While some of you may know or read some of the details in yesterdays post, here is a little run down of my life in December. Be prepared that this is really long and I didn't go back through and proof read!!
On the Saturday after Thanksgiving, I ended up in the Waverly ER with terrible stomach aches. After a couple of unsuccessful cat scans, the surgeon and doctor decided to admit me to the hospital to try and figure out what was going on. The stuff that you drink before a cat scan wasn't going through me so they thought I had an obstructed bowel or twisted intestines, neither of which were good situations. I had the pain a couple of times before and it all worked itself out so they thought maybe if I got relaxed enough, things would untwist or work themselves out. This was not the case! My pain continued to be uncontrolled and continued to escalate. I finally was given another pain medicine that knocked me out at least so I could get some sleep. Whoever says morphine is a wonder drug, I strongly disagree!
I spent Saturday night, all day Sunday, and Monday morning in Waverly. Monday morning Xrays showed that nothing had moved through my GI tract and the doctors finally decided to transfer me to Iowa City for at least some more observation and the possibility that they could figure something out. Before I went, I had to have a nose tube put in. To say the least, this isn't a very pleasant procedure!
I was transferred to the Iowa City Hospitals via ambulance, which may be the roughest ride ever---right up there with Gavin's truck. Upon arrival, we (the ambulance guys and myself weren't exactly sure where I was supposed to be). My papers said the pediatric unit, which they thought was wrong considering I am 23. I tried to explain to them that I am typically followed by pediatrics due to my birth defect. Ya, birth defect. I have a condition in which all of my organs are backwards. It is called Total Situs Inversus. Yes, my heart is on the opposite side of my body and no I do not do the Pledge of Allegiance any differently than you. :-) Typically, if you have any issues with this, it is while your are a baby, meaning the pediatricians know more about it and why they follow me. Once in my room, in the pediatric unit, I was hooked up to all sorts of monitors and greeted by a team of residents. Have you ever seen the show House where like 6 doctors come in and surround your bed. This is what it was like in my room every time they came in. I wasn't exactly happy to see them, as they all wanted a chance to push on my stomach which caused me to want to punch them. Each time they came in, they would do their thing, go directly outside of my room and meet with Dr. Pitcher, my surgeon, and then they would all come back in and Dr. Pitcher would talk to me.
His first conversation with me was a little scary! He let me know that he had seem my scans before I had got there and he was worried about several things he saw. He was pretty sure that my intestines were twisted but he also thought that there were some things that were not where they belonged. Remember when I said most issues were when you were a baby.....not with me. Up until this point in my life, the doctors have thought I would live completely normal and were under the understanding that all of my organs had totally rotated. He also informed me that he had called for emergency surgery and it was going to be classified Class A, meaning I would be the next one in the operation room. At this point I went into a little bit of freak out mode as my parents nor Gavin were at the hospital. I wasn't even sure if they were on their way yet. After a couple of calls, I learned that my parents were in the building but Gavin had just left Waverly. Total bummer! Dr. Pitcher continued to inform me about the surgery and his news continued to get worse. After reviewing my scans again he didn't feel that he could do surgery through a scope and was going to have to do an abdominal incision. I immediately argued this point and begged for the scope. Come on! I wear a swimming suit the entire summer. A scar was not what I wanted. Evidently keeping me alive meant a little more than me not wanting a scar and my parents told the doctor to do what he needed to do. This led to a small argument with my dad, right in front of the surgeon----he was taken a little off guard but promised to try the scope first. With all the drugs, I didn't realize at this point how serious my condition was. The nurses quickly prepped me and ran me and my bed through the halls. This was seriously the most hectic thing ever!!!
Once in the operating room, I realized the surgeons were pretty excited about what was going on. Excited in a way that this was the first time they had seen this, which meant I had LOTS of residents and surgeons looking on. In fact, I was in the observation room which had a window with more people looking on. Slightly overwhelming.....just took some large deep breaths in through the mask and I was out!
I woke up in the recovery room 2 hours later and was in so much pain that they put me right back under. My second time waking up was a little better and after a chat with the nurse, she wheeled me up to my room. I was met there by Gavin, my parents, and my aunt and uncle. Bless there souls, because I was a little bit of a mess. They let me know right away that the scope wasn't a success and my incision was a little bit larger than even what they though it was going to be. Bigger...meaning like 8 inches of them cutting through 7 layers of tissue. Before bed, pain management was the goal. My parents had gotten a hotel so left when things calmed down a little. Gavin had planned to stay but we learned that "boyfriends" are not welcome overnight on the pediatric floor. To say he was a little wound up is an understatement. Even when you're 23 & 29, they treat you like a ped.
Through surgery, we learned that my small intestine has grown inside a pocket of my large intestine my entire life--a complication of my organs being reversed. I was feeling so much pain because the hole they fell into was contracting/closing and cutting off blood supply to my intestines causing them to twist. Apparently this isn't something to mess around with and I am lucky to be alive. Dr. Pitcher also found that I have some veins and arteries running over organs instead of under them, which could be dangerous if anyone else would ever cut into me. This little detail wound me up with a medical bracelet....yipee. He also removed my appendix during surgery so that I wouldn't ever have to be opened for complications with it.
The night was rough but Tuesday rolled around and my room filled with flowers. My stomach ache was gone but the pain from surgery and my incision was intense. My morphine button became my friend and I waited for it to light up every 15 minutes. I typically hate, refuse, and don't even consider medicine and try and tough it out but that wasn't an option. For the next couple of days, things continued to get better. I wasn't allowed any food or even a drink of water until Wednesday night. For those of you that think I have looked a little thin, this is why! Getting that darn nose tube out was the best thing ever!!! I've never been so happy to just get a swig of water.
Because my small intestine was compromised in four different locations, the true sign if those spots survived was to see if my GI tract got up and running again. Yes, this means that in order to see if I was okay, I had to have a bowel movement. I have never had so many people ask me this question in my life. As soon as it happened though, I was out the door. The ride home was a little less than desirable to say the least.
The next week led to lots of laying around and attempting to not over do it. Wednesday I noticed that the top part of my incision looked infected, hurt, and was kind of red. Gavin and I made a trip to Iowa City to have it looked at and the doctor stuck a needle in my incision (since it had just been cut, it was painless) to see what was in there. He extracted 10cc of pus meaning that it was infected. His hope was to put me on an antibiotic and it would do the trick. I woke up Thursday morning though to it being twice as big and really red. My grandparents drove me back down to Iowa City that morning and he ended up having to open it up. It didn't exactly feel good and seeing a large hole in your stomach is a little gut wrenching. He had to open more than he was expecting and I ended up with a hole 4 inches long, an inch deep, and an inch wide. The moment that they had the pus drained though, I was pain free. I didn't realize how much pain I was in because of the infection, not because of surgery. I felt soooo much better after this was done. I learned how to pack it with gauze and we headed home. For the first week, it took about a yard of gauze to fill my wound and had to be done twice a day. After about two weeks though, it finally started to show some growth and the swelling and infection were gone. When I was cleared to walk/jog, it really started to close.
I can finally say, 4 weeks and two days after getting cut back open, it is closed and I am fully cleared! I made my last trip to Iowa City yesterday and my doctor released me and told me I can do whatever I want. I have been running at The W but this morning I completed my first Next Level Extreme Fitness class and felt great! This is four weeks sooner than what they initially told me and I couldn't be more excited.
Thank you for all of your thoughts and prayers over these past two months. All in all, I missed 15 days at school and it was just as painful to be away from my kids for that long. It certainly was unexpected but I am back to my normal routine and feeling great! I wouldn't have been able to do it with out you all!
