dilaudid) they gave me. I'm not going to pretend that my incisions don't hurt. That they don't give me pain sometimes when I move or breathe deeply or cough, or even sometimes just because they're incisions in my tender flesh. But they don't hurt nearly as much as the pain of having a distended, gas-filled digestive tract and no way to relieve the pressure.
I kept getting conflicting info from the nurses and doctors. They kept asking me if I'd passed gas. No. Well, once, maybe twice. But never much. Other than that, nothing but bloody bowel movements. Nothing to be alarmed about, they're to be expected from bowel surgery as my body clears out the old blood in the digestive tract from the operation. Nobody told me that either until after the fact. So I began to fantasize the worst: that I was bleeding internally, or the surgery didn't work, or...well, any number of terrible complications. When I asked the resident surgeon (I never saw my primary surgeon again--that I remember--after the surgery itself, though he may have been there immediately after, which I remember nothing of consequence about) he told what was going on and what it meant. That was a relief. I just wish I'd known it before worrying myself over it.
Anyhow. I wasn't passing gas, but when I asked I was told that bowel movements were good. They meant my intestines were waking up and beginning to function normally again. They also tended to function erratically, producing cramps as well as gas they slowly got their act together. On Sunday I spent too much time in the bathroom, hoping for relief, and not enough walking--which massages the intestines and helps move things along and so forth. And I was still getting oxycodone for pain. The result was an evening and a night of increasing pain as the gas accumulated. At some point in the wee hours of the morning I was just about ready to ask for dilaudid again and screw getting off the IV drugs so I could go home. (I was afraid at that point to go home anyhow for fear the gas would continue to be awful.) But lots and lots of circuits of the floor and simethycone to reduce gas eventually helped. As did a final, dramatic bathroom incident culminating in a prolonged bout of flatulence--and the considerable reduction of pain I was experiencing. From that point on, I was able to handle the gas (and the pain) and without another use of the IV, so I was able to go home Monday morning. I got oxycodone early that morning, and another dose just before I left hospital at about 11 a.m.
That was yesterday morning. I have a prescription bottle of oxycodone tucked away in my bedroom dresser--but I'm not using it. I'm taking Tylenol every four hours for the pain instead. It may mean a little more pain from my incisions, and from coughing and whatnot, but goddamn--the gas pains I KNOW I'll experience from the drugs are worse than the pain it would treat. Screw that. I'll deal with the pains I can handle and know how to minimize.
Other thoughts on my stay: It's emotionally as well as physically draining. There were moments--hell, there was one late this afternoon--when you feel helpless. Old. Debilitated. And you can't see the far side; it feels like it will ALWAYS be this way. I remember that feeling from this summer during and after my hospitalization and home recuperation. I know it will pass, as it eventually did. And it will do again. But when I'm in that dark place, I can't feel it. It isn't real.
There's probably more, but I'm tired now.
Narcotics cause constipation and gas. Did you know that? You know what most of my pain was from? Gas--because I was constipated and couldn't get rid of it. "It's a balancing act," one of the nurses told me. And so it is. But it turns out that bowel surgery tends to produce gas--not to mention that they filled my abdomen with gas during the procedure so they could have more room to see what they were doing and to do it. And laproscopic surgery tends to produce even more gas.
So: gas from the surgery, more gas because it was laproscopic, and more still from the oxycodone (or IV dilaudid) they gave me. I'm not going to pretend that my incisions don't hurt. That they don't give me pain sometimes when I move or breathe deeply or cough, or even sometimes just because they're incisions in my tender flesh. But they don't hurt nearly as much as the pain of having a distended, gas-filled digestive tract and no way to relieve the pressure.
I kept getting conflicting info from the nurses and doctors. They kept asking me if I'd passed gas. No. Well, once, maybe twice. But never much. Other than that, nothing but bloody bowel movements. Nothing to be alarmed about, they're to be expected from bowel surgery as my body clears out the old blood in the digestive tract from the operation. Nobody told me that either until after the fact. So I began to fantasize the worst: that I was bleeding internally, or the surgery didn't work, or...well, any number of terrible complications. When I asked the resident surgeon (I never saw my primary surgeon again--that I remember--after the surgery itself, though he may have been there immediately after, which I remember nothing of consequence about) he told what was going on and what it meant. That was a relief. I just wish I'd known it before worrying myself over it.
Anyhow. I wasn't passing gas, but when I asked I was told that bowel movements were good. They meant my intestines were waking up and beginning to function normally again. They also tended to function erratically, producing cramps as well as gas they slowly got their act together. On Sunday I spent too much time in the bathroom, hoping for relief, and not enough walking--which massages the intestines and helps move things along and so forth. And I was still getting oxycodone for pain. The result was an evening and a night of increasing pain as the gas accumulated. At some point in the wee hours of the morning I was just about ready to ask for dilaudid again and screw getting off the IV drugs so I could go home. (I was afraid at that point to go home anyhow for fear the gas would continue to be awful.) But lots and lots of circuits of the floor and simethycone to reduce gas eventually helped. As did a final, dramatic bathroom incident culminating in a prolonged bout of flatulence--and the considerable reduction of pain I was experiencing. From that point on, I was able to handle the gas (and the pain) and without another use of the IV, so I was able to go home Monday morning. I got oxycodone early that morning, and another dose just before I left hospital at about 11 a.m.
That was yesterday morning. I have a prescription bottle of oxycodone tucked away in my bedroom dresser--but I'm not using it. I'm taking Tylenol every four hours for the pain instead. It may mean a little more pain from my incisions, and from coughing and whatnot, but goddamn--the gas pains I KNOW I'll experience from the drugs are worse than the pain it would treat. Screw that. I'll deal with the pains I can handle and know how to minimize.
Other thoughts on my stay: It's emotionally as well as physically draining. There were moments--hell, there was one late this afternoon--when you feel helpless. Old. Debilitated. And you can't see the far side; it feels like it will ALWAYS be this way. I remember that feeling from this summer during and after my hospitalization and home recuperation. I know it will pass, as it eventually did. And it will do again. But when I'm in that dark place, I can't feel it. It isn't real.
There's probably more, but I'm tired now.