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So, here we go again…
As you’ll remember, I had a surgery on 11/16 to hook everything back up, and it was actually successful.
On 1/9, April and I went to a museum, and it was pretty nice to actually get out and stuff. Saturday afternoon, started to feel bad.
Throughout Sunday, I got worse and worse, really just feeling flu-like symptoms, but just not feeling good at all. Thought I’d call the doctor Monday morning to try to figure out what to do.
On Monday, I started to get swelling around my wound. It got so large that by about midnight, it was about the size of a grapefruit under my hand. And that’s, uh… Yeah, that’s big. I’d already called the dr again and he’d said they’d admit me Tuesday morning.
Let’s just say that what you thought happened, and it was absolutely disgusting. And yep, you’ve heard these descriptions before, these are fistulas, caused by weak spots in tissue. For me, it’s because I have a problem with overhealing – it’s like my body doesn’t know when to stop, so it’s it makes still like this pretty tough to deal with.
We went up to the hospital and they immediately started tests. The CT scan showed a blockage and fistulas, and so at this point, there were two options.
1. Since the blockage and fistulas weren’t affecting any of the recently repaired areas, a surgery could be done with little concern as to whether or not the overhealing would be an issue in this area.
2. Allow the fistulas and rest of intestines to completely heal up by going on an IV only liquid diet. Once everything is healed, you just go in and seal it up.So another surgery was done on Thursday. The plan was to let me heal up over the weekend and then take do a test to see if the blockage was taken care of, and it was! All was looking well!
Then, the wound change. Damn. Fistulas opened right back up. So now, I’m going on this diet. No food, drink or anything for a minimum of 4 weeks, and a max of 16 weeks.
So wow, I’m tired of writing. So is this just the worst luck or what?
Sonofagun, thanks for the update but that sounds like it really sucks Robby. Bryan let me know you were back in there to take care of some issues so I was knocking on wood and walking under ladders and stuff hoping you would have some excellent results but I guess it didn’t work.
Do you at least get to chew gum or anything to keep your taste buds popping once in a while?
- Women sense my power and they seek the life essence.
All I know is that DARPA needs to quit fucking around with robots that can walk over all types of terrain, jump or run, and get the fuck to work on robotic innards. Rob’s ready you robot building bitches… build him a robotic GI tract with poop scheduling, bluetooth with iOS Health integration and an inline empty calorie incinerator. After all of this shit, he has to be better than human. I think he’s earned it.
If anyone deserves to be more machine than man it’s Robby.
- Women sense my power and they seek the life essence.
People keep telling me that this kind of thing teaches you things about yourself. Well, to whomever thinks I didn’t get it – PLEASE BELIEVE ME – I got it! I don’t need to learn anything more about myself, thanks.
A little update though. As I said before, I’m unable to eat anything except clear liquids, so the most food-like item I can have is like Jolly Ranchers and stuff, so I haven’t eaten any real food since like 1/11. It sucks, BAD.
Anyway, so one of the things that everyone (doctors and such) kept asking was if I’d had a bowel movement, because that would mean that the fistulas are starting to heal, which is very very good! If the fistulas heal on their own and my wound closes up without an issue, I should be able to avoid an additional surgery. My stomach would probably look funky, but believe me, all I want is to be done. I don’t care if it looks like Kuato or Krang or some shit when all this is done.
The problem is, not only am I pooping – I’m pooping A LOT! Like I’m actually eating food and stuff, but again, most of what I have is the damn IV stuff! It’s so unfair. It’s like paying for someone else’s parking tickets or something.
But hey, hopefully burgers are right around the corner, right?
HOPEFULLY!
I pray to all the gods who’ll listen for your return to safe and regular crapping Robby, believe me I do.
- Women sense my power and they seek the life essence.
But you aren’t pooping clear, right? Clear poop was all the rage during the marketing campaign, but in reality it kind of sucks.
But seriously, that’s a weird situation I didn’t expect you’d have. I’m learning things.
I’m not sure I understand the question. Clear pooping? As in, “it’s clear that I am pooping” or “my poop is clear”? Like transparent? It, uh, just looks like poop, but the ol’ watery poop.
It’s really strange though – there’s a part of me that wishes I still had the bag. Before that surgery in November, I really felt pretty damn good. Oh, sure, having a bag of poop sitting next to you at all times is pretty weird, but I was healed.
I believe that this latest problem is directly related to the last surgery – not that the doctor did something wrong, but messing with that stuff made something go wonky. They’ve said that there’s so much scar tissue in there that it’s crazy. 6 surgeries in 2 years is a lot.
Oh and you are right… it’s a crazy amount of surgery to go through. I mean sure, statistically 6 is a lot more than 5… like 1 lot more, but when you think about the fact that 1 surgery is a ton for any person to go through, you have gone through like a lot lot lot lot lot lot.
I’m being silly, but I’m really just in a weird mood and trying to make the point that you have been through 6 times more GI surgery than most people will ever go through. It’s really weird to think about it that way.
Right, which makes me 6 times more likely to be more of a badass than others. Or just 6 times more likely to have discussions about poo viscosity. Either way, that’s important stuff to know.
Just to pop out of nowhere and derail your conversation, Rob – how does insurance work for something like this in the US? Does having one or two surgeries disqualify you for further surgery because of some “preexisting” bullshit?
In Canada we are covered completely for surgeries/drugs/anything in hospital if they are “medically necessary” so basically anything which could potentially cause more damage if left untreated (no dental coverage by law unless performed in hospital)Oh, insurance definitely covers all this, although I’m sure at this point I’m sure they wish I’d just die.
We pay so much per month out of my wife’s check and then we have to pay a deductible. We reached our yearly deductible after the first day or so in the hospital. We’ve done some maths, and it appears that if our insurance company hadn’t worked out “deals” with the various hospitals and doctors I’ve used over the last two years, we would’ve had to shell out around 1.5 million. It’s insane.
Now here’s what I don’t get. I went from taking dilotid (a rather fantastic form of morphine) in the hospital to a mild codeine at home. Just so everyone remembers, I HAVE AN OPEN WOUND ABOUT 18 INCHES LONG AND 3 INCHES WIDE. You’d think there’d be some sort of middle ground. It’s not like the dilotid made me see shit or anything – it just made me relax completely after an initial tension in my shoulders. It made me immediately forget the pain. The codeine never really did it for me. I just don’t get it.
Plus, in addition to THE OPEN FUCKING WOUND, I’ve been through some things in the past couple of years. What I want more than anything is to just go to sleep and somebody wake me when it’s time for me to wake up and kick ass. This whole “weakness/go slow/you’re too fragile/nope you can’t eat that/farts are loaded with liquid hot poo/that’s a new smell” shit has gotten, as you can imagine, quite old.
That’s a crazy amount of money you would have had to pay, so thankfully you have some working insurance. And I can imagine the codeine really isn’t much for that, I couldn’t even imagine being in your situation though. Good on you dude for sticking it out though, not many people can say they’ve got real scars for going through some serious shit
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