Meeting, November 4th, 2008

Our meeting this month was not as originally planned. Originally we were going to have a Guest Speaker. After Teresa played a bit of phone tag with the orginal speaker, a new idea was born - to have members speak about their weight loss surgery experiences instead.

Sometimes the best laid plans don't work out...but what you end up with is something even better and that was the case I think this month. If you didn't get out to our November 2008 meeting it was truly a shame as this meeting could have saved your life. I'll recap though and perhaps help you know more about some pretty significant issues in the life of post WSL'ers.

And for those of you who I'm quoting, I'll do my best as I didn't actually write anything down on paper and am actually going by my recall - and well, let's just say my mind is a terrible thing to waste! LOL! If you can correct me, please do so in the comments as my memory is definitely not as it used to be after suffering from CRS!

The first speaker was our lovely Kim. Kim was about 9 months out of surgery when she started to feel some pretty horrible pain on her side (I think she said it was her right side) and it was up around the breast bone area - maybe a little lower. She didn't think too much of it at first but after it got to be pretty bad, her co-workers convinced her to go to the hospital to get it checked out. When they checked her out, they seemed to chalk it up to her gallbladder and let her go with some pain meds. No biggie apparently to the doctors there. This was after of course, they made it perfectly clear to her that they really didn't want to touch her much being a post WSLer...and why would they actually talk to her surgeon in the States.

After going home, the pain started to get worse and she started vomitting quite a bit. It was my understanding that it was green and although it wasn't said, I believe she was vomiting bile from the sounds of it. She went back to the hospital. They dilly dallied over tests and Kim I believe had to wait about 5-6 days until the appropriate test was done. They still would not contact her surgeon.

Eventually the test came back that she had a bowel obstruction. They finally contacted the surgeon and whisked her off to Henry Ford for life saving surgery to untwist her bowels. A few more days here in Canada doing nothing and she could have died. Her husband made a point of getting the doctors in Canada in contact with her surgeon in the States. That made all the difference.

A bowel obstruction is likely to happen to you if you have ANY kind of surgery done laproscopically and can happen at any time. Usually scar tissue from previous surgeries or the body's attempt at healing itself is the problem. The scar tissue gets in the way of the bowels and they twist around inside. Circulation gets cut off somewhere in the intestines and an obstruction occurs. The probability of it happening is around 10%.

The next speaker was a wonderful lady named Denise. At a few days out, Denise started having bleeding. It basically was coming from her bottom and was scaring her. She went to the hospital to get it checked out and the doctor there immediately said he wanted to put a scope into her and see where the bleeding was coming from. Okay as an WLS'er it wouldn't be so bad usually - you can get a scope as it is a camera that can help them see inside you...but this lady was only about one week out or less..which means of course, that the stomach was itsy bitsy and could be easily punctured (getting it done at a year out would be completely different of course). The Windsor doctor was quite arrogant that this was the only thing he could do and Denise actually fought with him and begged him to call her surgeon. He would not. "Why would any person go over to the States for surgery and then expect Canadian doctors to fix them up?" was again the attitude displayed at a Windsor hospital.

Well Denise refused the scope. She also called her surgeon who was more than willing to talk to the Canadian doctor if the Canadian doctor called HIM of course.

Eventually Denise found a young doctor, an internist, who actually listened to her and called her surgeon. They realized it was probably a blood clotting issue - that a medication might be interferring with the Heparin she was taking - therefore she wasn't clotting right. They decided to take her off her blood thinner and see if the "leak" resolved itself. It did and she was fine, needing nothing more than coming off of her medication.

The point with these two ladies is that after surgery, you need to be an advocate for yourself. YOU NEED TO KNOW the state of your innerds. You need to know what you can and cannot do, what you can and cannot have in terms of treatment and medications.

I made the point that with every medication my doctor prescribes I always say "That's not an NSAID, is it?" to remind her. I know how busy doctor's are and I cannot assume that she's remembering my no NSAID rule. The point is not to scare you as a newbie. It's not to make you worry - but it is to make sure that you are not one of these people who gets out of surgery and doesn't even know what surgery they had. You need to know. Doctor's are not necessarily going to know for you.

You MUST be an advocate for yourself. You must surround yourself with the knowledge of everything related to your surgery. You must research and you must be informed.

The last speaker was our own lovely Lori. You might remember that at the last meeting she was looking a little slow to get around because she had surgery. Lori was over a year out and had a hernia removal (a common issue with those of you that have surgery done Open) and she had a tummy tuck at the same time. At last month's meeting, you might remember that for the world you could not have convinced Lori that the tummy tuck was ever going to be something that she would have ever been grateful for. She did remind us that it was nothing pain wise compared to her roux en y. Plastics hurts people. She was in pain for quite some time. Is she making peace with her surgery? Yes, she's starting to have less and less regrets and the swelling is now going down. But she wanted to remind everyone that plastics is not something to be taken lightly and that OHIP will not be paying for your tummy tuck on a silver platter. She paid out of pocket and I think she's finally feeling like with each passing day, she's getting her moneys worth.

We'll see you again at the January meeting. The first Tuesday of the month as usual. There will be no December meeting.

Tickets are on sale however for the Christmas party to be held at the Ciociaro Club on Tuesday December 2nd. Contact me for info or email/call Michelle directly for tickets.

Dawn