Pre symptoms; for instance if you sustained a bowel injury during a scope surgery, it is possible for it to form an abcess and "wall off" this means for example; Say you sustain a thermal injury during scope surgery. The intestines may only be partially burned through not all the way to form an immediate perforation. What happens is your body will try to heal itself and form an abcess around the injury...walling off the injury. This basically isolates the pocket of infection that forms. As far as symptoms at this point; they can be anything from a very low grade fever(or normal temp), slight nausea(or none), and increasing moderate pain(misdiagnosed as surgical pain) to any number of severe symptoms. If you have an xray a doctor may interpret it as a (forgot the technical term) but basically a pocket of fecal matter and send you home or try to give you something to make you poop (which is a very very very bad idea). As the tissues begins dying and sloughing off, in the case of a burn injury, the hole now has gone completly through the intestinal wall but remember, your body may have walled this off so at this point nothing from the intestines is getting into the abdominal cavity. Fecal matter may be getting into the abcessed area which is probably creating more of an infection. It's still contained though. Eventually this abcess is going to burst like any other abcess regardless of what you eat or don't eat. You are feeling anything from a tiny bit ill, out of sorts, just not right, to seriously ill). Maybe you are not hungry at all so very little is going through your system especially if all you are eating is broth and yogurt... So, you go to the ER. They pump you full of antibiotics, send you home with some, give you antiemetics, and strong pain medication. They possibly suspect you have a post surgical infection which is partially correct...you have an abcess. You take your meds and you begin to feel better. You still feel not quite right but sure feel a lot better because the antiemetics took care of the nausea and the pain pills are keeping you out of pain cause you are taking them every four hours. So, your hubby wants to celebrate. It's been a week since your surgery and you finally have an appetite...the not eating has caught up with you. So you go out to eat. On the way home you begin feeling, "odd". You can't pinpoint what is wrong. You arrive home, walk in the house, and suddenly you are critically ill. You spike a high fever (104-106), you begin vomitting, you experience "gas" pains, and you have to sit down. You can't lie down becuase it causes too much pain. You can't cover yourself with a blanket because it causes pain. you have trouble swallowing. You'd do anything to quit vomitting, if you happen to be vomitting, because it causes the most excruciating pain you have ever felt in your entire life...even if you gave birth without drugs. You just get sicker and sicker and sicker. What has happened is that meal you ate was just what was needed to bust that abcess and spill the contents of your intestines into your abdominal cavity(i don't remember if it's the pressure or gasses that do it or the infection getting worse). Now you are in trouble and need to get to the hospital ASAP. Now, if you were to have an xray it would show free-air in your belly. If you call your doc and he is good he'll have you call an ambulance. If you get one of those jerk doctors, he'll call in more meds and tell you to "go get some sleep and call me in the morning" (in which case you call the ambulance and tell the arrogant s.o.b. to go to h-e- double hockey sticks and never go back to him again.). By the way, you should have been admitted the first time you went to the hospital, urgent care, or ER. When you have had scope surgery...any of these symptoms are to be taken as red flags...the docs are supposed to assume the patient has a perforation until ruled out. This is in a teaching book somewhere...the kind for scope surgery and I'm basically recalling the best I can from memory.
There are other perforations, wallings off, etc that can happen in other aresa of the body for similar reasons as well. For instance "pelvic abcess(cultures positive for the gut bacteria) with severe bleeding, can have it's very own symptoms and you may not get help for 14 days or more after surgery...and then only palliative care....This one will have to wait for part 2 though. Holy Toledo, please, if your doctor prescribes large doses of valium (for you to pick up at the drugstore and take at home) for a case of internal bleeding and shock, don't take it!!!!! Not a good idea. You are suffering from shock due to an enormous loss of blood, you take a large dose of valium, what are your chances of waking up? You need to take care of you. If something doesn't sound right you need to question it. Both of these instances, following this particular doctor's orders...i'll leave you to figure out what the outcome could have been.
By the way, I know of a gentleman who had surgery and it took one year...he kept having symptom after symptom but it finally took him (due to an iatrogenic injury). It was a strange case but, everyone's body is different, reacts different, etc.