Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Family Update - 1/07/09

Since last posting, in mid October, my brother went for surgery to have a permanent colostomy bag. He said he didn't want to have to go through the healing process again if he had everything in his colon area reconnected, to find out that it didn't work, and turn around and have another surgery that required the colostomy anyway. As it turned out, his surgeon stated that once he saw the inside area of my brother that he would have had to reconnect, he found it would have been impossible for him to do so.

He was off work for six weeks and everything appeared to be going fine in the healing process. He returned to work the week of Thanksgiving, thus allowing himself a short work week to get back in the groove. The following week after Thanksgiving, I ended up taking him to the emergency room due to severe abdominal pain that was progressing into vomiting and no movement of any kind into his colostomy bag. Upon the beginning of these pains, we first thought that maybe it was just something he ate, or he had a flu bug, and it would all pass. But by the second day, the pains were getting worse and cramping was occurring every 1-2 minutes and he agreed to let me drive him to the ER.

After spending a week in the hospital and running every test (they could think of, they couldn't find anything wrong! Perhaps it was something he ate that just "slowed" things down, is what his doctor told him. It was going to have to be up to him to become aware of what foods would cause this problem for him, and either eliminate it from his diet, or eat smaller amounts of it. (I'm not buying this, by the way!) They send him home with...pain meds if needed.

So now we're back at home and this is our plan: we start on a "soft" diet to start with and slowly add sources of fiber and meats back into his diet. He's doing fine for a few days (about four), and then the pains return. Mind you, at this point we haven't added any beef, whole grains, vegetables or anything that is fibrous. And during this time, I started doing some research on colostomy and cramping, or colostomy/ileostomy and abdominal pain (he had stated that the pains/cramping were right where his ileostomy had been).

I found out that adhesions could create quite a problem for anyone who has had any kind of abdominal surgery. Some people could never have a problem with these little buggers, but other people could have some major problems or constant pain for some time to come unless they have surgery to have them cut away...which could cause more to grow (kind of a catch-22). The adhesions (not scar tissue) are part of your body's healing process from having organs/tissue inside your body "handled", whether by human hands or instruments. They look like a thin membrane (picture plastic wrap stretched across a dish). The problem occurs when this membrane stretches across one organ in your body and attaches it to another. So it can conceivably cause a lot of problems, if for instance in my brother's case, his small intestine (where his ileostomy was) becomes attached to another organ in his body and doesn't have the free flow movement it needs to move the waste materials to his large intestine.

Back to second on-set of pain:
Again he goes back to the hospital, but this time he's able to drive himself. He has called the doctor ahead of time and is admitted directly into the hospital. They are concerned that he might have a blockage. After performing an upper GI test, and also scoping his large intestine, they find no blockage and "again" start feeding him regular food and wait to see what happens. Things start moving okay and they release him from the hospital just before Christmas. Prior to releasing him, his surgeon mentions that the pain is probably caused by "adhesions". It happens to patients all the time and the plan is to do nothing and see if the body takes care of the problem on its own (by the adhesion breaking loose of it's own accord). Time will tell.

My sister:
Is doing good. The swelling in her arm has reduced dramatically and she's back to her normal self. Her hair has grown back and she's even decided to keep it short (more manageable). She will, of course, continue to get her regular checkups and tests, to ensure the cancer is caught early...should it return. Still...no adjustment to diet or exercise.

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