Stage4 trouble postoperative resection

bigal88
bigal88 Member Posts: 14
in Colorectal Cancer #1

I had 18 inches of colon removed where ascending and transverse colon meet on May 13. I went home 2 1/2 days later. doctor said he has done these for 26 years and I recovered better than anyone he has seen.a little sore but I felt great.i could eat anything with out getting sick. I had solid stools in just a few days.but the afternoon of May 29 the area of surgery started hurting and I had a 101 fever. Wife was begging me to go to er. But I didn't I took a pain pill and went to sleep.i awoke a short time later The pain was gone but fever was 104 to 105. I went to er by ambulance. They did a ct scan and found a tiny air bubble near resection but no abscess. They admitted me to the hospital and been giving me antibiotics ever since still running a low grade fever. They said it may be a tiny leak that could heal on its own. Will do another ct in the morning Anyone had this happen? Can it heal on its own? If not how will they fix? Any answers will be appreciated.

Comments

  • John212
    John212 Member Posts: 116 Member
    #2
    Yikes

    I hope someone drops by soon who has experienced this or heard of it happening with someone else (I don't). It's always good to get some support from a fellow traveler. In the meantime, I hope you recover quickly.

  • herdizziness
    herdizziness Member Posts: 3,624 Member
    #3
    Leak

    If it is a hole in the colon, what they did was put me on 24 hour antibiotics for a week, liquid diet and hospitalized during that time. (Plus the week before while they tried to figure out the pain problem, plus low grade fever was, I was in hospital on liquid diet at that time as well) More liquid diet when I left the hospital, then a scope to make sure it was healed a few weeks later.  I ends up with thrush (horrible) from the antibiotics which I'm still trying to get rid of, but with chemo every week it's been difficult.

    But with the antibiotics (as I said for a week and strict liquid diet) the scope showed that it did heal itself as they said it would, I dropped 25 pounds on the liquid diet, then they put me on a stomach pill (propazola, spelling is very wrong sorry about that) they said I would be taking daily for life.

    Winter Marie

  • bigal88
    bigal88 Member Posts: 14
    #4
    herdizziness said:

    Leak

    If it is a hole in the colon, what they did was put me on 24 hour antibiotics for a week, liquid diet and hospitalized during that time. (Plus the week before while they tried to figure out the pain problem, plus low grade fever was, I was in hospital on liquid diet at that time as well) More liquid diet when I left the hospital, then a scope to make sure it was healed a few weeks later.  I ends up with thrush (horrible) from the antibiotics which I'm still trying to get rid of, but with chemo every week it's been difficult.

    But with the antibiotics (as I said for a week and strict liquid diet) the scope showed that it did heal itself as they said it would, I dropped 25 pounds on the liquid diet, then they put me on a stomach pill (propazola, spelling is very wrong sorry about that) they said I would be taking daily for life.

    Winter Marie

    Leak

    thanks for the info haven't got the results yet but hoping I won't need surgery

  • John23
    John23 Member Posts: 2,122 Member
    #5
    bigal88 said:

    Leak

    thanks for the info haven't got the results yet but hoping I won't need surgery

    Leaks…..

    Leaks…..

    After my surgery in 2006, the resected section leaked and caused a major bacterial infection. They opened me back up and resected again, leaving a remaining 1’ of colon stapled shut inside me and giving me a neat Ileostomy.

    In 2010 I suffered an intestinal obstruction (adhesion related) and another (new) surgeon panicked during surgery  and left me with less than ½ of my small intestine. The resected half was provided a new stoma to empty into. The other half was stapled shut and left connected to my original stoma to rot. I had two Ileostomy stomas, 4” above the other, and had to pouch each, since the old stoma produced such a great amount of mucous, that it needed a Urostomy pouch to remain sanitary.

    The rotting of the remaining, stapled shut small intestine caused untold amount of bacteria and sickness for almost two years, until another adhesion caused a blockage that required another resection. The (new) surgeon removed the left-in small intestine that should have been removed during the past surgery, and removed the two stomas, providing me with a new stoma on my opposite (left) side.

    Are stories like that common? Yup. Operations on intestines do not always go as planned. #$%^ happens.

    Does that story scare the hell out of you? If it does, please keep in mind that I am still here and alive, and fairly healthy, in spite of the stage four diagnosis of 2006 (and in spite of the fact I never did standard medicine).

    Feel free to click on my moniker and read my story and blog.

    Regardless of your choice of medical treatments, and regardless of the loss of your “normal life”, you can indeed survive against all odds.

    You simply have to make up your mind to.

    Be well,

    John.

  • JanJan63
    JanJan63 Member Posts: 2,478 Member
    #6
    John23 said:

    Leaks…..

    Leaks…..

    After my surgery in 2006, the resected section leaked and caused a major bacterial infection. They opened me back up and resected again, leaving a remaining 1’ of colon stapled shut inside me and giving me a neat Ileostomy.

    In 2010 I suffered an intestinal obstruction (adhesion related) and another (new) surgeon panicked during surgery  and left me with less than ½ of my small intestine. The resected half was provided a new stoma to empty into. The other half was stapled shut and left connected to my original stoma to rot. I had two Ileostomy stomas, 4” above the other, and had to pouch each, since the old stoma produced such a great amount of mucous, that it needed a Urostomy pouch to remain sanitary.

    The rotting of the remaining, stapled shut small intestine caused untold amount of bacteria and sickness for almost two years, until another adhesion caused a blockage that required another resection. The (new) surgeon removed the left-in small intestine that should have been removed during the past surgery, and removed the two stomas, providing me with a new stoma on my opposite (left) side.

    Are stories like that common? Yup. Operations on intestines do not always go as planned. #$%^ happens.

    Does that story scare the hell out of you? If it does, please keep in mind that I am still here and alive, and fairly healthy, in spite of the stage four diagnosis of 2006 (and in spite of the fact I never did standard medicine).

    Feel free to click on my moniker and read my story and blog.

    Regardless of your choice of medical treatments, and regardless of the loss of your “normal life”, you can indeed survive against all odds.

    You simply have to make up your mind to.

    Be well,

    John.

    OMG John, what a horrible

    OMG John, what a horrible story! Geez, some of the things we go through as sidelines for this curse cancer.

    To respond to the original question, I had 14" removed and did end up with an abcess. They took me in because I was having violent vomiting spells. They inserted a drain and i was in the hospital about a week. I got home and about a week later was vomiting again. It turned out the same abcess had closed off and was full of bacteria again. So another drain and two weeks in the hospital. They did an endoscopy in the fall and there was still a pocket where the abcesses had been but it had healed 80%.

    So, they didn't do surgery for that but having the drain inserted was one of the most horrible, painful experiences of my life. I couldn't believe that a person could be subjected to so much pain in this day and age in a hospital setting. After the first abcess when I knew I had another one and they wanted to give me another drain I was hysterical. I still have a huge internal scar from the last one that feels like a ball inside my butt cheek when I lie on that side.

    I'm not trying to scare you, I'm just trying to warn you that if they want to put a drain in make sure they put you under or something. It doesn't sound like you have an abcess, though. I hope you don't.

    Jan

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