Should I buy a lotto ticket??? (LONG POST)

What a month!!!

I have been, up to now, very loathe to post to the blog.

I have been quite low in my general feeling, but strangely enough, still have had a positive view for the future about the banding. This is not withstanding the need to undergo more surgery to resolve the issues.

To cut a long story short as I can, I shall quickly (as I can) outline the last month to six weeks.

I now live on the antibiotics... morning and night, morning and night ad infinitum. It is bad enough to take a course of AB's and maybe a repeat, but 6 weeks???? The things that that does to your body in trying do good is enough to grind you down. Even the addition of probiotic foodstuffs has not really helped the demolition of my gut flora, and for those who know about these things, the gas generated by such a change allows me to almost play a fanfare for myself everywhere I go... Another of the side effects is yeast infections... GOD!!!!! I just want to scratch my skin off at times...

So why all of the AB's? As I wrote about earlier, I have had an infection in the port location. The port is the section of the device that is located under the skin, and allows the surgeon to add or remove fluid to the band. It also corresponds to the larges of the wounds from the surgery as well.

The AB's were allowing me to keep the infection in check and to stop the wound from leaking. The leaking has been constant up to 3 days ago when the wound pretty much dried up and sealed itself. The problem is, that this did not allow the build-up of fluid to drain off, and the pain levels increased.. Hmmmm, dribbles from the wound and constant dressings OR pain... Gimme the dribbles...

We thought the infection was being dealt with, ever so slowly, by the drug regime, but even in preparation for potential surgery to resolve the infection, it was decided that the best course of action would be to find the right level of "tightness" of the band, and then if required, remove the port and clean out the wound site to allow the body to heal totally and put the port back in at a later stage...

Well, this seems to be where the problem started to become obvious... To add fluid to the band, the surgeon has to get a needle (and in my case a loooong needle about 3 inches long) and palpate the area of the port, introduce (what a stange word, introduce...

(Warning: Digression into he world of fantasy follows) Hmmm.. Here is how the introduction may go in my sick minds eye: " Hello Abdomen, may I introduce this bloody humungous needle to your wall and drive it in and wiggle it around your flesh?")

Anyways, back to reality.. In goes the needle, just a little sting but that was the end of normality. In the previous fill, it was relatively simple, in goes needle, port located, press, a sort of click is felt, and lo and behold, $107 bucks later, fluid added... (Seems the dollars are all claimable on medicare so it ain’t so bad to add insult to injury)

10 days ago, we went thru the same procedure. The port was located OK, but it seemed like it was an apple-bobbing event. I could feel the port being touched by the needle, but no satisfying "pop" as the needle entered!!! There was a scrape, a bump, and more of a prod, but no pop! OK, maybe if some of the infection product (yukky brown fluid) was removed... So another needle, fluid saline added tot he infection location, a bit of a flush, and lets suck out some of the gak (note the technical term: GAK)... OK a quantity of gak removed and another attempt made to hit the mark on the port.

Still no go. I suggest a postural change... Hmmmm "If you want to" says Dr MOF, “that may work”.

I thought it was going to be a put your legs up thing, or a turn on your side...

Nope, It was a stand up and lean forward and back at the same time.. Problem with this is now I SEE the whole thing easily... The long needle, the stick it in and wiggle it around thing, the brutality of it all... Well, it was not really brutal, but the problem of starting to feel light headed is compounded by the fact that I was now in a position to drop like a sack of spuds if it got too much... The lying horizontal on the bed was all of a sudden a really good idea. We stopped; I lay back down to recover, and after a couple of minutes suggested to Dr MOF that I perhaps did not want to play this game anymore today. He concurred, saying that he was surprised I was able to continue for so long, and how about I come back next week for another go.

"Sure" I say... So next week I come back for another "go"!! I did not mention that in the process of all of this, that the good doctor also took a swab of the wound. Now these swabs are basically a looooong cotton bud on a stick.. When I look down and only see 3 or 5 centimetres of the stick outside my belly, it was a bit of a freak-out, but no pain, just that really weird sensation of something not really belonging there.

So, another week of AB's and I return for another "go".. This time, Dr MOF, sensing that this may be a bit of a challenge, give me a local anaesthetic. It helped a lot, but after another significant attempt not dissimilar to the previous, Dr MOF withdrew from the attempt and sent me down to the X-ray clinic to get the job done utilising an image intensification process...

What’s that, you may ask.. Basically, using x-ray to guide the needle to the port…

I am about to digress from the subject at hand... The whole x-ray thing is not so bad, apart form the realisation that "Dr will see you "shortly" means that when I get up to ask when "shortly" will be as 90 minutes have passed. (The real issue here is that I have not eaten a solid meal this morning (and this is now 1pm) as I did not want to have anything in the vicinity of the band when it was tightened, and I subsequently would have eaten the dags off a fast running lamb, if the opportunity arose.) I then get told, "Oh, you are still here, ummm let me check.." And the response is 5-10 minutes.

