Faced with surgery...and a bunch of questions

NomadicMike

NomadicMike said:

I'm going with open and I'm comfortable with it now

I'm feeling more and more confident and comfortable in my doctor's abilities and I've decided to go with his recommendation.  What a huge relief that was!

Surgery moved up to the day after tomorrow!

CSN Peeps,

I'm at a loss for words at the moment, but I at least wanted to thank you all for being here and supporting me and everyone else just when we need it.  I'm driving into UCLA tomorrow from Palm Springs, then surgery scheduled for Wednesday.

Talk to you all post-op!

xoxo

foxhd

NomadicMike said:

Surgery moved up to the day after tomorrow!

CSN Peeps,

I'm at a loss for words at the moment, but I at least wanted to thank you all for being here and supporting me and everyone else just when we need it.  I'm driving into UCLA tomorrow from Palm Springs, then surgery scheduled for Wednesday.

Talk to you all post-op!

xoxo

Isn't it exciting?

Just when you thought you would bum around in life. Now everything gets serious. My surgery was only a couple days after ending up in the ER. No anxious waiting for me. You'll be in and out quickly. At least you don't live in New England with all the snow shoveling ahead of you. Let us know how you do.

icemantoo

foxhd said:

Isn't it exciting?

Just when you thought you would bum around in life. Now everything gets serious. My surgery was only a couple days after ending up in the ER. No anxious waiting for me. You'll be in and out quickly. At least you don't live in New England with all the snow shoveling ahead of you. Let us know how you do.

Surgery

Mike,

Like garym our surgeries were before many of the special options such as a Robot (R2D2) or parials. Frrom reading many posts it appears that there are honest differences of opinion on how to attaack the beast. You are at a large medical school and that is one factor in your favor. Take it easy after surgery for a few days and then  join me and others later in helping the newbies who are overwhelmed by the diagnosis and surgery right out of the gate. Now a days most of us are winning the battle and at 7.5 cm things should be fine, but there may be some follow up down the road. At 3 or 4 cm the odds of a full recovery can almost be guaranteed from the surgerry alone. I still see that full recovery in your future.

 

Icemantoo

todd121

NomadicMike said:

Surgery moved up to the day after tomorrow!

CSN Peeps,

I'm at a loss for words at the moment, but I at least wanted to thank you all for being here and supporting me and everyone else just when we need it.  I'm driving into UCLA tomorrow from Palm Springs, then surgery scheduled for Wednesday.

Talk to you all post-op!

xoxo

Good Luck and God Bless

Hope everything goes well for you. We're in the same neck of the woods. Had my surgery at UCI and now going to City of Hope for my followups.

Please update us after you're rested.

Todd

LKidd

NomadicMike said:

Surgery moved up to the day after tomorrow!

CSN Peeps,

I'm at a loss for words at the moment, but I at least wanted to thank you all for being here and supporting me and everyone else just when we need it.  I'm driving into UCLA tomorrow from Palm Springs, then surgery scheduled for Wednesday.

Talk to you all post-op!

xoxo

Surgery

I hope it went well, let us know the outcome. I think by now you are on your way to a full recovery.

love_of_my_life

In our prayers

Mike,

You are in our prayers.  My wife went through this last summer and had her kidney removed.

She is back to normal.

Tom and Holly

NomadicMike

Got back home on Sunday...doing well now

The Dr said the surgery went well.  It was not laproscopic, but open.  He said it was the best method for my scenario and I do trust him.  It was a little bigger than they thought: 8cm, but they were still able to do a partial because it was all on the lower part.  He said he saved 60% of my left kideny, which was suprising to hear.  And I hope to remain grateful for that. 

Here's the basic timeline:

Wednesday 12:15 surgery, then that late afternoon/evening mostly sleeping. Unfortunately the pre-op epidural didn't work and I got nervous with a second attempt so they said they can control it post op with pain meds.  Now I kinda wished that I allowed them a second try.

Thursday: Hazy - I had the PCA drip of dilaudid - they started me on .1ml every 7 minutes.  That wasn't enough, so they put it up to .3ml. which was enough to make me be comfortably numb.  Clear liquid diet.  Got up out of bed and walked around the room a bit because the Docs were adamant about walking being a key to waking up your bowels, which I still do believe is true.

