by tight80 » 12 Oct 2019, 17:46
Hi everyone,
I had my surgery and wanted to post my experience and progress over the next few weeks. The recovery posts on this board really helped me to weigh my options and ultimately make the decision to move ahead with the surgery so I hope that my posts are helpful to others, as well. I'm very thankful for this awesome community. Even though many of us are struggling, the positivity and encouragement here is wonderful and I'm so appreciative of it.
Surgery Day 0:
I must admit that I was very nervous and still a bit in disbelief that I had signed myself up for this. My fissure wasn't causing me that much pain and I was operating around 70-80% on most days so I really felt like this was more of an elective surgery than a necessary one. It is very hard to want to pull the trigger on surgery when you feel good, so my advice is to keep a pain journal so you can refer to that. It helped me get to get there.
The bowel prep the night before wasn't that bad, but I was the last surgery of the day so being thirsty all day was the worst of it. The nurses were great and so was my anesthesiologist. They used deep sedation versus general so I didn't feel that bad when I woke up. One thing to note - I thought I was going in just for LIS and noticed that the surgery center had me sign off on LIS, Fissurectomy and Hemmorhoidectomy. I asked my surgeon about it and he said that sometimes these additional procedures are needed and he makes that call when you're on the table. Part of me was frustrated because I hadn't mentally prepared myself for the possibility of this... but part of me is glad I didn't know because I ended up needing all three procedures and may not have actually gone through with it if I had known ahead of time. So just be prepared that you may end up having more work done than was expected... and that's ok.
I woke up from surgery and my pain was almost immediately at a level 2/3 so the nurse advised me to take a Norco. Now this was my first experience with opioids so I didn't know what it would be like... but I was very pleased that it brought the pain down within a half an hour. My surgeon came in and told me that LIS went well, he had found a fissure that needed fissurectomy and he also took care of cauterizing some internal hemms. He said that my internal sphincter was so tight (even under anesthesia) that he had to stretch me just to be able to complete the procedure. This probably explains why I haven't been able to fart for over a year and can only pass pencil thin loose stools. Wouldn't it be nice if this was actually the cause of my IBS-D? CRS said that sometimes the body adapts to accommodate the tight sphincter so I'm keeping my fingers crossed that my stomach and bowel issues also improve after I heal from this procedure.
The car ride home wasn't that bad. I got home and situated and quickly realized that I wasn't going to have the easy recovery that many of the LIS surgery folks had... and I was grateful that both my mom and boyfriend would be tag teaming on care taking. If you end up getting the triple whammy - have someone stay with you the first few days. Best decision ever. I didn't think I would need help and boy did I ever. My pain level hovered around a 6 / 7 most of Surgery Day. Norco really helped but it makes you really weak and out of it. They told me bed rest for two days so I followed orders and took a second Norco around 9pm and tried to drift off for some sleep. My stomach was churning and growling and I could feel myself letting out little farts. Now this my sound scary to some, but to me who hasn't been able to pass gas easily in years... this was the most exciting thing ever! Made it all worth it to me ;)
Now the not so fun part: Woke up at 3AM to take my third Norco and within 30 minutes of taking it my heart was beating out of my chest and I started to develop mild skin hives. It was scary because the heart wouldn't stop racing. We had pretty much packed up for a trip to emergency when the heartbeat resolved and I got back in bed. Very scary.
So all in all Surgery Day was successful with a few minor bumps.