NIL by Mouth – note from the hospital

Well here’s the story so far.  After the surgery when I got home I was finding it hard to sleep, there was this pain in my chest and shoulder.  on Monday morning I went to my GP and he didn’t know what the pain was, but referred me to Middlemore after I nearly collapsed on the floor.

Every bump or movement on the way to the hospital was excruciating.  Got to Middlemore, then to a ward.  No one seemed to know what was wrong.  Went off for tests, xrays, etc and eventually got some painkillers, however, by now the painkillers only barely dulled the pain.

Once in the ward they decided I needed morphine.  At one point they had given me the maximum dosage and they said “what’s your pain level now?”  – I said well the shoulder and the stomach are ok, but my chest is 9 or higher.  The nurse responded with “oh dear, this is serious.”  I’m thinking “sheesh this IS serious when 6-8 gm morphine can’t dull the pain.

Early in the morning (I think) I was taken off for a CT scan.  I drand some metallic fluid and then they scanned me.  They quickly determined that there was fluid/gas leaking from the staples into my abdomen.  So next day they took me to gastro where I was put under, tubes shoved down my throat.  They put in a thing called a “stent” to plug up the hole.  Unfortunately I came around before they had finished, which traumatised me somewhat.

The next step then is to wait for the stent to bed in (note: I haven’t eaten since the original sergery).  They determined 5 days should be long enough, the day before the test they even let me have clear fluids….FLAVOUR!!!!  The transition test happened, then went “oops” still leaking.  And off back to gastro I went, this time they refused to put me under and I went through 2 hours of procedure while being awake.  TRAUMA!  I though I was going to go insane.

Back to the ward and then another week of pain, no sleep, nil by mouth and waiting, waiting, waiting.

One week later, off to have another test to see if there is leaking 🙁 yes, still a small leak.  My specialist has gone away for 6 months so now I have a new (but very experienced) specialist – Dr H Rahman.

Dr Rahman says that all we can do now is wait.  It wil eventually heal itself.  So all I can do is sit – wait….pray