Newly Diagnosed, Scheduled for surgery at USC Keck Medical Center and scared as heck

Melliebean said:

Hope

Hope all goes well for you. I will come back and read about your experience.  I'm waiting on my surgery that's scheduled August 11th.  Good luck and best bushes. 

in the rest of your future. Trust your caregivers. Then you can concentrate on recovery. Try not to lose energy worrying. Move on. Get a good seat on this whacky bus trip. The journey may not be over yet. You will have to be vigilant in your follow ups.

Sorry you are going to have to go through the surgery.  I was diagnosed with RCC on February 28 and had my kidney removed on March 12.  The procedure was done laparascopically and I was in the Hospital two days. I had minimal pain and some soreness.  I had some trouble sleeping but my doctor told be to take two benedril capsules before bedtime.  They don't hurt the kidney and have the same effect as Advil PM.  I didn't want to go through the surgery but all in all it wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.  I was back to work 2 1/2 weeks after the surgery and now I feel no soreness or discomfort.  Good Luck

tjspeeder said:

sick of hospitals now

update,  had  my surgery. by robotic da vinci. afterwards at the keck hospital had some complication, ans surgery took almost 8hrs. high heart rate, fevers, which they thoght was blood clot, but after 6 more scans they could not find nothing, they did not know what to do with me, my body was defying everything they thought was wrong, a panel of doctors could not find anything. no being scared, my family frantic i transferred to a local hospital closer to home in ventura, which they checked my white cell count and was running at 25. they diagnosised it as infection mass left over from the surgery. im still in the hospital waiting for second procrdure do drain this infected mass, with a drain tube. 

cant beleive all the hasstle i have been through over the last 2weeks. depressing, annoying that they did not find this at the Keck hospital which is supposed to be one of the leading cancer hospitals. 

im able to walk in between ivy of antibiotics try and build my stomach mucles back and cure some boredom, anxiety from being in the hospital so long. sad being away from my kids so long. any prayers very welcome as im scheduled for my second procedure tomorrow afternoon. been a emtional wreck. 

Glad you checked back in with us.  My surgery is getting closer.  I will pray for you.  I know what it's like to be stuck in the hospital because of an infection along time. Not fun.  Now that they know they will get you sorted out and on the road to recovery hopefully.  

icemantoo said:

Routine surgery

tj,

 

While a Neph is routine surgery it is still major abdominal surgery and does carry some surgecal risks like infection which occasionally occur. Sorry you had to go thru one of those occasions.

 

Hopefully you will bounce back real soon and the complications you went thru will rarely if ever be faced by others.

 

Icemantoo

So sorry you're going through all this. My thoughts and prayers are with you and hoping you're over this and out of there soon!

tjspeeder said:

second minor surgery went

second minor surgery went well, with a drain tube coming out my back draining the infection blood out, my white blood count has had a dramatic decrease from 19 right before to 12 now, my fevers are gone and feeling quite good, well thats with a little vicodin also. if all goes well i think they take it out tomorrow and release me with antibiotics tablets to take home. god has surely been looking out for me, and grateful for all you nice people. 

Great news!  Cheers to an uneventful recovery from this point forward.

tjspeeder said:

disappointed in care

Home after a few days of having this drain valve in and so far the doctors tell me that no infection was found, nothing was present in my blood. Blood was clean, white cells at 11 (Makes you think)

Well what to do if doctors don’t want to listen to their patient, (when you suggest that the infection is somewhere else since I only had 50% lung capacity you would think this was obvious were the infection was)!

Nope, doctors insisted on the procedure, not to find nothing there, just lingering blood the system would have reabsorbed eventually like a bruise.

So drain valve put in was a procedure that wasn’t needed even though the doctors said it was.  Doctors wanted it to stay in for a few more days, so I have my first day home yesterday afternoon, today will be my first whole day home in 2 weeks.

The drain has already causing issues here at home, making me feel faint, light headed, and giving me the sweats, dizziness, even nausea.

Had to kneel down on the ground a couple times to avoid feeling sick, even my son saw me, he was like “daddy you ok?  I responded just feel a bit nauseous. My son replys you look very pale white like ghost.

That scared me. Decided to not touch the drain valve. Call the hospital they were no help. They said if you feel that way come to the ER. (Last time at the ER waited 4 hrs.) just to be seen.

There has got to be an easier way.

Can’t believe this routine procedure they say, turned into this. Can I be in the 10% that has complications, or is this doctor negligence?

Just really fed up with hospital, doctors (not all) but a lot of them. Nurses also (again not all of them were rude) but I would say while I stayed at VCMC, that 1% actually liked there job and wanted to be there to help patients, and you can tell in how passionate they are. Not sure transferring to VCMC was a good idea on my part, but missed my kids since they are all I have.

Wish me luck, have 2 apt next week if I last that long, Tues, Wed.

 

Thanks for all your support.

tj,,

Hopefully the bad stuff is all in the rear view mirror and may you have clear sailing ahead.

Icemantoo

Two weeks after my left radical nephrectomy I was not getting "over the hump" and my recovery seemed to be at a stalemate. My girlfriend noticed that I was warm. I had a fever of 104. Was readmitted to the hospital for 5 days. They put a drain tube in my back, drained 1000 cc of fluid during the procedure and more over the next few days. To make matters worse, my Mother passed away while I was in the hospital. I was released the morning of my mothers viewing.

I too wondered about blaming doctors. My surgeon said that he see's this in about 1 out of 200 patients. Once they cleared up the abcess I recovered just fine. The surgery was November of 2013 and I feel pretty much back to normal.

The bottom line is, yes stuff happens, some are luckier than others with the post surgery infections. I hope by this time you are recovering well. You mentioned that the infection wasn't in your surgery area, please let us know where they found it and more importantly how you are doing now.

Prayers are with you. I am confident you will recover rapidly.

Rugbyfire44 said:

Two weeks after my left

Two weeks after my left radical nephrectomy I was not getting "over the hump" and my recovery seemed to be at a stalemate. My girlfriend noticed that I was warm. I had a fever of 104. Was readmitted to the hospital for 5 days. They put a drain tube in my back, drained 1000 cc of fluid during the procedure and more over the next few days. To make matters worse, my Mother passed away while I was in the hospital. I was released the morning of my mothers viewing.

I too wondered about blaming doctors. My surgeon said that he see's this in about 1 out of 200 patients. Once they cleared up the abcess I recovered just fine. The surgery was November of 2013 and I feel pretty much back to normal.

The bottom line is, yes stuff happens, some are luckier than others with the post surgery infections. I hope by this time you are recovering well. You mentioned that the infection wasn't in your surgery area, please let us know where they found it and more importantly how you are doing now.

Prayers are with you. I am confident you will recover rapidly.

First of all, Rugby, I'm so sorry to hear about the loss of your mom.  It's never easy losing a parent but to lose your mom while you're in the hospital must have been harder still. 

TJ, I hope you are doing better every day. 

Praying for better days ahead for both of you!