Day 6 - Day After Surgery (Oxygen Issues Again)

This marks the sixth day of my hospital visit. I'm waiting on the lab results to see if any of my enzymes have gone down. My side is still in some pretty bad pain from yesterday and my throat is sore. I hope they feed me today. I'm really REALLY hungry. Also, I have a fever but my blood pressure went down to 127/80. That's good news! Hopefully, it will stay down. It goes down with the pain medication. I don't think they'll send me home today but I'm not sure. They want to make sure that I don't develop pancreatitis.

You can read more about Pancreatitis HERE.


I was able to catch a couple of cat naps last night but woke up to horrible pain. I'm really exhausted. I'm hoping that when I get my Dilaudid and my Phenergan in a hour that I'll go to sleep. I think I'm going to stay up for a bit and see if food comes.

I think I overheard them saying in the surgical room last night that I could resume a liquid diet this morning. I thought I also overheard them saying when they took the breathing tube out that I stopped breathing for a few seconds. They had to put a breathing tube in an sedate me completely for the procedure because I had been vomiting so much. The anesthesiologist said that he didn't want me to vomit during the procedure and then drown in my vomit.

I'm not sure if I really did hear that or if it was imagined. I imagine it was true because they put me on more oxygen and kept me on it. My oxygen levels did go down to 80 day before yesterday. I wonder why it keeps doing that? It's worrisome. So, I have to wear oxygen all of the time now.

Right now, I'm just anxious. I'm scared about classes, I'm scared about the future, I mean, what if this isn't the solution? What if I keep getting liver stones? I also don't know what to do about the gastroparesis. I'm going to ask my doctor today if he found any results from my Smart Pill test later.

I need to make a follow up appointment with my knee doctor. Next up, is the trial surgery. *sigh*


UPDATE: The doctor just came in to talk to me about my ERCP. She said that the sphincter they were worried about was almost closed shut. When the doctor made the ERCP incision, he released it which caused all of this "gunk" to flow out of it. That included blackish looking sludge along with gravel shaped stones. So, their theory of the sphincter was right on the money. My labs are slowly going down and the doctor is going to increase my pain medicine (since I just had surgery and it's wearing off quicker now) and advance my food this evening. If all goes well, they're going to send me home. Again, they want to make sure that I don't develop pancreatitis.

I should have asked her for something to help me sleep. I haven't slept almost the entire time I've been in the hospital. I'm exhausted and I hurt. I can't get comfy. So, I guess we'll wait. I'll keep you guys updated.

Day 5 - Surgery Today

The nurse came in and took another EKG today since my last one was a bit abnormal. The doctor yesterday said that the Zofran could have caused that too and took me off of it. He said for me to list it as an allergy from now on. Another nurse came in and took an ECHO of my heart as well, just to follow up on the abnormal EKG. If everything looks fine, I'm having my ERCP procedure done at 2:00pm today.

It was hard to sleep last night. My night nurse lectured me and told me that my pain medicine was as needed, I didn't have to have it every two hours. The problem is that when I go to lay on that side, it's startling and wakes me up with a jolt because it hurts so much. Plus, people kept waking me up to get my vital signs and to draw up lab work - it's hard to sleep in a hospital. She's the second night nurse I've had who has lectured me about pain medicine.

I hope after today, I'll need less of it. I kept trying to explain that I have liver stones and they're painful but I guess the night nurses don't care. They probably don't like that I make them work.

I'm laying here pretty nervous and tired. I want to get this procedure over and done with. My doctor was also going to find out the results of the smart pill and share it with me. I've been placed on blood pressure medication as needed while in the hospital because my blood pressure keeps going up.

I guess I'll let you know what they find as soon as I know! Wish me luck!