medical – Jamie DeBree

Have you ever woke up in so much pain that you literally could not move a muscle – or even cry out for help?

That happened to me this past weekend. Twice.

You may recall that I was scheduled for gallbladder removal surgery last Monday, and I went into it with a pretty positive attitude. Every single person I spoke with including my family members said it was no big deal, I’d be back at work in a week, not much pain for recovery (they all know I have a high pain tolerance), and no more near-constant pain on the upper right side/right shoulder blade. It seemed like a good deal.

I also had been having some “mystery pain” in the lower right side of my abdomen that no amount of imaging could manage to figure out, so I asked the surgeon to take a look at that too, and see what he could find.

I went to sleep, they did their thing, I came to not feeling too shabby and the oddest thing that happened the whole time we were there was the nurse not being able to find my husband who was sitting in the waiting room the whole time (the surgeon found him just fine, so?).

All told, they ended up removing my gallbladder, my appendix, repositioning part of my bowel near my appendix to straighten out a fold in it, and they found a hernia while they were in there too, but didn’t fix it because the risk of infection was too high with everything else going on.

If you’re gonna take your car to the shop, might as well get a good tune-up, right?

I felt good the first night home. Made sure to drink lots of fluids and get up and move once an hour or so. Took Tylenol and Advil and didn’t feel any need to fill the oxycodone script they’d given me. I felt good the next day too, and reasonably well most of Wednesday, though by Weds afternoon, something definitely wasn’t feeling right.

I’d had issues getting in and out of bed – my bed is very high, and we have a thick mattress topper, so it’s very plush too. I’d had to do some gymnastics to get out before I gave up and started sleeping on the couch, and I had sore spots I was kind of worried shouldn’t be sore. The nurse I spoke to Weds encouraged me to definitely call the doc if any of the pains got worse.

By 4:30pm that day, I was doubled over with cramping waves of pain across my whole torso so bad I could barely move. I thought I’d done some sort of internal damage at that point, so I tried calling the surgeon’s office, and when I couldn’t get anyone there, I had my husband take me to the emergency room.

I laid in an ER bed, unable to get control of my breath while they pumped me full of morphine and IV fluids, and two docs told me that what I was experiencing was something called ileus, where the intestines don’t “wake back up” after they’re frozen during anesthesia. They said it normally goes away on its own in a few days, and chastised me for not taking the oxy that was prescribed, saying I wouldn’t be in pain if I was taking the right painkillers.

Opioid painkillers like oxy can cause constipation, so I wasn’t sure how taking those would be helpful if my gut wasn’t working right already, but I figured they’re the docs, so I’d get my prescription filled and see what happened. They gave me more painkillers and sent me home, still in pain.

The next day, I got the oxy prescription along with a stool softener script to go with, and took one of the oxy pills right away. As far as I could tell, it really wasn’t helping the pain at all, which was confusing. I got up and moved as much as I could, but it was hard even sitting down and standing up at that point. When I spent most of the night uncomfortable and getting no use from any of the drugs I was trying to take, I called the surgery department the next day.

The nurse was very kind and sympathetic, and she told me how to combine the oxy with Tylenol so it would work better. I felt okay after talking to her, and for awhile the pain was better managed. But I was getting more constipated by the day, unable to eat solid foods, and while it wasn’t so painful, it was clear nothing was actually helping the problem. During the day when I was up and about, I was okay. Saturday night, I woke up at 3:30am to some of the most intense pain I’ve ever felt, and after being stuck in my spot on the couch waiting for the wave to die down, I crawled on my hands and knees to the kitchen and pulled myself up to the counter just to get more painkillers.

No one I’d ever talked to had said anything about this. I didn’t go back to sleep that night – I couldn’t. And the next night, I tried sleeping in bed with my head wedged up at an incline, and woke up at 2:30am, writhing and panting and unable to either navigate the softer mattress to get up or call out to my husband just inches away. Finally he woke up and helped me get out of bed, and get drugs, and stayed with me until I was breathing normally. I went to the couch after that, but I was too uncomfortable to sleep at all.

Monday morning, I was at my wits end, and I sent a message through the clinic’s online portal explaining what I’d been going through, and that the painkillers really weren’t helping, and I really needed another option like, now, because I was almost out of pills and I didn’t know what to do. I wanted all that in writing, because sometimes, a “paper” trail is good.

The surgeon’s nurse called me back, and she basically said my insides were still frozen, and I needed to stop the oxy immediately *because it can also cause your intestines to freeze*, and buy some Citricul (powdered fiber) and Miralax (a powered laxative). She told me how she wanted me to dose them, and said I definitely had to get my intestines moving asap. I agreed, of course, and thanked her.

Then I hung up the phone, which I’d been using while bracing my forearms on my kitchen counter because I didn’t have the strength to stand up, and I broke down. Yes, I cried (it’s a very, very rare thing). I could not imagine doing even one more tiny thing like ordering the things I needed with Instacart, and I could not believe that for the past several days, on the advice of licensed medical personnel, I’d been contributing to my own suffering, and now I had to rally myself *again* in order to reverse the issue.

I did take one more oxy after my little breakdown, because I literally could not see how I was going to deal with the pain for another hour or two when I could get what I needed. I knew it was contributing, but by that time, I didn’t have any other way to cope.

So, I did what a lot of us do, popped a pill, and then got my stuff ordered and waited for the delivery.

I have to say, the turn around has been pretty amazing. Monday night, I felt better before I even went to bed (though I did lay on my left side, because that’s supposedly the best way to keep gas bubbles from forming in your chest, which is what I think has been waking me up at night). Naturally, getting out of bed once Monday night and twice Tuesday night was…well, I think I pulled one of my incisions a bit too hard getting out of bed.

