Hello friends and family,
I have been getting Lot's of inquiries to how I am feeling and what is going on. Well I am going to give you the break down for my journey and what I have left in store for me.
Back in October of last year I made the decision to pursue bariatric surgery. I chose Dr. David Kim to perform my gastric sleeve surgery. Yes he is the one on the bill boards, tv, and was Nate Newton and Ben Rogers doctor. Through a long laundry list of items to check off, from weight loss meetings to sleep studies. On April 1st I got my surgery approved through Aetna and tipped the scales 363 pounds.
On April 1st I started the Atkins diet again. On May 17th I went to an all liquids diet, drinking chocolate protein shakes, chicken broth, water, PowerAde zero, and propel. I was 346 lbs when I started this diet. I battled all the way to June 6th which was my surgery date. I hit the scales at 324 pounds on the day of surgery.
Surgery was a big success. Dr. Kim performed 14 surgeries on that day, and of the 14 patients I was one of only 2 or 3 to get to go home the next day. I followed the instructions daily from not driving to sticking to all liquids. At my follow up appointment on June 14th I touched the scales at 305 pounds. Everything was on the downhill.
Weight loss was occurring daily I got less than 300lbs for the first time since 1999. Very excited for the progress I was making. On Monday June 27th I started my first taste at real food. It was pureed food but real food at that. All throughout last week I was noticing pain in my right side after I would eat. It would travel from the front back to causing discomfort after I would eat. The pain would eventually go away and come back every time I would eat. The other noticeable problem was not being able to pee.
All of these warning signs promoted Jaime and I to head to USMD urgent care for a work up. We were looking for a CT scan and lab work. It didn't take long for the doctors to determine that I had a leak, or abscess around my sleeve. I was relatively quickly transported by ambulance to Forest Park Medical Center. I was immediately taken to a room. More scans, more labs, more test were run. Sunday morning a JP drain was placed into my back to reach the damaged area and let it drain. They penetrated two ribs and went through my pleural space. I was also given a picc line into my right shoulder. That touches my heart in an effort to feed me through IV.
We have learned that I have a hole in my stomach to what size we don't know yet. On top of that we have an abscess. So I am being treated with very heavy antibiotics to boot. Tomorrow morning I am going to have one more CT scan to determine if the hole is healing or not. If it is not healing they are going to do surgery on Thursday morning. Dr. McGee will perform an endoscopy procedure with a camera down my throat. He will then place a stent in my stomach. On top of that they are also going to put in a J tube. This is a feeding tube that will be below my stomach. I will have this tube for 6 weeks. No food again for 6 more weeks.
This is a hard time for me. Very strange place and very hard for me to understand what is going on. It is frustrating; it's going to be difficult. But as usual life doesn't slow down for your personal problems. The word is that I will get to go home at the earliest on Saturday. Potentially could be two weeks just depending upon how things go. This is a day by day situation.
No comments:
Post a Comment