"Not quite the minor outpatient procedure that they make it out to be"

[flemmings]

Thank you all for your good wishes. The entry wasn't me, alas: I might have felt less bloody-minded if I'd had a laptop and internet access. I called my sister and asked her to post for me, thinking that she'd say This is Jeanne's sister and etc. However. Am home now with apparently fully expanded lung and a couple of holes in me from this and that.

Essentially, when they do laparoscopic surgery on gall bladders (feliciter told me the technical name for same but I currently can't recall even what painkiller they had me on), they have to lift the gall bladder out of the way, and as they were doing that with my expanded organ, the probe they were using perforated the diaphragm. Because I was blown up with air, the air all left the lung with a great whoosh and the lung collapsed. So they stuck a shunt or something in my back to drain the lung and bandaged me up and took me off to bed.

All this is quite uncomfortable enough. What they don't tell you is the screaming bloody pain in the shoulder that regularly accompanies a) being blown up with gas and b) gall bladder surgery. They had me on morphine and gravol and it didn't make a dent. Couldn't leave the bed because of drip on left side and shunt in right: *did* have to pee every two hours which meant levering self onto bedpan on screaming shoulders. (Oddly, getting sideswiped by a car in France was much less traumatic all round, but then I was younger and more knocked about and happy just to lie still looking at the ceiling. Also I fancy they put muscle relaxants in my drip. And they give you wine with your meals, a practice other nations should copy.)

So yeah, first night = season in hell until the night nurse put me on an anti-inflammatory. Which stopped the pain but not the morphine side effects, which are the same as fever's: time sense goes out the window. I'd drowse, have half remembered dreams, think odd thoughts, open my eyes, and find only five minutes had passed. And do it again, and again, and again. Grinding, that is. Worse than night flights to Japan, which to date have been my standard for deadly boredom punctuated by a cocktail of painful emotions.

So, yes, I am out and home and feeling reasonably chipper. If I feel chipperer and it stops raining tomorrow, I shall walk over to Suspect Video and get Lan Yu on a week loan. Had thought of renting it before I went in and then thought no, tempting fate that is. Yes, I had bad vibes about this surgery and always did, is why I didn't have it done nine years ago.

Comments

[i-am-zan.livejournal.com]

So happy happy happy to hear from you ..*sigh of relief*

Still, I wish you all the whatever's you need for a speedy recovery. *very very gentle hugs and e-wine!*

much love.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Thanks. Especially the e-wine, since I don't dare try the stuff in the fridge just yet.

[ayonoi.livejournal.com]

I sm glad you are home, man that sounded scary!

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Not fun. But I can think of several procedures that are much worse, like open heart surgery.

The worst part is that hospital beds are so freaking *uncomfortable*.

[mvrdrk.livejournal.com]

Yeah! You're home!

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Your joy at this fact cannot possibly equal my own.

Wine in served with hospital food sounds awesome!

[kickinpants.livejournal.com]

Ugh! Night stays in hospitals are the hardest. I'm glad everything (in the end) worked out okay.

(hugs!) Rest up!

Re: Wine in served with hospital food sounds awesome!

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Am doing so. Ohh my own double bed that I can roll over in! My own many many pillows that I can sleep on even on my pefforated side! My bouncy bouncy mattress that I can bounce up off of! Oh what heaven your own bed is.

French hospital food is nothing like our own. Even in the general hospital you got a choice of two entrees, and at the private clinique it was five! (omelette aux fines herbes, fricassee of rabbit, chicken in wine, entrecote, and I forget the fifth.) Three cheeses! Two desserts! And red or white wine!

Re: Wine in served with hospital food sounds awesome!

[stormcloude]

I think nothing helps you recover as much as being comfortable in your space.

And wow, I hope if I ever get that sick, it's when I'm in France. O.O

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Hospital stays aren't fun by their very nature. And having that spasming shoulder at home might have been worse since no friendly nurse would give me an anti-inflammatory drip for it.

Also the other thing I kept thinking was 'At least it's not breast reduction surgery like N and K and D had, think how awful *that* would be.'

[mikeneko.livejournal.com]

I totally missed something, looks like. You got holy holey. O_O

I'd drowse, have half remembered dreams, think odd thoughts, open my eyes, and find only five minutes had passed. And do it again, and again, and again.

So, basically, like being baked on pot. Dude! (Interesting.)

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I am perforated like an election ballot, yes.

Is that what pot's like? I can't see the point myself. Why slow time down when you want it to pass? Admittedly, if you're not in pain and the nightmare of unwellness, it might have its uses, like when you're cramming for a final.

[incandescens]

(hugs) Very glad to hear you are safely out and recovering!

Virtual wine is virtually sent your way.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Virtual wine is virtually appreciated.

[abyss-goat.livejournal.com]

Of course - for some reason all that I posted this morning was > --- i luv you too LJ!

But I am glad to see you back and patched up, etc. Take care of yourself KK? Get better soon!!!!!!!

