Cody Updates by Mom

Short version: my intestines pushed through a small defect/hole (left by other surgeries) and became inflamed, swollen and blood flow was blocked from that part of the intestine. It was so bad that I was rushed into emergency surgery on Saturday to fix it before the possibility of losing a section of my intestine. The surgeon was successful. Whew. Detail below if you are interested.

Christmas evening, I developed a “roux en y anastomosis internal hernia”.

I can tell you that this was not fun at all and was by far the most pain I have ever felt in my life. I have been through a lot of surgeries in my life and none of the recovery even came close to the amount of pain I was feeling on Christmas night.

I battled through the pain through the night. Neither Jim or I slept, other than in small bursts of minutes. Nothing I did, took or tried made the pain better. Increasingly on Saturday (the 26th) the pain became more an more of a concern. I couldn’t stand, walk, sit or anything. I was sobbing, hunched over begging God or anything to help me. At times, even punching my stomach in agony and anger. Jim decided that it was time to go in. Thank God that he did as if we would have waited anymore, the outcome could have been worse.

The closes ER is at Woodwinds in Woodbury and even though it wasn’t in our main group of hospitals, we knew it would be covered and was only minutes of a drive.

Jim begged and pleaded to be allowed to stay with me but, unfortunately in these days, it is not an option. While I was in triage, they had him head home. The next hour was excruciating. I threw up in the ER bathroom twice and paced the floor until they were able to find me a room. Within a half hour, I was in a room and was able to be miserable alone. Finally the ER doc came in and once he had heard enough to have a sense of the issue, he got me some morphine to assist in my comfort. During that time the registration nurse came in and quickly decided to let me be until meds kicked in, which I appreciated.

The CT scan not only showed the internal hernia but also showed that there was a significant amount of swelling. Within the hour, a surgeon had been called in and the OR team assembled to do an emergency surgery on my intestinal, internal hernia.

The surgeon was very thorough and was willing to talk to both Jim and I through the phone to know what was happening. After we were on board, everything happened very quickly. I only needed one more dose of morphine before surgery.

Waking up after surgery, I was amazed at the difference in pain level. NIGHT & DAY! I then spent the next two and a half days recovering in the hospital. I am happy to be home in my own surroundings and heal in my own space. Now I just need to follow my docs directions to get better.

After many conversations with the surgeon and doctors, I understand the situation that lead up to this. This was nothing that I ate, did or didn’t do that caused this to happen. When you have different laparoscopic surgeries there are some minor defects/holes left in the fat and tissue that holds the intestines in place. At one time, a small defect was created. There is no way to know which surgery it was but there is a list of them. On Christmas the intestine finally pushed its way through the hole and out of the fat/tissue barrier. This caused the hernia. Due to the severity of the hole vs the intestine, things went downhill quickly and the blood flow was cut off causing it to turn a dark purple.

Jim said that the surgeon was ecstatic that the intestine immediately turned pink once she was able to pull it back through the hole.

She was able to repair the defect and is feeling very confident that this shouldn’t happen in the future.

The entire team at Woodwinds was amazing and caring! I tried to thank them every time I could because I was so appreciative of the level of care that they gave me.