But the point is, the distention in my stomach has been reducing ever since, and I finally feel better than I have in a week. No pain killers needed.

I am angry, though, that for an entire week, I tried to get help, and I tried to impress upon several different medical professionals that something wasn’t right or normal, and the majority just told me to take more pills (or take them better). What a truly bad and sad commentary on our medical system. I lost nearly a full second week of work to this problem, but more than that, when I was in all that pain, I couldn’t do or focus on anything except how much pain I was in, so I couldn’t even properly advocate for myself. I know my pain tolerance, and I know when something can’t possibly be normal. I did try to tell people that, but I had no real energy to fight with.

And sleep. I’m more than a little annoyed that now, when I go to bed, I’m afraid to go to sleep because I am deathly afraid of waking up to that torturous pain that I was just…stuck in. I do have a wedge pillow now that I can use until that stupid upper incision heals. It’s not doing so well at the moment, but honestly, I have no intention of asking a nurse or doctor about it at this point. It doesn’t look like there’s a hernia around it, so I’m just going to take care of it myself. I’m really not trusting medical professionals as a whole at the moment.

Last night, I slept mostly through the night for the first time in a week. I got up this morning, I was hungry and made breakfast, read a couple of comic books, got dressed, put some dog treats in the dehydrator, texted my mom to bring over the spare wedge pillow they had, and chatted with her for a bit. The nurse navigator called, and I caught her up on all the goings-on, and requested a work release for Friday. I just need one more day to get some decent nutrients in this beat-up body of mine so my brain can function like it needs to while the rest of me actually heals.

This afternoon I need to top off my aquariums and do the budgeting/bill paying I couldn’t get done last week because…issues. Tomorrow I’ll do a small load of laundry (don’t fret – I have a grabber-thingy to help), and see if I can get my earrings back in (my cartilage piercings haven’t ever been out this long).

Also…RIP to my dear, departed gourami – King Louie. I don’t even really know what happened, because…*waves hands everywhere*, but the poor guy didn’t survive while my attention was elsewhere. 🙁

Now…onward to more healing and hopefully far, far less medical intervention. I’ve had enough of that this year to last a lifetime.

General News
Well then. It’s been “a minute”, as people seem to be saying now. I don’t know about you, but the older I get, the harder it is to keep up with the current vernacular. A co-worker of mine and I were looking up “yeet” the other day, which we both agree is just an odd word, and moreso since it has completely different meanings depending on whether you use it as a verb or not. Language is weird (fun, but also weird).

In any case, since my last post (over a month ago – wow!) I’ve had eye surgery to remove scars from my cornea, which resulted in a week of not being able to use backlit screens at all, and somewhat blurry/difficult vision for the past three weeks as well. This week will be my one-month check-up, and hopefully there will be more improvement than there was last week. It will be awhile before I can update my prescription, so I’m dealing with the wrong prescription for this eye now as it continues to heal, and I’m still having to use eye drops every couple of hours, which is…onerous. It’s just a waiting game though now, as my eye keeps healing and eventually stabilizes at something more usable (hopefully). Fingers crossed.

I also had a CT scan for some lower abdominal pain I’ve been having, and that caused some major drama when the radiologist decided I had early mild appendicitis. My primary doc told me to go to the ER right away to have my appendix removed, and I did, but the surgeon said she really didn’t think my appendix was infected, but that the problem was a “redundant colon” (which just means it’s longer and twistier than a normal one, and prone to chronic constipation). So she sent me home with a laxative, and my primary doc was still worried about appendicitis, so I’ve been on two weeks of a strong combo antibiotic “just in case” the ER surgeon got it wrong.

Needless to say, the antibiotic has been messing with my digestive system, so that the things I’m supposed to do to help “fix” the digestive problems just make everything worse with the side effects from the antibiotic. By the time you read this, I’ll have finished the antibiotic, and I’ll re-adjust my diet and see if that helps my digestive issues and stops the pain. My doc says there’s a chance that if it is my appendix, it will get worse later and I’ll still have to have it removed, so gotta keep track of the pain in that area regardless going forward. But if it isn’t my appendix, I should be able to manage my issues with diet and exercise, for the most part.

I tell you what – the older we get, the higher maintenance our bodies become, whether we like it or not. I’m pretty sure the antibiotic (or the diet I need to keep to deal with the side effects) and less exercise recently is making my hot flashes worse too. Fun times.

But, I’m still kicking, there’s nothing majorly wrong with me, and I can see well enough to work and read and write. So, nothing to do but keep moving forward and deal with everything as well as possible on a day-to-day basis.

Blogging has obviously taken a back-seat lately, but I think things are settling down enough that I’ll be able to do this regularly again. I’m getting back to writing, finally, and a couple of editing projects I put on hold as well.

So…impending medical bills aside, things are looking up, and I feel pretty good about the approaching new year.

I do have a very impressive “to do” list for my publishing imprint, as most of my original book covers are now too small, and have to be redone in a larger size, so I’ll be working on that soon here too. Luckily, I’m all paid up with my stock photography site subscription, so it’s just a matter of finding images and taking the time to create cover templates. I may be using some vacation days for that…but since all I’ve been using is sick time lately, I have plenty of vacation days that will need to be used up by March (or I’ll lose them).

In any case, I’ve survived the last month, and all indications are that I’ll be kicking around for a long while yet, so…time to get back to my normal routines. And find a place for the Christmas tree this year.

Watch this space – I have plenty of tales to tell and things to pontificate about, if you care to read along.

Jamie DeBree

Writer | DBA | Dog Wrangler

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