Wednesday, June 10, 2009

The Horror Story That is My Tuesday (second) Surgery

Monday I was supposed to have gastric bypass surgery and my gall bladder taken out.

Today I am minus one gall bladder but my stomach is still in-tact. This because the surgeon saw, after removing the gall bladder, an obstruction that would have to be operated on first, by a different Doctor. So Tuesday, in for the obstruction removal "procedure" I go. This ended up being one of the hardest most stressful and painful things I've ever gone through.

What the procedure was was to stick a camera/tool down my throat, through the stomach and intestines to get in to where the obstruction was and either pull it out or cut the area to allow passage (they were thinking the obstruction could be gall stones that got out before the gall bladder was out). So here's how that went down...

First, Monday early afternoon, was they told me about the procedure and that it involved sticking a camera and tool down my throat to which I would need to be sedated for. But here is what actually happened.

Between 11am and 12pm on Tuesday a nurse shows up at my room saying she is there to take me to my surgery. No heads up, no warning, jut "lets go". I hadn't had any pain medication for over 2 hours at this point and would have had some had I known this was coming. Okay, so they take me to the other side of the hospital to this procedure area. I sit in a wheelchair for half an hour before a nurse comes over and moves me to a bed. Treating me more like a veterinarians patient than a human, she starts talking with another nurse, who she is training, about me as if I am not there. Okay, I am a very anxious person. I will even state I take xanax to calm me down in tense situations. I will also say, I had no xanax before going down to the surgery room on Tuesday. Mostly because no one communicated when the surgery would be. Anyway, as I am sitting there being talked about by one obviously senior nurse and one newer nurse, the senior one mentions the procedure I am having I have to be on my stomach for. Umm... excuse me? I just had my gall bladder taken out yesterday, and they want me to lay on my stomach? Are they nuts. So I speak up "um, are you talking about me?" The senior nurse, visually frustrated that I knew how to talk, "yes sir". I replied, "I just had major abdominal surgery yesterday, there is no way I'm going to be able to lay on my stomach." Her response "Don't worry, the Dr. will explain it all." The the senior nurse asks the junior one to connect my existing IV to some saline. I watch her do it, she doesn't connect it right. I see this and make a comment, she ignores me then open up the saline. Guess what, it leaked! Duh! I just told you. Now she has to re-do it and clean up the spilled saline, which isn't a big deal, but make me concerned for my care. I'm now down here for an hour and a half with junior being taught how to enter in my info and being given no pain medication even though in my room I'm on a machine that gives it to me as much as 10 times an hour, so needless to say, I'm hurting.

Finally they decide to wheel me to procedure room. There is already a nurse/technician in the room waiting, she seems very nice, can tell I'm in pain and wants me to just sit for now as comfortable as possible. The a new nurse/technician walks in saying she'll be the one operating the computer monitoring system today. A few minutes later a guy walks in who works for Kaiser IT. The first nurse says "You can't be in here, this is a clean room for procedures and you don't have scrubs, booties, or a hat on." The nurse who is doing the computer monitoring replies "But I've never assisted with this procedure before and need him to show me how to use the machine before we start." Read that last sentence again. I am in serious pain with no medication for over two hours, I am very anxious and I hear this lady has never done it before so they let someone not in the proper clean clothes (which they have the rule for a reason) come in and show her how to use the machine.

Half an hour goes by, the Dr. finally comes in. I tell him right of the back that I'm very anxious and there has to be a way to do this without me laying on my stomach. Nope. But don't worry, he says, we'll make you comfortable and sedate you to where you don't feel a thing. Ha! Okay, now he wants to do what they call a time-out and everyone review what we are doing. He's pissed because the staff from radiology that are supposed to help are not there yet, oh here she comes, with her community college student in tow that shes teaching too. Is anyone in here not using me as a ginnie pig?

Nope, even the Doctor is, as guess who walks in the door next? A vendor who sells a part of the equipment used in my procedure. I don't realize it until halfway through the procedure, but he is showing him how their new upgrade works BY USING IT ON ME FOR THE FIRST TIME! Now I'm not saying I;m the first human or maybe even Kaiser patient that new equipment has been used on, but I'm the first one this Dr. has used it on!

But how did I know any of this was going on? I was supposed to be sedated to the point where I wouldn't even know where I was right? I was going to be so heavily medicated because I had to lie on my stomach just operated on the day before that I would be in la-la land right? WRONG! They gave me plenty of medicine, and I did what I was told, I laid down on my fresh surgery wounds with all my weight on them. And it only hurt at like a 5 on the pain scale of 1-10... for about 3 minutes. Then he stuck this machine down my throat. That brought me out of it and now I felt every pain in my stomach and every pain in my throat, for an hour. I am not ashamed t admit, tears were streaming from my ace while I hear the sales guy in the background "see how that cuts the vessels smoother?" They sedated me more AFTER the procedure, I guess to shut-me up.

So I stay awake the whole procedure, which was successful and removed the obstructions (sludge left over from my toxic gall bladder), but was top 5, no, top 3 most painful things I have ever been through, and may possible take the top spot. But then I'm knocked out, you know, after the surgery. I wake up, and since I have still had no true pain medicine, and am hurting I beg to be taken back to my room where I have pain medicine at my control. This take an hour, while I'm waiting the recovery nurses are very nice, except when they hear my original surgery was supposed to be gastric bypass, then they start telling me horror stories. Well ladies, nothing could be worse than this, so just get me to my pain meds please.

I FINALLY get back to my room, nearly 6 hours after I have left it. Yay! Jessica has driven down and is here. I tell her the story, she doesn't believe what I just went through. Upon this reflection, neither can I. I LAID ON MY STOMACH THE DAY AFTER MAJOR ABDOMINAL SURGERY, and not on a soft bed bud on a hard mat. Looking back, I think I should have refused. Before the Tuesday surgery, my wounds were small with minimal bruising, the picture below (sorry for gross pic) this is one of them after Tuesday's procedure. Oh, and my pain meds I was waiting to get back to, since I was gone so long, they removed them. It took them another hour and a half to get them back! Yesterday was so bad, I am seriously considering not going back for the gastric bypass surgery. We'll see how I feel when they offer me a new surgery date how I feel then. Just a reminder, this all happened at Kaiser SSF NOT Roseville. I have had nothing but good experiences in Roseville and wanted to clarify that.

3 comments:

  1. Oh my gosh! I can't believe this story Brian! What an awful day, I am so sorry. Something really needs to be said to this hospital. I suppose if the obstructions were life-threatening, they would have to do that procedure right away, but if not, it seems odd to have you on your stomach. I totally know what it's like to have people training others all around you at a hospital and it's no fun. I know people have to learn hands-on, but it sounds like you had too many at once! I hope your body feels better soon. Perhaps you could get your bypass at another hospital??

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  2. WOW, thanks for sharing your story. I'm not sure what to say. That is horrible, get a good lawyer. Sounds like they ignored many policies.

    Hope to make you smile...Since you were awake during the procedure, you should have given us a minute by minute update via twitter :)

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  3. I get that people need to learn too, but more importantly, they need to communicate. They need to re-assure me that while person a is new person b's experience makes up for it, or something like that would have been nice. Unfortunately, this is the only place Kaiser does the gastric bypass surgery.

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