This is a much anticipated follow-up to the Same Time, Next Year post.
First…commence involuntary leg crossing.
Okay. Now you can read.
Thankfully my procedure time was bumped up from 3:00pm on a Friday afternoon to 11:30am on a Friday morning. I mean, come on! I know what my attention span is like on a Friday afternoon in the middle of summer. I don’t care what you do for a living. I’m sure the medical professionals of the world are just as anxious to kick off the weekend as much as the next guy. I wasn’t too jazzed about a room full of people with a “that’s good enough” attitude itching to find the nearest happy hour.
I am told the procedure went well. I was blissfully un-aware. The bliss was administered by way of the wonder drug Fentanyl and one other drug with a name too long to remember, by a very attentive anesthesiologist. I said “I want to remember nothing” and she obliged by pushing little syringes of liquid goodness into my IV about 2 minutes after I arrived in the OR. I love this woman. I would paint her house.
There was also Lidocaine administered, you know, in the coochie. I don’t remember this. I am glad.
When the Lidocaine wears off – say 3- 4 hours later it don’t feel so good. I recommend ice packs. Lots of ice packs. Ice packs + 1 vicodin + 3 episodes of Sex and the City. And maybe a dish of ice cream which may not help, but it can’t hurt.
I finally got up the nerve to take a peek at the cooch; to make sure the lady parts still looked like, well, lady parts. Hard to say there was so much swelling. Bad swelling. Not good swelling like after a long 3-day weekend when you’re 21, with a hot guy named Brad. (Hypothetically speaking of course). Bad swelling lady parts that resembled a coupla Kielbasa sausages side by side. I know. Quite the mental image, isn’t it? Try living it. Good times.
All things being equal recovery hasn’t been too bad. The standard 2 naps a day for a few days, handful of painkillers and a couple dozen sitz baths.
Six days post op and the bad swelling is gone. Hallelujah! But the bruising was spectacular. I’m pretty sure he used a pony clamp. Again, glad I don’t remember. Not remembering is best for all parties involved.
Physician follow-up in about a week. I bet you can’t wait for another report!
Showing posts with label medical. Show all posts
Showing posts with label medical. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 6, 2011
Tuesday, June 21, 2011
Same Time, Next Year
Authors note: Yes, this entries title is a shameless rip-off from a fairly decent movie circa 1970s of the same name.
Life holds a fair number of annual events, holidays not-with-standing. My life consists of annual events that I generally look forward to, including: The Good Neighbor Fest, Milwaukee Ala Carte, BFF shopping trip to Mayfair, baseball tournaments and so forth. Unfortunately, my life also seems to be good for one medical ailment per annum requiring a trip to the OR.
My surgical ailments typically include something extraordinarily embarrassing. Nope, No torn rotator cuffs or hot appendixes here. By Murphy’s law all of my medical ailments include the nether-regions. Ridic.
The latest diagnosis is vulvar dysplasia. I know. Once again I lost a bet. It’s my mantra.
Dysplasia = abnormal cells. The kind of cells that can turn into the big “c” if left untreated. Good times.
A punch biopsy confirmed the diagnosis. I will tell you a punch biopsy is also low on the fun scale but not as low as a peri-anal abscess. That remains one of the most painful procedures on record. You can read about it here.
I had more tests to determine the extent of said dysplasia. The test basically consisted of being put on the rack while my very nice doctor looked under the hood with high powered binoculars.
“Hey. How ya doing?”
No dinner.
No drinks.
No flowers.
Just me, the rack, and my mommy parts.
All three treatments options are equally dismal.
Doctor recommended door number 3 on account of being sure they “got it all” and of course the good drugs factor (for me, not him). I am told the procedure aptly titled “wide area resection” (cringe) takes 30+ minutes in the outpatient OR, the IV drugs will be robust, I won’t remember a thing and I’ll only have about a week of down time.
I’m scheduled for the 24th.
Dreading. Dreading.
Life holds a fair number of annual events, holidays not-with-standing. My life consists of annual events that I generally look forward to, including: The Good Neighbor Fest, Milwaukee Ala Carte, BFF shopping trip to Mayfair, baseball tournaments and so forth. Unfortunately, my life also seems to be good for one medical ailment per annum requiring a trip to the OR.
My surgical ailments typically include something extraordinarily embarrassing. Nope, No torn rotator cuffs or hot appendixes here. By Murphy’s law all of my medical ailments include the nether-regions. Ridic.
The latest diagnosis is vulvar dysplasia. I know. Once again I lost a bet. It’s my mantra.
Dysplasia = abnormal cells. The kind of cells that can turn into the big “c” if left untreated. Good times.
A punch biopsy confirmed the diagnosis. I will tell you a punch biopsy is also low on the fun scale but not as low as a peri-anal abscess. That remains one of the most painful procedures on record. You can read about it here.
I had more tests to determine the extent of said dysplasia. The test basically consisted of being put on the rack while my very nice doctor looked under the hood with high powered binoculars.
“Hey. How ya doing?”
No dinner.
No drinks.
No flowers.
Just me, the rack, and my mommy parts.
All three treatments options are equally dismal.
- Some type of cream that is a 12 week treatment and basically burns the tissue raw.
- Laser that burns the tissue raw.
