I had surgery on Aug. 31st, liquid diet the day before and then the morning of the surgery I was terrified but went ahead with it, knowing it would only better me down the road. From the moment I woke up from the surgery I was in pain, however my incisions were looking good, and I was told this was not out of the norm. Went home around 6pm that day. That night I was in so much pain when I came home I took the 'liquid Tylenol' as told by the surgeon and it was no help I ended up crushing a vicodin just so I could sit up.
In the next few days I slept sitting up in a chair, to where finally I couldn't even lean back and hardly walk, all along I was told this was gas.. and to walk it off. walk walk walk When I went in for my one week of post op I was told that my incisions looked great, like I even cared at that point I had hardly slept in a week and any movement was painful, my mom was convinced that since most of the pain was in my lower pack it was pneumonia or something of the sorts, she then insisted that they give me a chest x ray, in which they did another barium swallow and said oh yeah everything is fine, its gas walk it off. So at this point I go home (wed one week after surgery) and I walk, I cry when walking it is so painful, at this point I have gone through 4 bottles of liquid Tylenol. But they know what they are talking about so I force myself to walk. Saturday morning I get up and start coughing up blood, I call the drs office back and they tell me, its nothing to worry about, probably just anesthetic that I am coughing up. Basically I am "bothering" them at this point and they tell me if I want to persure this further I can take it up with my family physician. The next morning I do the same thing at this point my mom takes me to the emergency room.
Now I still can barely walk, cant lay down, sleep leaning forward on a table and the back pain has spread around to the front and I am coughing blood. They diagnose me with pneumonia, and admit me to the hospital, on Sept. 10. The next morning I go in for an MRI and they find that my right lung is literally floating on a sac of Fluid, 2 cavities of my lung are completely collapsed and evidence of the pneumonia. in the next few days they drain 450cc (over a liter) of fluid from my lungs and area surrounding, at this point they can clearly see that I have the two collapsed cavities and a hefty case of pneumonia in my lower cavity.
I spent 7 days in the hospital total, and this was all brought on, from what they conclude that I aspirated during my surgery which could be due to positioning or a number of other factors. I am out now, and home since Sunday, just being out of the hospital makes a person feel better, I am on a lot of medication, in a lot of pain, and down 16ish pounds. I am sure this is a rare thing that happened to me, but I think people should be aware of the things which can happen and my advice to everyone is that, if a dr tells you something and you don't agree with it, make someone listen, the pain I went through could have been avoided more had someone where I had my surgery had taken the time in my opinion.
Oh and also the X-ray from the one week post op was sent to the hospital during my stay and they said they could see a dark spot at the tip of my lung at that point, which the lung specialist is now disputing with the staff, as this could have bought me 5 days of getting treatment earlier.
I know now that the surgery is over and done with and the lap band is in me and I am sure it will do its job, but do I regret it, yeah overall I do, I don't place blame, I was aware that surgery can cause complications, but being in a hospital and in pain for close to 3 weeks really makes you think. Now for the rest of my life I have to worry about respiratory complications in addition to handling the lap band.
sorry maybe I needed to vent, but yeah that's my story!
PS, I am a graduating senior from college, oh wait I WAS due to being out for so long there isn't any way I can finish this semester as I am not even released to do , well anything at this point but sit around and lay in bed and try to recover. :sick