Faced with surgery...and a bunch of questions

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

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.

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

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

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 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 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 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.

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. :-(

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