gastric bypass surgery
 

My SIL had this surgery about 4 or 5 years ago. She was of course extremely obese and had most of the problems that obese people have, arthritis diabetes 11 and hypertension. But she was a beuatiful woman. Her ideal weight was supposed to be 135. She got there fairly rapidly, went on maintenence diet but continued to lose. She had difficulty staying above 110. Numerous problems with abdominal pain, they thought she had problems with the staples that were used to create the small pouch for a stomach. So yesterday morning she had severe pain again, taken to ER and they found out that the staples were no longer in place, the tissue was gangrenous and she had stomach content going out into her abdomen. So she is in ICU with a tube in about every God made hole plus a lot of Dr. made holes with a 50/50% chance to live. This was a vibrant 45 year old woman. So she was stable enough today to go back to surgery and they reversed the bypass and she will have a feeding tube in her small bowel to feed her while the stomach itself has a chance to heal. All this will be able to happen IF she has a good enough nutrtional stutus for her body to heal. So she will be in ICU for about 4 more days, touch and go.

I'm so sorry to read this Doydie. I'll be keeping your SIL in my thoughts and prayers. Please keep us up to date as to how she's doing.:smileypray:

Hugs for you as well as I can imagine how stressful this must be for the whole family.:hug:

Wow, I knew that surgery had its risks, but I had no idea gangrene was one of them. :(

I hope she is able to pull through all these complications and recover quickly. :hug:

oh Doydie. I hope all goes well. Cyn

Whoa. I'll be praying for her, Doyd, this is very frightening. :(

Prayers being said for all of you, Doydie. Please keep us updated on her improvement.

What a horrible experience! Hope that she is able to recover from this.

OMG :eek: Im so sorry. Please give her gentle hugs from us. :hug: I hope someone calls the MD that did her surgery to say WTH dude?! :mad:

How how horrible. I'm so sorry your SIL and the entire family is going through this. I will keep all of you in my prayers and thoughts for a speedy recovery for your SIL.

Oh my goodness, Doyds, I am so sorry about your Sister. Please tell her we are praying for her. :smileypray::smileypray:

Is this the same Sister who broke her foot?

I have a Friend, whose DD had the staple bypass and she has had some problems, but nothing like that. :eek:

:hug:

Thank you all for your thoughts and prayers. She is still on the ventilator today, I have a feeling it's because of her continous smoking that they weren't able to get her off of it today. But all vital signs are stable. Yes, I would love to take a picture of her in ICU and send it up to the doctor that did this surgery up at IU med center.

This is not the one who had the broken foot. That was my sister. And she is doing much better, completely off the Percocet now. I think she has about 3 weeks left in the brace and then the hard work starts when she has to train that leg to walk again.

The one who had the gastric bypass is my husbands sister. The entire family has never been close, hardly ever see each other and if they happened to see one of them in a parking lot it would just be 'hi, how are you we should really get together' and then they never do. My mother in law hasn't seen this daughter for 2 years. My husband didn't even remember his grandmothers name. He said his Dad never mentioned it! Off my soapbox now!!!!

How awful for your SIL, doydie. I'll keep her and your family in my thoughts and prayers. Does this situation "smell" of a lawsuit? Negligence? Obviously something wasn't done right for the staples to come loose and cause all of that contamination.

Isn't it sad when families drift apart?? When the opportunity is gone, then they'll wish they had lived their lives differently. Take care!

I am impressed that ANY MD would do that kind of surgery on a woman who still smokes. :eek: smoking drastically reduces the amount of circulation to the system, and it can delay healing, and cause areas that are tough to get to, to remain unhealed for long periods of time. This surgeon was not doing her any favors to do this while she was still a smoker.

I am so sorry that she continues to struggle. I will keep your whole family in my prayers. hold hands, and take good care of each other. :hug:

The surgeon had her lose a certain amount of weight and stop smoking before he would do the surgery. She was in a happy marriage at the time and it went well. Since then the marriage soured, divorced, married another guy, he gave her HPV and she started smoking soon after the divorce.

How is she today? any improvements? :hug:

She is recognizing people, pulled out her levine tube herself and has some kind of bacterial infection and in isolation. That she does not need! With the business of the grandkids we didn't even have a chance to go see her.

My SIL is doing very well. She is still in ICU, don't really know why. She is eating and handling it OK. Still clear liquids.

Great news Doydie. Thank you for letting us know. :)

Happy Easter to you and your extended family.

My SIL finally got out of ICU today. She was there 2 weeks! Apparently when they were putting in a central line they nicked a lung and that han't healed so she is going back into surgery tomorrow to fix it. She is on a regular diet and doing well. Thanks so much for all the thoughts and prayers.