Now it appears "Shortly" is 90+ mins and their 5-10mins are 30+ minutes...

Again, I get up, and approach the counter. I get a look of "Not you again" from one of the desk jockey’s and another kind soul says "oh, you poor thing, I'll check again"..

For those who know me well enough, this is like a red rag to a bull, and I say, something along the line of them being in cahoots with the carpark and their extortionate fees, and ask if they have a clock that works, and is the concept of telling a patient the truth is alien to them, and what business do they have calling the desk a "Customer Service Desk".. It should be called the Customer Desk, as service is a foreign concept to them!!!!!

Well, I did not say these things out loud, (I was thinking them) I did question them about what each of the time frames really meant, and that I needed to have a hot drink!! They come back and say, they had an influx of inpatients, and that I would be another 30 or so minutes, and that I should go and get a coffee, (in a takeaway container) and return shortly. I admit to being a bit short in saying something like, "No, I will go and get a hot drink, I shall be sitting out in the sun and I shall await your call on my mobile to advise me when to return" in my most directorial tone of voice! ( I was trying to channel OB Wan Kenobi)

So, I go, and get a skinny chai latte, it is just served when my phone beeps with a message to return... So to recap, "Shortly" is 90+ mins and their "5-10mins" are 30+ minutes, and their 30 minutes is in reality 6 minutes. Next time I hope they tell me that I have a 3 hour wait and I will be in the next second!!!

I go into the x-ray suite, place my now hot latte down, lay down on the table, get this medieval device (to change the angle of the port) applied to me in ways only a true masochist would appreciate, and we take a look..

"Look at this", says the doctor now wearing a camouflage lead vest and apron... Like jungle camouflage is gonna hide him in there!!! You would think that a beige vest would work, or in extreme cases of nausea, a Technicolor vest would suffice (but only if there were bits of corn in the pattern). Who really wants a camouflage vest.. I started to laugh out loud when I saw this, and told him I could still see him, and that he should get his money back... This is probably the "wrongest thing" to say to some one else who is about to play with a 5 inch needle in your belly, but fortunately he had a good sense of humour.

Again I digress... "Look at this", says Dr Rambo Radiologist (herewith known as Dr RR), "the port is on its side, lets just rachet down this torture device and make it so you cannot breath much at all and stick the needle in, and wiggle it around and work out what side of the port I can see, and jab it a few times and then suggest that it can't be done and tell me to go back to Dr. MOF with the news"...

Well he did not really say that, but that is what transpired. In actual fact Dr. RR was a pretty cool dude. He explained heaps, turned to monitor so I could see it and was truly most professional. I like him, and I hope I don't have to do that again!!!

Bottom line is, that Dr. MOF had me in for surgery on the following Monday.

I had some concerns about the recovery process as I had a bit of a rough time the last time. The RN's assisting the anaesthesiologist (Did I spell that right?) told me to talk it over with the doctor who would be doing the aesthetic (see that attempt to not to spell it again) and she said she would give me something to relax me prior to going under..

Well, I have to say, it is important to discuss these things... I came out of my sleep in recovery, and it was brilliant!! The best ever!! She can do me (i mean my anaesthetics) anytime!!!

Over the next 8 hours I was feeling better than I had in months.. Dr. MOF bumped into me on his trip around the ward, and told me what had happened, and confirmed that he had tightened the band a little (another 1ml of fluid) before removing the port, and that the infection was really yukky (see techo term in use again) and that this was the road we had to go down.

I had asked the most delightful nurse for something to nibble on, as the nearest low flying duck was at risk of getting it bum chewed off.. She comes back with a couple of packets of cheese and crackers and some water.. I cannot begin to tell you that how good that tasted, just the sips of water going down, and no blockage (the band was not too tight yehaaaa), and how great a simple crackers and cheese tasted... HEAVEN!!

I can truly say that I feel I have turned a corner and it is less than 24 hrs post surgery. I have been really down over the past month, and my in built resilience has taken a beating. Work has been hard to face; my ever-loving wife has been on the receiving end of my periods of blue and short temperedness (and giving as good as she gets, bless her). I do not underestimate the support I have had from friends, and also to a large extent from the online support groups that are out there. I may not post to them often, but it is nice to know that they are there, and I can learn vicariously through their experiences.

Whew, what a post!! There is more to tell, and I shall do so another time. It has taken over an hour to write this, but I feel better for doing so. I just could not bring myself to write when I was feeling down, and possibly giving an impression that things were worse than I made them out to be.

Anyway, Onwards!!!

Oh, the Lotto ticket thing... Seems that I am now one of the 1 in a hundred or less than 2 percent of patients, or the this has never happened before to me, type of patient!! Should I invest in a lotto ticket, or do I still have a ways to go before I get to the one in 12 million mark???





Tags: Surgery Obesity weight+loss Personal Diet Lap+Band Journey Scales