A rough road

When I last posted I was in the 8 day liquid fast phase preparing for surgery. I lost weight on the liquid fast (who wouldn't lose weight on less than 100 calories a day?) Surgery went as scheduled on Wednesday October 1, after some difficulty getting an IV started, which did not surprise me at all. I was discharged on Friday, October 3 as planned, but I did not have a good feeling about it. On Sunday, the left side of my stomach was swollen, warm, and I felt a lump near one of the incision sites. After talking to the the resident on call my husband took me to the ER and after numerous tests, they decided to keep me overnight. It turned out I had a small leak. The surgeon tried a stent to "cover" the leak area so I could eat, however, I was unable to tolerate the stent, even when it was repositioned, so it was removed because was unable to swallow with it in place. Now I have a PICC line and get TPN and nothing by mouth, not even water. Tomorrow I should find out when my swallow study is scheduled, which will probably be in 2 weeks. I see the surgeon on October 29.

My husband is a bit worn out from running to the hospital since it is a 90 mile round trip. Plus he had to deal with being that far away and getting phone calls from the doctor requesting consent for one of the stent proceedures since I was not in condition to give consent for anything.