I'm so glad she is doing better. Unfortuately these are all risks of gastric bypass surgery. :(

FWIW from what I've read about 50% of sexually active people actually have HPV.

Wow! It seems like anything that could go wrong for her has. I can't imagine! I'm glad she seems to be on the mend now, though. No more set backs now!

that's awful for her.
i hope she cont's to recover and feel better soon.
that's a lot to go thru.

Went up to see her today. This hospital I geuss has a policy that a person with a new chest tube has to be in ICU! So she is on complete bedrest. Because of her skin and bones state and poor nutrition she has several bedsores and between those and the chest tube she is in a lot of pain. I don't understand why when she had a chest tube for 2 weeks she didn't have any pain with it but this new one is excrutiating. I think she will be released to an extended care hospital. I wish she still had a feeding tube in. They are just relying on her to eat good.

Doydie, I had not been aware that staples could come out on their own after surgery. But, on the local news tonight, the same thing had happened to a young woman who'd had the surgery 5 years ago when she was just 19.

She lost her insurance several months ago when she lost her job, so now she has to raise $5,000 to get it fixed. (The staples are still in place, but loose enough to allow food to leak into her abdomen.) She wasn't in the hospital when they interviewed her, but she needs to get there pretty soon or she'll die.

I'm glad your SIL is on the mend. Such a mystery why the new tube is so painful! I pray she will continue to improve. :hug: Thanks for the update!

doydie - DH and I have started "juicing." We still eat whatever.

Of course we do choose to attempt making good choices. Adding FIVE servings of fruits and veggies proves challenging.

We have had a juicer for AGES and never really used it until just recently. We had a book for AGES and never opened it up. But recently, we thought we would give it a try.

We even tried a green concoction. Not my favorite but it amazes me how several carrots, green kale, and parsley can be stuffed into the shoot and make a small sweet drink. (it tasted like carrots, not my favorite but not awful.) Other than the color, I had no problem with drinking it and I got the nutrients which made it easy.

two major favorites:

Strawberries/orange/banana - one 8 oz. glass has 7 strawberries, an orange and a banana. More than I would eat in one sitting but easy to drink. I get at least 2 servings and it tastes amazing.

I also did a drink that was one apple and one pear. It was really good. Also something that I may not eat in one sitting.

So she can have her "bad" diet but also eat well. Juicing is easier than I thought it would be. Clean up was also VERY easy. Rinsing the pulp from the machine was not an issue.:)

Also, from Costco, we buy the Yoplait smoothie. That has frozen yogurt and lots of frozen fruit, strawberries and blueberries mainly. It just takes nonfat milk but we have used water instead (tastes fine).

Strawberries have lots of antioxidants.

Juicing also makes people feel full, strange as that may seem. Will it make me lose weight? Doubt it but I am doing it more to get in the proper nutrients AND more important, LIKE the drink. Preparation is no big deal. Thinks like cantelope are put in with the rind.

Long post but it could help.:)

Thanks for the info on the juicer. This lady is on Medicaid, food stamps and has very little money. I was hoping they would send her to Select long term care hospital but they plan on sending her home next week. She will have to go to PT and OT several times a week. They don't even have enough money for gas to go to the grocery store! But they all chain smoke!

So I guess we will be a taxi for awhile. She has always loved being a 'victim', one of the proudest moments in her life was when she finally got herself, her husband and both her children ages 18 and 20 on SSD! I don't know how she did it, she got SSD for obesity for the 16 year old and social anxiety disorder for the 20 year old. She is always borrowing but never repaying or returning. I don't know how many pieces of furniture we have given to her and then she sells them for the money. So I'm not sure what the next weeks are going to be like. On the good side she has gained 20 pounds in the hospital. She was 88 pounds when admitted. She is 5'5''!

OK, I'm done venting

What a sad situation all around. You're a good SIL trying to help out even though it's not reciprocated. Take care of yourself, doydie, stress as you know, is the bad guy.

Kind of ironic to discover the talk about juicing since my son and his family were here Saturday and my 13 year old grandson is into it. He's very athletic, especially basketball since he's tall for his age so is interested in healthy eating.......along with the candy, etc.!! Sounds like some of his concoctions are good, but others with more veggies were "bleh"!

She is going home tomorrow. My only fear is her not getting the proper nutrtion. She said her doctor told her no restrictions. Maybe he is thinking she needs to eat anything she wants, get muscle and fat wieght up and then start eating properly. They are also finding a new family practice MD for her, her last one just had to many patinets and didnd't pay enough attention. How can you let a 5'5'' person get down to 88 pounds?