Friday: Solid food diet.  They took me off the drip and started my oral pain meds to get me ready to go home.  I wanted to get off the dilaudid as well because it started making my skin itch all over.  Started walking around the ward - maybe 300 feet total.  Throughout the day, they tried different orals, but the pain in my bowels started getting worse than the surgery site.  They wanted to check me out, but because of the pain I insisted on staying.  That evening was mostly sleepless and I was writhing in pain.

Saturday moring 5am: I was convinced that there was something wrong because my bowels were so painful.  I was actually moaning most of the time.  The doctors came in at 7:30am and were confident it was just gas and assured me that once I started passing gas, that pain would go away.  Late that morning, I did finally pass some gas and they were right!  I was so relieved both physically and emotionally!  So feeling pretty good, I decided to check out.  Stayed at a local hotel since my home is 2 hours away from the hospital.

Sunday morning: had a friend drive me back home.  This kinda messed me up.  Two hours of bumpy roads in a noisy convertible sports car was exhausting - even just as a passenger. Plus my friend is not a very good driver, so I was a nervous wreck and had my eyes closed most of the time!  lol  When I got home, I fell asleep and didn't take my pain pills and wasn't eating or drinking.  Big mistake.  Realized late that evening, that I hadn't urinated all day. Just went downhill from there - lots of cold sweats and not much sleeping.

Monday: I started on focusing on keeping ahead of the pain with the pills, drinking water and prune juice, eating fruit and walking around.  Had homemade chicken noodle soup for dinner - yum!

Tuesday: had my first bowel movement!

So, I'm getting better and better.  Now just waiting for the biopsy report.

 

Thanks again everyone for all of the support!  It really is nice to have.

Texas_wedge

NomadicMike said:

Got back home on Sunday...doing well now

The Dr said the surgery went well.  It was not laproscopic, but open.  He said it was the best method for my scenario and I do trust him.  It was a little bigger than they thought: 8cm, but they were still able to do a partial because it was all on the lower part.  He said he saved 60% of my left kideny, which was suprising to hear.  And I hope to remain grateful for that. 

Here's the basic timeline:

Wednesday 12:15 surgery, then that late afternoon/evening mostly sleeping. Unfortunately the pre-op epidural didn't work and I got nervous with a second attempt so they said they can control it post op with pain meds.  Now I kinda wished that I allowed them a second try.

Thursday: Hazy - I had the PCA drip of dilaudid - they started me on .1ml every 7 minutes.  That wasn't enough, so they put it up to .3ml. which was enough to make me be comfortably numb.  Clear liquid diet.  Got up out of bed and walked around the room a bit because the Docs were adamant about walking being a key to waking up your bowels, which I still do believe is true.

Friday: Solid food diet.  They took me off the drip and started my oral pain meds to get me ready to go home.  I wanted to get off the dilaudid as well because it started making my skin itch all over.  Started walking around the ward - maybe 300 feet total.  Throughout the day, they tried different orals, but the pain in my bowels started getting worse than the surgery site.  They wanted to check me out, but because of the pain I insisted on staying.  That evening was mostly sleepless and I was writhing in pain.

Saturday moring 5am: I was convinced that there was something wrong because my bowels were so painful.  I was actually moaning most of the time.  The doctors came in at 7:30am and were confident it was just gas and assured me that once I started passing gas, that pain would go away.  Late that morning, I did finally pass some gas and they were right!  I was so relieved both physically and emotionally!  So feeling pretty good, I decided to check out.  Stayed at a local hotel since my home is 2 hours away from the hospital.

Sunday morning: had a friend drive me back home.  This kinda messed me up.  Two hours of bumpy roads in a noisy convertible sports car was exhausting - even just as a passenger. Plus my friend is not a very good driver, so I was a nervous wreck and had my eyes closed most of the time!  lol  When I got home, I fell asleep and didn't take my pain pills and wasn't eating or drinking.  Big mistake.  Realized late that evening, that I hadn't urinated all day. Just went downhill from there - lots of cold sweats and not much sleeping.

Monday: I started on focusing on keeping ahead of the pain with the pills, drinking water and prune juice, eating fruit and walking around.  Had homemade chicken noodle soup for dinner - yum!

Tuesday: had my first bowel movement!

So, I'm getting better and better.  Now just waiting for the biopsy report.

 

Thanks again everyone for all of the support!  It really is nice to have.

 Making your way through it sensibly and learning from experience too!  Do share the pathology report when you have it Mike (but you don't need to go into further detail about your bowel movements - too much information). 

