Tuesday 29th April 2008

Again, long time no blog, but here I am. I come back to this diary to update it now and again when I have the time and when I need to write down my feelings, fears, hopes and triumphs to help clarify things in my head. So here's what's been going on.

Yesterday I was discharged from hospital having been to hell and back. Things have been extremely stressful here for the past couple of months and we are in the process of moving house too, so my time has not been my own. I was at work on Thursday morning when my pains started around my back and my tummy was bloating. The bloating is nothing new, I just thought it was trapped wind that often bothers me on a night shift. Trouble was the pain did not go away it just got worse. I took something for wind and it didn't stop, then I took co codamol for the pain and it didn't stop, and by the time the kids were in bed and I took a shower I was finding it hard to standup straight. The pain in my back and tummy was unreal and Al told me that he was taking me to a&e. My trousers were really tight by the time we got there - my tummy was really bloated big time now, and I was whincing in pain. They took me through pretty quickly and dosed me with morphine, and then some more morphine, and then some more. The pain was not going at all. They were querying a perforated bowel at first, and then pancreatitis or gallstones. They did an xray, and this confirmed that I had not perf'd but they needed to do a CT scan and an ultra sound to rule out everything else. My bloods came back clear so they sent me up to the ward and Al went home. I was given 45mg of Iv Morphine in the 4 hours I was in A&E ( enough to knock out a small rhino) and further doses when I was on the ward thereafter with very little pain relief achieved. It was grim. The pain in my back was relentless and crippling. I had the belly of a 5 month pregnant lady too and the pressure was terrible. They put a drip up and made me nil by mouth, started IV antibiotics, IV protium, and then sent me for a CT scan. I had to drink 900ml of CT contrast before I was taken down for it but I was wretching and my tum could not cope with this quantity of fluid on an empty stomach. Then being put in a wheelchair and jiggled through the corridors of the hospital to the scanner just added insult to my already injured tummy and by the time they wanted me to lie down on the scanner I was physically unable. The pain was unreal. They did the scan though, I just bit my lip and held on tight to the womans words telling me it was only 4 minutes of a scan. No sooner was I up on the ward then they came and told me I was going for an ultra sound. They were making all sorts of noises about my internal plumbing, but I was just in agony having any part of my tummy pressed on with the ultra sound. Again this was inconclusive. They came back to me on the ward and said the CT scanner had broken during those 4 minutes of a scan so I would have to go back and get another one done the next day.
So 2 days later I was no further on with my pain relief, still in agony and still no cause could be found. We thought it was my seroma possibly infected but on the second CT showed I had no seroma. The second CT was more painful than the first one because I had been nil by mouth longer and then told to drink 900ml of contrast again. Lying down was unbearable and being examined by the doctors caused me so much distress because of the pain.
On saturday night they decided to shift me from one ward to another to free up the beds in the medical ward where I was a surgical outlier. They had decided to allow me to eat and drink but then brought me a couple of cold fish cakes and croquette potatoes which looked and tasted disgusting on an empty stomach. I tried a couple of nibbles of it but the pain started up pretty quickly after. Then they wanted me to walk to the new ward but by the time I arrived there I was rolling in pain. My sister in law was with me and she went and asked them to write me up for something for bowel spasm. The nurse came in and took my IV fluids down and told me I HAD to drink, and when I asked for pain relief they told me I HAD to have oral pain relief. I said that I was in agony - I had tears rolling down my cheeks by this point the pain was so intense, and she insisted that the doctor had told her to withdraw my heavier analgesics. It was as if because they could not find a reason for my pain, there was no pain, and I must be some opiate driven fraudster. I asked to see the doctor who had dictated this and he came in to see me. I told him to take a look at how huge my belly was distended and this is what he said ' oh, that's to be expected, it's part and parcel of your surgery' I put him straight and told him that it most certainly was not. He almost ran out of the room and soon enough I was being given IV paracetamol and IM tramadol. My sister in law had brought in a heat pad and put that up my back which was heaven. I did actually get some pain relief from these combinations but the cause was still unknown. Next morning the doctors came round, and since they had attempted to give me some breakfast and I was none the wiser, I had consumed half a slice of toast and bloated out like never before. I was so sore when they arrived, but they came in and said that it was NOT a seroma and that my tummy was just loose skin. The SHO said that I needed a tummy tuck revision, and the Reg said that I needed to go back to Belgium and see my surgeon. I was gobsmacked. All I needed was for them to sit down and work it through with me. The bloods had been normal, the CT's and ultra sound found nothing, so this was NOT pancreatitis,NOT hepatic, NOT gallstones, NOT liver, but they were so blinded by my RNY to figure out what was blatently obvious - it took my sister in law and me the day to figure out that this was Irritable Bowel Syndrome. It made complete sense once we thought about it. The condition is stress induced and there has been plenty of that in my life, and every time I tried to eat or drink in the last few days I would be in agony within 10 minutes. Myguts felt like they were being twisted and pulled in every direction. That was why the CT was so sore - because I had to drink all the contrast beforehand.
They finally agreed to give me some Buscopan on Sunday night, and within 20 mins I was pain free. I could not believe this little tablet was the answer all this time. I had another one that night, and then needed another about 4am, but the swelling in my tummy reduced significantly overnight which was enough of a result for me to report to my consultant yesterday morning that I was in no doubt that my bowel was in crisis but it's IBS that is the cause. He was happy to send me home with Buscopan and see how I got on.
I got home yesterday lunch time, and intended to take a bland easy diet for a day or two, but even soup made me blow out. I had a rough night last night and ended up on the sofa with the heat pad, watching TV for most of the night. I resolved to call my GP this morning and get her to sort me out some pain relief.
When I called the surgery this morning, they told me that my GP had died suddenly last week. I am so very sad to hear this because she has been so supportive of my weight loss surgery. I had every faith in her medical skills and we only saw her about 7 weeks ago and she was looking well then. I am seeing her GP partner this afternoon.