Another Surgery
From: Jen in Houston (Jennifer.Bayles@sbmimodco.com)
Wed Mar 30 17:07:14 2005
Hi everyone. I haven't posted in quite some time
as the past year and a half have been more than
challenging as far as my health was concerned.
My introduction to adhesions happened in 1998 with
the removal of my gallbladder. No stones involved,
but it was badly infected and covered with adhesions
that had partially obstructed my small intestines.
Sounds familiar, huh?
So, we move on to a lap appendectomy and open
hysterectomy. I had grave misgivings about the
open hysterectomy, but the doc talked me into it
saying that he couldn't get to all the places where
endo might be hiding if he used the scope. Three
months later, I was back in the hospital having
18" of colon resected due to adhesions. They had
also reformed all over the old gallbladder surgery
site. Within 2 months, I'm partially obstructed
again, throwing up, in pain, the usual drill. The
surgeon who did the resection surgery refused to go
back in. Fair enough. Thankfully my gastro doc
took the trouble to help me find a surgeon who
would take a peek. Sure enough. More adhesions
in the lower pelvis, but curiously, the anastamosis
was untouched.
Six months later, the symptoms slowly started
showing up again and very gradually worsened.
Last June the intermittent vomiting started up again
and the missing of work and the laying around on
the couch afraid to move, eating only liquids....
the usual routine. The week before Christmas I
finally tanked and couldn't go to work. It
practically took an act of Congress to get one
doctor to sign the papers for my short-term disability
coverage. Pain meds were simply refused. The
three surgeons I consulted flatly refused to help -
one even treated me to a 10-minute lecture on tort
reform. Good thing he tipped his hand to the lawsuit
he was involved in, eh?
The whole problem boiled down to the fact that
adhesions are an invisible disease. If they don't
show up on a test (which they don't)docs are extremely
loathe to write it down on a piece of paper or act on
it. If it doesn't have an ICD-9 code, the condition
doesn't exist to insurance companies.
I finally decided that if I had to see every freakin
surgeon in Houston to get these adhesions taken down
again, I'd do it. That was my mission. Pain management
was a joke and nothing, not even zofran, was touching
the nausea and vomiting. Big surprise. I lost 18
pounds from Dec. 15 to Feb. 11 since I could only
eat small amounts of liquids about 4 hours apart. And
the docs either just shrugged and said nothing, told
me it was all in my head and I needed a shrink, or
accused me of being a drug seeker and worse.
Long story shortened - the surgeon who did the
initial gallbladder and appendix surgery came back
on my insurance and I went to see him. He had me on
the table the next day. Once again, it was adhesions
at the old gallbladder surgery site wrapped all over
my liver and small intestines. The nausea was gone
as soon as I woke up from the surgery and never came
back. I was a little concerned about the remaining
pain, but it is slowly receding and I don't need any
more narcotics to control it. Suspect that the pain
receptors were in the "on" position for so long,
they're having trouble getting used to being off.
In any event, I can live with the little pain I have
now and I'm tremendously happy with the surgery. The
good news is that nothing is going on in the lower
pelvis. Crossing my fingers it stays that way.
Had I not had the surgery, I would have lost my job,
lost my insurance coverage, disability coverage would
not have paid, and I was slowly on my way to losing
my life through starvation. NOBODY IN THE MEDICAL
PROFESSION WOULD LISTEN!! At least, until I hooked
back up with my old surgeon again. :-) At least he
is willing to go back in again if and when I become
totally desperate again. I'm sure many of you know
just how much of a load off my mind it is to have a
doctor that will not give me a bunch of BS if I have
to go through this again. Fine, I'll do the gastro
work; I'll try the pain management; but when it gets
to the point that I'm throwing up several times a
day whether I eat or not, enough is enough.
My message is this: do not give up. Go outside your
insurance after you've exhausted every doc in it.
You do not have to take some idiot, do-nothing,
worthless "doctor's" word that nothing can be done.
Wishing everyone pain-free days and the courage
and strength to face the ones that aren't.
Jen
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