Emergency Surgery Successful

On Tuesday, July 13th, after a very light breakfast, I felt terribly ill. I felt nauseous and faint and then had quite a bit of vomiting. I was sweating profusely.
We called the Cancer Institute nurse triage line, and they recommended 911. We called 911 and I was taken by ambulance to the emergency room at Hershey Medical Center. A CT scan showed massive distention of the stomach, extensive fluids in the abdomen, and some gas in that free abdominal fluid. The gas was concerning, as it suggested a perforation in the GI tract was allowing gastric contents into the abdomen. That could cause infection and sepsis. 
Surgical oncology performed emergency open-abdomen surgery to find the leak. 
They found a hole by the stent in the upper duodenum. It was hard to patch, so they moved a layer of fat from another part of the abdomen to cover the hole and encourage the body to heal the wound itself. They inserted two drains to drain any extra fluid from that area of the abdomen. 
They also placed a feeding peg through the abdominal wall into the stomach that can drain the stomach and has a feeding tube line that extends into the jejunum, or small intestine. They also bypassed the duodenum to join part of the stomach to a lower loop if the jejunum so that I can eat regular meals and not be limited to a stent diet (pureed foods) and to minimize the many digestive problems I have had with constrictions in the duodenum. 
The surgery went well, praise God. I am now in recovery. I was able to sit up in a chair today for a while. I am told I may be here for a week in recovery, and then it may be several weeks/months before I am cleared to take oral nutrition. Thankfully I can take food through the feeding peg soon.
This was a surprise. However, I am encouraged by the prospect of eating 'normal' food again sometime this summer or autumn! I look forward to eating a real Thanksgiving dinner this year!
Thank you for praying. God is good. I have sensed his hand of blessing and protection in every leg of this adventure. 
May each of you be encouraged and blessed.
Much love,
Tim

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Updates: Keeping on the Fight

Dear friends, I pray that all is well for each of you and you have had a blessed beginning to 2022! These last three months have been challenging yet good. I have had to battle impatience and discouragement at the slow pace of recovery, while dealing with ongoing side effects of the diagnosis. I have also had to battle the peculiar feeling of being so dependent upon the intercession, love, and support of others after having long taken too much pride in my ability to work hard and be a successful student, scholar, and professional. Loved ones around me have been encouraging me that my continued fight for life and recovery is of invaluable encouragement to them and is especially important for my family.  Thus I do keep asking God for strength and healing, and I choose to keep on fighting the fight, which now is also a fight of patient endurance. Yet I do have so much to be thankful for! I was told a year ago in December that the average life expectancy for the diagnosis was 12 month...
Read more

The Miraculous among the Mundane

Dear friends, Psalm 23 has taken renewed meaning for me these days. It is a great joy to be out in the country--"he makes me lie down in green pastures." In the face of pessimistic predictions, I am doing well. My cheeks, once so hollow and gaunt, are slowly filling back in. I find reason to sing: "he restores my soul." Yet the battle does seem to last much longer than I wanted it to. I wanted a speedy, instant miracle of full recovery. This is one taking lots of prayer and patience. And yet I do see miracle after miracle. It is a strange feeling, having come close to death many times this last year. I know life is a bountiful gift of pure grace. I need not fear. The one who has spared me so many times is the one I can trust with everything: "Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil. For you are with me. Your rod and your staff, they comfort me." It is a great joy to eat again after being NPO so many times and on ve...
Read more

In the ER again February 8, 2021

 Dear friends, Greetings from the emergency room at Hershey Medical Center. I am back here for my third time in just over two months. It has been just about one week since I came off the antibiotics and antifungals for sepsis. I came down with a fever yesterday and was advised to come into the ER.  It has been the most pleasant ER stay of the three. I was given a remote room in a far corner, which has the benefit of being much quieter! I was able to get more sleep last night than on any previous ER visit.  We are still waiting for a diagnosis on the fever. I am back on IV antibiotics as a precautionary measure. Apparently it can take 48 hours to get lab results back on blood cultures. Other lab results seem pretty good. The CT showed a new (second) thrombosis in the portal vein, but really no other changes from previous CT scans.  I may have been a bit dehydrated yesterday and had taken the kids sledding and for a walk in the winter wonderland of a wooded park the da...
Read more