What a day this has been. It all started on Thanksgiving Day, which was spent at Greg and Angie King’s (Laurie’s brother and wife and kids). The dinner was a spread fit for a king – and I was very careful to eat the proper amounts – a spoonful of this, a spoonful of that. But the desserts did me in. I had to have a piece of carrot cake. It was a small piece, but within a few minutes I knew that I had done a bad thing.
As part of the gastric bypass surgery, high sugar and high fat or greasy foods are a no-no. Failure to understand this can bring something called “dumping syndrome”. Well starting about 4pm yesterday, I was miserable. My entire gut ached. To the point that I could not get any rest or even get comfortable. This went on all evening, and about 10:30pm I got sick. That is the first time I have gotten sick since the surgery. Then I got sick again. I self-medicated myself with a painkiller and tried to get some sleep.
About 3am I was awoke again with the abdominal pain. I tried to go to the bathroom (no luck) and my gut was aching so…. I vomited again. Finally at 7:30am, hoping that my surgeon’s office would open at 8am, I called the office and the on-call service paged the surgeon on call – Dr. Charlie Proctor, Jr. My surgeon was Dr. Robert Richard; along with Dr. Charlie Proctor, Sr., those three guys make up Surgical Associates of Gainesville, GA – and are ObesitySolutions.com. (Dr Richard is in the middle, Dr. Charlie Proctor (Jr) is on the left, Dr. Charlie Proctor Sr. is on the right)
Dr. Proctor said for me to try to have a “liquid breakfast” and see if I could keep it down at all and to call him back if I got sick. Two sips of water later and I was back on the phone with him. He said to go ahead and get dressed and head to the ER at the NE GA Medical Hospital in Gainesville, GA – he would call ahead and let them know I was on my way. I awoke Laurie and we hit the road.
When we arrived the ER was deserted! I was immediately checked in, vitals taken, and was escorted to an ER observation room. The ER doctor in charge introduced himself – Dr. Paul Merlis . Dr. Merlis said that Dr. Proctor had called and filled him in on my case and that Dr. Proctor wanted me to have a CT scan of my abdomen to see if there was a blockage, hernia, distention, or stricture. The nurses came in and took my vitals and started an IV and left me with 32oz of orange-flavored contrast which I was to consume over a 90 minute period. This all took place within the first 20 minutes of my arrival at NEGA hospital. What customer service!
The nurse did give me Zofran for nausea, but my stomach still just ached and pulsed. I drank about ½ of the first 16oz of the contrast and asked for some pain killer – they gave me a dose of Dilaudid and boy did that do the trick! The doc said this drug is a morphine extract, and once administered, I was able to complete the entire 32oz of contrast and promptly at 11:30am I was being wheeled into the CT Scan room. The CT scan took 15 minutes and I was back in the ER feeling much better.
I was very surprised when Dr. Merlis reported back to me that the CT scan had shown a blockage of my small bowel. Oh how disheartening! Dr Proctor was also the on-call surgeon for the ER this weekend, and he was currently operating on a stab would victim – but he would be in as soon as that surgery was completed. Dr. Merlis though that I would need to have an NG tube inserted to continually empty my stomach of all contents while I was being treated for the blockage – at least one overnight and possibly surgery meaning even more nights…. And Laurie is leaving for Sugarland, TX to see her daughter and new grandbaby in 3 days! Things were not looking so good for the home team.
But I felt very good – Laurie and I started talking about “what if?”s…. but until we could talk to Dr. Proctor, everything was up in the air. Over the next hour or so several very sick folks came through the ER – a critical infant, and elderly lady who had a heart attack, a hunting accident…. With little time to prepare for this, I had left home without anything to read or occupy my time, and the tiny TV in the ER room was …… not so good. :o)
But the next thing I know, Dr. Proctor is in the room. He asks me to lay back and inspects my abdomen. He notices and comments on the hernia that I had operated on back in the early 1990’s – he recommends I have that “taken care of” again as it seems to have aggravated itself and was in need of some attention. He picked and prodded, but then said that the blood work came back fine, my numbers looked good, and his interpretation of the CT scan was that there was NOT a blockage and that I take it very, very easy for the next few days – and released me! I already had an appointment with Dr. Richard for Monday of next week, and Dr. Proctor said that was excellent, and he recommended that I back up to a liquid diet for a day or so, then go back to soft foods and stay there till I see Dr. Richard on 11/30.
Then we went back into a waiting pattern, as Dr. Merlis was treating the critically sick infant and was unable to sign my release form. About an hour later the nurse came in and removed the IV and released me! It was 4:30pm.
What a bizarre day. I wonder what tomorrow will bring?
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