- back from surgery!

[Guest guest]

Hi Everyone!

I returned home from the hospital on Tuesday after surgery on

Monday. The doctors feel that it was a success!

This may get a bit lengthly, but I am looking to see if anyone has

had a similar experience that I am going through now:

During surgery, when they put the gas in, the gas went all the way

into my face - even swelling my right eye shut. Immediately after

surgery, most of my pain was in my chest area. I could only draw a

very short breath and they felt that was mostly due to the pressure

the gas was putting on my lungs. My face looked like they tried to

beat me up because it was so swollen with gas, that was mostly gone

by Tuesday morning...but the pain in my chest only got a little bit

better overnight. I feel like they hit me in the chest with a sledge

hammer! They gave me pain meds in recovery and then after I was

taken to my room, they started giving my Tylenol with Codine. After

the 2nd or 3rd dose of that, they changed to Vicoden and I had

1000mg of that every 4 hours overnight and into the next morning.

The pain then had mostly moved to the areas of the 5

incisions....but I still felt short of breath and really sore deep

inside my " E " . They said given what they just put my body through,

that was pretty normal.

So I went home Tuesday afternoon, took another dose of Vidoden at

about 2pm and by 6pm I was very nausious...at about 7pm I felt I

needed to vomit and had a fever about 100 degrees F. At that time I

felt really bad and got a little scared. My body tried to throw up

about 3 times over the next 2 hours, but nothing would come up.....I

really hadnt eaten anything but knew there was enough liquid in my

stomach that I should be able to throw up something. I had a doctor

paged (4 times and argued with a horrible lady at the answering

service...but that's another story). It hurt so bad when I had

the " dry heaves " and I was worried I was hurting the fundoplication

and I thought I may be nausious due to the Vicodin so I didnt want

to take any more of that. At 10pm, I had sipped on some Coke and my

nausia was fading, finally talked to the doctor and decided to try

to ride the rest of the night out (since I am 2 hours away from the

hospital and my local hospital wouldnt know what to do with an

achalasian like me!). The doctor said that the fundoplication may be

so swollen that it would not allow anything to come up. I was able

to sleep pretty well that night.

I stayed off pain meds yesterday, but still really feel pain inside.

I dont know if the doctors there are overly optomistic, but they did

not restrict my diet and said I could eat what I wanted. I tried a

few softer foods and they all really hurt inside my " E " . I know

others have talked about a liquid diet for 2 weeks after surgery so

I wonder if I am just pushing it and need to give things more time

to heal. And given that I am not on any pain medicine for over 24

hours, maybe it just hurts a bit more? Liquids are not filling up

my " E " , so I feel like that part of it is better, and I am praying

the pain subsides. I guess I am just really worried now that I may

have hurt something inside during my bout with nausia.

The doctor called in a more mild pain med today (but I dont have it

yet) and said if it doesnt get better by Monday I will need to come

back for them to investigate (maybe an endoscopy).

Looking for thoughts from all of you!! Am I pushing it? Has anyone

else felt this nausia 30 hours post op? Pain down inside? Am I

normal ;-))! What have you been able to eat within a couple days of

surgery? I am also wondering....after the myotomy, since there is

no peristalisis(sp) still, do you need to take smaller bites and

drink lots of water to help push things down?

To Kathy: I am thinking of you and hoping your surgery yesterday

went well and you are on the path to recovery!!

Sorry this got so long...thank you for any

comments/suggestions/personal experiences!!