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Thought it was half a wink. And this is actually better than having hernias poked back in. Painkillers? We don't need no stinking painkillers.

(Though I wish I'd pressed him for percocet, which might come in handy at some future date. As it is, I have a prescrip for tylenol 3 = basil leaves, and basil leaves that don't much like me.)

[abyss-goat.livejournal.com]

So I learned if you have > and then you post another one facing the other way to draw a omg face - it wipes out everything you write after that second thingy.

I am heading out to Japan in the first week of May (work, alas). I'd like to send you some good reading material to help out with the boredom. Let me know what you'd like K? Or let Riko know. I'll be staying with a friend stationed in Yokohama and will see Riko at least 2-3 times if she's not working herself dedded again.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

I think Riko is working herself dedded; have heard nothing from her for a couple of months.

Kohri no Mamono 13-end is what I'd like, actually, if stray volumes show up at bookoff ever.

[paleaswater.livejournal.com]

I was wondering how you manage to post from you hospital bed. Glad you're home. Now you can also have a glass of wine and rest. My mom says two weeks to recover and the cough lasts longer than that, so don't push yourself.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Hah, so there *is* a cough! Thought it was just me and my post nasal drip. Jeez you'd think people would *tell* you these things. Fine then. I shall be a lady of leisure for the next fortnight.

[tekalynn.livejournal.com]

Ack. Here's wishing you a speedy and thorough recovery.

[feliciter.livejournal.com]

Welcome back after your laparoscopic cholecystectomy! Glad that you're up and about ^_^

Thought you might have been posting from general ward. The hospital I work at does have (fitful) wireless access in wards away from ICU, so we occasionally see patients typing or surfing to while away the time until their drains can be removed.

perforated the diaphragm

Ah, thanks for clarifying. Was labouring under misapprehension that "collapsed lung" referred to mucus blockage of the airways after extubation, leading to collapse from the inside (which is the more common meaning in medical jargon in my parts), rather than pressure of air from the outside (a pneumothorax).

pain in the shoulder

Same nerves that supply the diaphragm and area around the upper liver and gallbladder (C3,4,5, if you're interested) also supply the shoulder, hence injury (or distension with air) to former caues pain to be felt in the region of the latter.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Um- so does having a tube in the lungs produce mucous naturally? or is the production and blockage an unusual side effect?

hence injury (or distension with air) to former causes pain to be felt in the region of the latter.

On the evidence of two ops involving distension, it's the shoulder pain they should be medicating for, not the incisions. The latter hurt no more than a slightly torn muscle; the former involves pouring molten lead into the joint, but the patient literature somehow refers to it as 'discomfort.'

[feliciter.livejournal.com]

Mucus production occurs all the time in lungs and is usually coughed/swallowed/reabsorbed. Impairment to any of said processes, for instance in unconscious people (drunk, anaesthetized, head injuries, strokes etc) causes mucus to plug airways. Also made worse during op by local irritation from tube, but extra should clear soon. Depending on size and site of plugging of airways, may lead to pneumonia or collapse of lung segment. Not often seen in anaesthesia since short procedure and suctioning during op if necessary, so thought it was a bit unusual that it could happen.

Referred pain i.e. "referred" from site of actual injury to places innervated by same nerve roots (the source of branching nerve endings to various places) can be much more painful than where the injury is. Anti-inflammatory drugs (don't know trade name, but we use indomethacin, diclofenac or naproxen), opioids (codeine, tramadol, mist morphine) or specific agents for neuralgia (amitryptyline etc) are all useful.

Cough also occurs due to irritation of said diaphragm, in addition to mucus etc. If painful, said opioids are best cough suppressant.

apologies for babble.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Not often seen in anaesthesia since short procedure and suctioning during op if necessary, so thought it was a bit unusual that it could happen.

Yes, well- perforating diaphragms is a bit unusual as well. Anything can happen, is the motto.

babble is fascinating

[tammylee.livejournal.com]

*HUGS*
I'm glad you're back home recovering.
Ugh, morphine. I've never been on it but from what I've heard (and seen with my gran) I would be very deeply disturbed by the side effects.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

The time sense aside (and the insomnia, when I thought it made you sleep) I think I was quite rational enough; but possibly it was the cause of some of the black despairing dark night of the soul.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

redesigned to become a moonshine distillery

Felt more like all the electric cords that tangle up around a computer or television, and always in each other's way, and always getting pulled out by accident. Though if they'd added a catheter to it I might have been thinking distilleries and/or The Genesis of Nataku.

[unearthly-calm.livejournal.com]

Sorry to hear it was such a horrible experience, but I'm glad you made it through in one piece. I hope your convalescence is much better.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

Thank you. To date my convalescence is being a holiday at Club Med by comparison.

[rasetsunyo.livejournal.com]

Glad you're back!

I thought Lan Yu enjoyable enough, so hopefully it'll help pass the time.

[flemmings.livejournal.com]

But no one flies in it, or wears armour, or does somersaults, right? It'll be a change from my usual then.