Surgery and Such

May 19, 2008

What a way to start a blog. On April 23 I was admitted to the hospital for surgery the following day.

Fourteen years ago, I had colon cancer and my surgeons feared it was terminal. I went through surgery then and they put my small intestines up into a mesh sling in order to irradiate heavily where the cancer had spread. I was left with a colostomy that was permanent. Come to find out, they thought I’d be dead within a year (or a few months!) and they were doing everything they could to save me for a few more months.

With the grace of God and many praying for me, I made a complete, cancer-free recovery after surgery, radiation and a year of chemotherapy. The recovery is still unexplained in medical terms. My surgeon calls me his “miracle”.

Unfortunately, the mesh sling they used had unknowingly started to disintegrate. I was having intestinal obstruction problems due to adhesions more and more frequently, but all my physicians and surgeons declined to do anything about it as more surgery would cause more problems. I learned to manage the worst obstructions with drugs and rest and they always managed to resolve themselves without surgical intervention.

God is so good! He sent a condition they had to address: my intestines had managed to adhere to my bladder through the mesh sling. I went in for what I thought was a UTI but my family physician couldn’t get it resolved, so he sent me to a urologist. He scoped the bladder and biopsied and found no cancer, but suspected the intestines were to blame, so sent me off for a CAT scan. The call from him was good in that there was no cancer, but then the next words out of his mouth were, “Do you have a surgeon?” and I knew I was in for it then! In consult with my surgeon, the decision was made (that I had to have it done) and the date was set. They told us the surgery would last about 4 hours and I could expect a hospital stay of five days. I was truly dreading it because of memories of the many problems after my previous surgery. Surgery day came and my hubby sat in the waiting room for over 5 ½ hours as they found some “unexpected complications”. Boy, am I ever glad I was asleep!

I had gotten so used to the pain caused by the adhesions, I’d learned to ignore the sharp cramps and just work my way through them. Folks, when something HURTS it is a signal from your body that something isn’t right! They were all correct in their diagnosis of the adhesions – there were many of them, (my surgeon used the term "a mass of adhesions") but what they didn’t know is that the mesh sling had disintegrated and perforated multiple places in my small intestines, causing fecal leakage out into the abdominal cavity. Yes, it was adhered to the bladder and they fixed that, but they had a large abscess going on and all of that had to be excised and repaired. The small intestine had to be resected to remove the perforated parts. If it had not been for the bladder problem, my surgeon told me he would not have operated and the leaky intestines would have gotten to the life threatening stage before they realized something else was going on. As I said, God is good!

My surgeon is thrilled with the surgery’s success (they had four surgeons in there helping out!) and he expects me to make a full recovery. One more surgery to reconnect the illeostomy (they reconnected the colostomy – one for the record books after 14 years!) and then if all works properly, I’ll be ‘self-contained’ once again. My second surgery is scheduled for June 2nd.

The recovery is too slow for me, but I’ve learned to do a little and then get back in the recliner for a rest. Even talking can wear me out (can you believe THAT?) This is probably more than anyone cares to know, but I want everyone to take this opportunity to get any nagging aches or pains looked after – don’t ignore signals from your body something is wrong.

A huge thank you to Linda Stoddard and Lois Evans who have cooked incredible meals for Jim and I. I’m truly enjoying my “gourmet meals on wheels” and my private nurse (hubby Jim) has one less thing to worry about – cooking. Linda S. kept most of the dogs for me – Kathie Lee remained at home as she is a gentle soul and would not insist on getting in my lap – and I’m happy to report that they came home today so the silence emanating from the kennel is no longer deafening. I’m sure they are going to miss “Camp Woodwynne” and the daily romps around and in Linda’s pond.

Jim and I have so appreciated the banana bread Mundina O'Driscoll brought by (and the feather hat that she saw me drooling over when several of us had a girl's day out last summer) and Mina Harrington's balloons and bear. Lorna Maynard sent the cutest "Get Well" bear and goodies that I actually got to enjoy - a mini chocolate chip cookie a day! I really thought I wouldn't be able to digest anything for at least a month, but things are really working well.

In the future I hope to tell a bit more about our travels and give a bit of background on the inspirations for most of my cross stitch designs lately. I'll also talk a bit about my judging adventures, as well.


Stephanie