Every day from now on should be better and better, but do make sure you stay ahead of the pain!

NomadicMike

Texas_wedge said:

 Making your way through it sensibly and learning from experience too!  Do share the pathology report when you have it Mike (but you don't need to go into further detail about your bowel movements - too much information). 

Every day from now on should be better and better, but do make sure you stay ahead of the pain!

Thanks Tex

I only mentioned the bowel stuff because I think it's a fairly common experience that people should know about before surgery.  Especially the pain part.  Because I didn't know this when it was happening to me, I freaked myself out by thinking something was seriously wrong.

Here's something else I learned today: my oral meds are percocet and I'm almost out.  I have 5 left, but I think I'll need another 3-4 days worth which would be 15-20 for me.

They can't fax or call in scripts for that drug and there's no way I'm making that four hour drive to get back to the hospital to get more. :-(

foxhd

NomadicMike said:

Thanks Tex

I only mentioned the bowel stuff because I think it's a fairly common experience that people should know about before surgery.  Especially the pain part.  Because I didn't know this when it was happening to me, I freaked myself out by thinking something was seriously wrong.

Here's something else I learned today: my oral meds are percocet and I'm almost out.  I have 5 left, but I think I'll need another 3-4 days worth which would be 15-20 for me.

They can't fax or call in scripts for that drug and there's no way I'm making that four hour drive to get back to the hospital to get more. :-(

Good job!

Good job Mike! Great that they saved so much kidney. You should be able to get your local Dr to write the script for you. Definitely worth taking it for a while. And yes, the plumbing takes a while to get back to normal. Despite every effort you will take to get back to normal, your body has been seriously insulted. Your nervous system will be in a protective mode until it accepts the changed neural input as normal. You can't rush it. Sort of like deciding to learn guitar in a month when all you have ever done is play the kazoo. It takes time. Keep it up. Fox.

Jackaroe

foxhd said:

Good job!

Good job Mike! Great that they saved so much kidney. You should be able to get your local Dr to write the script for you. Definitely worth taking it for a while. And yes, the plumbing takes a while to get back to normal. Despite every effort you will take to get back to normal, your body has been seriously insulted. Your nervous system will be in a protective mode until it accepts the changed neural input as normal. You can't rush it. Sort of like deciding to learn guitar in a month when all you have ever done is play the kazoo. It takes time. Keep it up. Fox.

way to go mike

i had my nephrectomy (radical) the same day as yours.  mine was rough as well, but not as rough as your's sounds.  that first bowel movement is a big relief.

 

todd121

NomadicMike said:

Thanks Tex

I only mentioned the bowel stuff because I think it's a fairly common experience that people should know about before surgery.  Especially the pain part.  Because I didn't know this when it was happening to me, I freaked myself out by thinking something was seriously wrong.

Here's something else I learned today: my oral meds are percocet and I'm almost out.  I have 5 left, but I think I'll need another 3-4 days worth which would be 15-20 for me.

They can't fax or call in scripts for that drug and there's no way I'm making that four hour drive to get back to the hospital to get more. :-(

Pain Meds

I couldn't take pain meds like percocet. They called in a prescription for tramadol for me which I think is easier to get. It worked well for me. I went home with it too.

But then I was pretty much off the pain meds 3-4 days after going home. I found moving slow and steady worked pretty well to control the pain. I mainly took them at night because moving around in bed is pretty painful for the first couple of weeks.

Glad you're home and it went well, and glad to see you back!

Todd

LKidd

NomadicMike said:

Thanks Tex

I only mentioned the bowel stuff because I think it's a fairly common experience that people should know about before surgery.  Especially the pain part.  Because I didn't know this when it was happening to me, I freaked myself out by thinking something was seriously wrong.

Here's something else I learned today: my oral meds are percocet and I'm almost out.  I have 5 left, but I think I'll need another 3-4 days worth which would be 15-20 for me.

They can't fax or call in scripts for that drug and there's no way I'm making that four hour drive to get back to the hospital to get more. :-(

You did awesome

See Mike, you did great! I am following your story. Got on a little after you, they are still figuring out what my tumor is, in the beginning I was headed for surgery like you but that has all changed - see LKidd for details, if you are interested that is. I am sure you have other things to take care of right now, like getting better.

So glad all turned out well. See, worried but it went well and you are a week past it already. On your way to a full recovery. Nice! Keep taking good care of yourself and you will continue to heal.