Hello everyone! I hope this post sees ya’ll doing well. I would like to give you the details regarding a surgery that I had at Mayo this past October. This surgery would entail fixing the hole that is in my bladder from my 2020 surgery and fixing the fistula that has also been there around the same time.
Back this past August, I decided to go ahead and have a surgery that would get me back to feeling better and being my old self. I have had a drain in my abdominal cavity since this past 2022 February and I was desperately wanting it out because I really would like to swim and soak in a bath. I really didn’t know how much I missed it until I couldn’t do them. I also decided that I wanted The Mayo Clinic to perform the surgery because they were supposed to be the best around.
When I called for a date for the surgery, I tried to get ahold of my G.I. doctor there and they told me that he had graduated, because he was a fellow, so they looked to see who his attending physician that was over him was and he too, had left The Mayo Clinic in Rochester to go to The Mayo Clinic in Arizona. That meant that I did not have a G.I. doctor at Mayo anymore to schedule the surgery for me. I told Mayo my situation and they told me I could go ahead and have the surgery then they would assign me a G.I. doctor to look after my recovery. I called my surgeon, someone who I had already met with previously, and scheduled a surgery date. October 25th, 2022 would ultimately be the day.
The time was approaching quickly. My husband and I went to The Mayo Clinic on a Sunday, I was going to go through testing and consultations on Monday and the surgery was on Tuesday. I seen the urologist first. My husband, Mark, and I immediatly liked her. She was very thorough in her field. She did a cystogram test on me to see exactly where the hole in my bladder was. Mark was also in the room and could see the inside of my bladder, the hole and the fistula. He thought that was pretty neat and in the meantime I’m not liking the test at all because they had to stick a cannula through my ureter in order to take a look. I was very uncomfortable. In the meantime, she seen what she was looking for and we finished and went on to the surgical appointment.
The surgeon told us that the surgery could go either of 2 ways: 1) she could get in there, find what she’s looking for easily, fix it and get out, or 2) get in there, can’t find the area easily and have to cut her way through and a lot more intestine would be cut out. That’s not good because I already have a short gut and really can’t afford to get much more cut out. At least she told me the truth even though it wasn’t pleasant. The next appointment was with the anesthesiologist. She just asked a whole lot of questions about everything. I was given my meds for a good clean out and left Mayo just to see it again early the next morning.
When we left Mayo, we went shopping and out to eat. I could eat one meal before I started to clean myself out. I chose a place where they serve breakfast all day. I had all the fixins of a breakfast that I could handle then we barricaded ourselves in the hotel for the remainder of the night. Later that night, I had to call The Mayo Clinic to see what time I had to be there for my surgery. Surgery was at 8:00am.
I got there bright and early that morning. Everything seemed to be going as scheduled. My whole team consisted of women; the surgeon, the urologist and the anesthesiologist. I knew I was in good hands and was told by a couple of nurses there that I had the A team. I was also told that I had the best surgeon they had so I felt really confident my surgery was going to go good. The anesthesiologist told me the day before that they were going to give me an epidural of opiods in my spine instead of giving it to me through the IV because it would be less addictive. So they reel me in, give me the epidural, sedated me and out I was!
When I woke up, I remember them bringing me into a hospital room. My husband was there and he told me they didn’t do anything to me!!! They opened me up, looked around, cut a few adhesions out and closed me back up! Neither one of us was very happy at that time. When the surgeon came in to talk to us, she told us that they opened me up and my small intestines where attached to my bladder, therefore she couldn’t lift them off the bladder to see the fistula nor the hole without my quality of life changing drastically so she sewed me back up. That said, if I ever have to have another surgery, she told me she would have to take all my small intestine out and I would be TPN dependent for the rest of my life. We understood where she was coming from then, but I still didn’t like it because I still have this drain attached to me.
After 5 days in the hospital, they released me to go home. I noticed something wasn’t quite right with my stomach but wasn’t sure what it was until about a week after I got home. I’m going to save this secret until the next post. Another adventure. Just remember to take this disease and all of it’s issues one day at a time. I was really looking forward to getting things fixed so that I can go on living my life the best I can. On the other hand, as bad as I must be for Mayo to open me up and close me back up, I still believe that I have a little bit of life left in me before the next “Big” surgery comes around. I’m going to begin living my life to the fullest until then!
Chow for now,
Kelly