The official name for the type of surgery I had is small bowel resection. But what my surgeon specifically performed was a hunt & fix (and by fix I mean snip, clamp, and remove small pieces) for candy cane syndrome, with a side of searching for, finding and stitching a few more small voids (small, open areas around my small intestines that allow my intestines to move around and get twisted and/or tangled up on themselves) to fix.
Yes, that is as painful as it sounds. Doubly so when you take into account the fact that I just had a very similar surgery ten weeks ago. I woke up, groggy and so out of it I was barely able to open my eyes (though I do recall a nurse yelling at me not to rub my eyes due to the risk of a corneal abrasion due to dry eyes after surgery), but very much aware of being in so much pain that I wanted to die. A voice asked my pain threshold on a scale of 1-10. I responded with, “15“, was shot up with several doses of Morphine (at least two that I know of), and then I went back to blissful la-la-land, waking up perhaps an hour or two later to find myself in my room.
I stayed overnight this time. Dan and Jason were both with me initially. Then Jason left to go back to our house to be there for when Alyssa and Ryan got home, and he fed them dinner and them brought them back to visit me. Jason then stayed with me overnight while Dan took the kids home and put them to bed. But not before helping me to the bathroom first.
Ah, the first bathroom trip after surgery. It’s what I dread most about post-op. Despite being heavily medicated, holding a pillow to my stomach as a splint, and having both Dan and Jason’s help in getting out of bed and making the longggggggg trek down to the other end of the recovery suite (of course the only patient who had abdominal surgery was put in the room that was only second-furthest away from the bathroom), it was agonizing. Dan had to help me get down onto the toilet, and it took several minutes for my still half-asleep bladder to wake up enough to do its job. And walking back… I seriously nearly fainted. My vision began darkening at the edges, and my normal hearing was replaced with a dull roar that got progressively louder as my vision got progressively darker and the pain in my stomach got progressively more excruciating. It was a relief to get back to my bed, though of course the twisting motions involved with sitting down and then laying down are nowhere near pain-free.
I was discharged around 11:00am Wednesday morning, after a night of drug-induced sleep broken up by pain and painful bathroom trips. Oh, and then there was the hour and 15 minutes in which I asked a nurse for more pain medication twice, was assured that I’d receive it, and then was promptly forgotten about. It just so happened that as I was painfully inching my way down my hospital bed towards the foot of it, where I hoped to be able to reach the tote bag that contained the newly-filled prescription for Percocet, that my actual nurse (not the useless nurse’s assistant) happened to walk in, took one look at my face (I was crying by that point), got me back in bed, and loaded me up with Percocet and ice packs for my belly (SO AMAZING) and compression boots for my legs and a fresh blanket and reamed out the nurse’s assistant in front of me, apologized profusely, and then personally checked on me multiple times throughout the rest of the night and early morning.
Oy. But shitty nurses (nice personalities, just crappy as nurses – BRING ME THE DRUGS, WOMEN!) aside, and Jason’s additional goal to my list of discharge goals, which made everybody who saw it laugh, and me apparently taking a swing at Jason the one time when he woke me up so a doctor could talk to me (I still have no idea why I did that, so I’ll blame it on the drugs), my hospital stay was uneventful. The wheelchair ride was uncomfortable, the car ride home was uncomfortable, dragging myself into the house sucked, but once I was settled in bed and re-medicated with fresh ice packs on my stomach, all was as well as could be.
I slept surprisingly well last night, which I thank Tylenol PM for. That combined with the Percocet seems to be enough to give me 4-6 hours of interrupted sleep, which is more than I’ve ever gotten post-op with just pain medication alone.
Now I have annoying itchiness and burning to add to my post-op misery – either my surgeon or her team didn’t listen to me say over and over that I’m allergic to whatever surgical tape they used after the last two surgeries, because THEY USED IT AGAIN. UGH. I peeled it off tonight, patted dry the already-oozing areas around the incisions, put a tiny bit of Neosporin on the incisions themselves and then Band-Aids over them, but it’s too late – I’m already developing a reaction. I’m going to slather on some topical analgesic, and Dan is going to pick up Benadryl on his way home from work.
Hopefully this is the last time I have to go through all of this anxiety and pain and misery. I don’t know how much more I can take of all this!
Hello! I'm Jenn, and this is Jenn.nu, my personal blog. I'm 27 years 
Don’t bother with the Benadryl. Benadryl is diphenhydramine which is also the ingredient in the Tylenol PM that makes you sleepy. Just take that
CarrieAnn’s last blog entry: Easy
This. You may be able to use a different kind of allergy medicine in combination with the Tylenol PM.
Tylenol PM is around 500mg of acetaminophen with 25mg of Benadryl in it. You can probably do up to 50mg of Benadryl safely, but if you do more you can have problems. Also, if the tylenol pm isn’t helping you might consider seeing a doctor for the reaction.
Feel better.
Stephen Battey’s last blog entry: Work and Coffee Shops
Everything about that process sounds incredibly painful. Ugh. I hope you have a quick recovery.
Amanda’s last blog entry: Me = 1 MD = 0
I am seriously beginning to think that your surgeon or her team does not a) listen, b) get it, or c) have anything else they can use (which answer c makes no sense because I’ve had hypo-allergenic tape used on me, not that it actually stuck to me.)
As for the nurses – that’s so par for the course it isn’t even funny.
Sorry you had to deal with all that.
Charity’s last blog entry: Figuring Out What You Want To Do
Ugh…that sounds just horrible Jenn. I can’t imagine having to go through surgeries like you have. It’s probably the one thing that really scared me away from the thought of gastric bypass / lap band surgery when my doctor mentioned it a few years ago…all the potential complications.
Let’s hope that this time the surgery works and you won’t have to put up with any more pain like you have been!
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Oh my goodness! It sounds like you had a hell of an experience. I hate nurses/assistants sometimes. They really need to learn that pain management is a huge deal and to just forget a patient like that is unacceptable. I’m glad she reamed the assistant out. They deserved it! I hope you feel better soon and don’t have to endure any more surgeries.
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Ick, sounds awful. I hope your pain subsides quickly and you get back to normal soon. And hopefully this surgery fixed the problem!
Hope you feel better soon, Jenn!