So, following on from my last blog, I'll go into the complications I experienced after the operation and how much this affected my life at the time.
Back in the end of June/beginning of July 2010, after my right hemi-colectomy, I woke up in hospital and felt like a human tube station! I had tubes going in, going out - just everywhere!! One in particular went down my throat, I think this one was to drain bile from my stomach, but it hurt my throat so much!! When I first woke up after the operation, I remember feeling searing pain in my lower back - never mind the fact that I'd just been cut open and had part of my bowel removed - so I asked for something to ease the pain.
Once back on the ward, I found that my legs were slowly going numb - I was panicking, wondering why I was unable to move them - when the anaesthetist came to me and said that it sounded like the epidural wasn't functioning in the right way for me. He took me off it and put me on a morphine syringe - I was given a button that administered morphine into a vein but no matter how many times I pressed it, it would only inject every 5-10 minutes. Thankfully, the feeling in my legs came back within a couple hours!
As days passed, I began feeling a little more like myself - although everything I ate seemed to cause me to be sick. I started to feel sick whenever it was time to eat and, low and behold, if I wasn't sick during meal times then you could count on the fact that shortly after, I would be - to the point where it was just green bile! I remember telling my mam that I was so scared the operation had made me anorexic!!
While this was all happening, the bottom staples on my belly popped out and a collection of blood and puss seeped it's way out of the gaping hole in my stomach! It had become infected and, due to the fact that no drain was put in me, all of the 'goop' needed to escape somehow. So the surgeon asked the nurses to cut away the rest of my staples - and I was left with a huge hole that needed to be 'packed' daily by nurses so that is could heal from the bottom upwards.
Slowly but surely, I came around to food and, although still feeling sickly, I managed to stomach food at meal times and keep it down so they discharged me and I went home, having to be visited every day by the district nurses to pack my wound. So home time - Yaaaaaayyyyy!!
Now I was an extremely active girl doing all my entertainment gigs so staying in hospital was like torture to me - not able to do much aside from lying in bed, looking out the window and wishing I could go out and enjoy the summer sun! So going home was such a relief for me!
About a week later, my boyfriend at the time took me out to a Chinese all you can eat - because I'd lost so much weight in hospital (I went down to a UK size 4/6 - when healthy I'm a UK size 10), I didn't eat much. Then, the following night my Mam and Dad bought me a chicken kebab which I LOVE so much!! But something was wrong - I couldn't stomach it at all and hardly touched it.
Mam & Dad dished out some trifle to try and get me to eat but I just couldn't. Shortly after, I vomited badly! I told my parents that it could be a one-off and not to worry about it. I went to bed that night and when I woke up, I was just so sick. I was pretty much projectile vomiting constantly!!
Mam got the on call doctor to visit the house and take a look at me - quicker than I knew what to do with myself, an ambulance arrived and I was en route back into hospital.
When I saw one of the doctors, my heart broke as they told me I'd have to be admitted for a second time. I was in tears - upset and broken hearted at the thought of spending an unknown amount of time in that place again.
Little did I know that I was in for the ride of my life at what I soon began to call the 'place of torture & pain' (I.e. The hospital!!).
Well this has been a rather long entry so I will leave it there for now!! Next blog I will get into the complications and hopefully some of you can relate and maybe it could help you going through something similar!
Much Love
Samantha-Rose XO
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