Hello Everyone: Many thanks to all of you who asked about me and kept
me in your thoughts when I had my surgery on November 28. I wound up
being rushed back to the operating room on Dec. 4, Dec 7, Dec. 10 and
Dec. 14. So I am not yet 6 weeks postop. I will update my quilt when I
get a chance, but so far so good, I am still in some pain but for the
past couple of days I have only taken one pain pill each day. I went
through the surgery well-massive adhesions hanging from my diaphragm
along with a piece of my small intestine hung there also plus the many
more in my abdomen. None of my problems were the fault of my doctor. I
sprung a hole iny small intestine(I don't have a large intestine it was
removed in 1996. Of course with fecal contents in my peritoneal cavity
I became very ill with extremely high temp and had to be opened the
second time. To sum it up quickly, I would develop 2 fistulas, reject 2
implants of mesh for my hernia, one implant was Gortek mesh and then my
surgeon ordered especially for me a new hernia repair that is made from
pig intestines. He said he thought I would be a perfect candicate for
it and it had just been released for use in the USA. He said it would
blend in with a persons body and grow into their flesh and stay pliable
as opposed to the synthetic meshes that can get very stiff. However, I
might not have rejected it if I had not originally been contaminated
with fecal material eventhough I had been irrigated very well and
appeared not to have any spots eaten away by the contamination. So my
hernia was repaired by starting inside with suture and sewing tissue
together to try to hold the sides together until they could grow
together. So far so good can barely tell it was ever a huge hernia. My
last surgery was in 1996 when I had my large intestine removed because
it had been destroyed in an automobile accident. Lucky no colostomy.
Had just enough sigmoid to anastomose to small intestine. I am so
hopeful I will be one of the lucky ones but it's just one day at a
time. Thanks again. Dolores in Louisiana dtouch@bellsouth.net