- Surgery to excise the tissue. There will be stitches.
Doctor recommended door number 3 on account of being sure they “got it all” and of course the good drugs factor (for me, not him). I am told the procedure aptly titled “wide area resection” (cringe) takes 30+ minutes in the outpatient OR, the IV drugs will be robust, I won’t remember a thing and I’ll only have about a week of down time.
I’m scheduled for the 24th.
Dreading. Dreading.
Friday, October 29, 2010
It comes in threes
My mother has this saying that bad things come in threes. Three bad things will typically happen in quick succession. Then the bad luck is over. Bad of course, is a relative term. Bad doesn’t always mean death or illness. But it pretty much always involves unexpected expenses.
I am into my 2nd set of threes in the last ten days. Any more bad stuff and I’ll be swinging from a rope…or bankrupt.
I am into my 2nd set of threes in the last ten days. Any more bad stuff and I’ll be swinging from a rope…or bankrupt.
- Ocotober 13th: Fistulotomy. Two blog entries on this subject alone. A fistulotomy by itself should count as three things. I’m still waiting for the bill but I’m guessing $2,800 for my portion of the deductible.
- October 17th: My dryer decided to start making a very bad noise. The kind of noise that would generate a call to the repairman. Lucky for me my spouse works for a major appliance company. The good news he had a direct access to the service manager. The bad news is the noise correlates to the type of repair “not worth fixing” because the repair is only slightly less than a new dryer.
- October 18th: The garage door wouldn’t go all the way down. Upon further inspection by said husband, the gears were stripped. Happily the fix was only $47 on a part purchased from Amazon.com, 8 hours of spousal labor and 6 days of parking our cars in the driveway. And I found out at my routine dental appointment I need a crown and not the princess sparkly kind either. One of my teeth currently has a silver filling. The silver filling is cracked threatening to break the tooth. I’m putting this repair off until January, giving up popcorn and chewing very carefully on the right side of my mouth. My portion of the crown will be $600. Oh boy. October 18th wasn’t a banner day. I probably shouldn’t have left the house.
- October 20th: Rolled my ankle walking to my car. I’m nothing if not graceful. This one didn’t cost me anything other than a handful of ibuprofen and a swollen foot for 3 days. Nice.
- October 23th: Hit my head on the door of the dryer. Hit it hard. Hard enough to cause tears, a goose egg and a bruise that still hurts 3 days later. Again, this one only cost me my pride and a bag of ice.
- October 24th: The pump on the washing machine fails. This explains the stationary tub full of sopping wet clothes which I wrung out by hand. The good news – the machine has the extended warranty and the repair dude is coming on Thursday. Praise the lord.
- October 29th: My car is scheduled for new tires. Ironically this is the one event that was planned but now feels like a big financial inconvenience. And seriously, is there anything more un-fun then spending $500 on new tires. $500 buys a lot of shoes…or wine…which I need to drink to drown my sorrows and block out the financial hemorrhaging.
Tuesday, October 26, 2010
Fistulotomy Fun Part II
Read Part I for the back-story. I ain’t repeatin’ it all…
A Fistulotomy is the surgical repair of a fistula, and surgery is the only way to repair it.
Surgery means sedation. Sedation is good.
The surgeon opens the fistula tunnel, converts it to a groove to allow the fistula to heal from the inside out. So basically you’re paying thousands of dollars for a big gaping wound. I am told that it will take 3 weeks to heal. I am guardedly optimistic.
I’ve been trying not to read too much online stuff because I’ve read it takes anywhere from 3 weeks to a year to heal. My surgeon is pretty convinced this whole thing will be easy-peasy-lemon-squeezey. Although she’s doing the cutting and I am the one being cut. I’m sure compared to other surgical stuff she does this is a cake walk. It’s also not her ass. I rest my case.
Prior to the surgery the patient (that’s me) must do a pre-operative bowel prep. Or as I like to call it, the Fisulotomy Weight Loss Plan (FWLP). The FWLP consists of two parts.
Then it’s basically the patient tucked away in the bathroom with their favorite reading material. I chose a People Magazine for the occasion. Clean as whistle and 4 pounds lighter that’s all I can say. Good times.
The fistulotomy procedure itself went well. No surprise complications. My surgeon had the good sense to prescribe a mild sedative before they wheeled me into the operating room. The anesthesiologist called it “valium gold”. He was right. It’s too bad they don’t dole that stuff out like trick or trick candy. It’s that good.
The post-op is a bit of blur. I slept a lot.
The first 5 days post-op were the worst. No doubt about it. It hurt to walk, climb stairs, sit, stand or bend…add use the potty. Yeah. Also low on the fun scale. It’s good advice to keep up with the liquid diet post-operatively and make life easy. Trust me on this.
After 2 days I finally got up the nerve to look at the incision site. Yuck. Big gaping open wound and bruising that is unparalleled. I wonder if she used some type of vice clamp. I don’t want to know.
I had three days off of work and a weekend and hobbled back to work Monday morning. I gutted it out, but between you, me and the fencepost and another 3-4 days off would have not been unreasonable and it would have allowed me to watch Season 1, Disc 2 of Glee in one sitting.
I’m now on day 10 and the pain has lessened considerably although I am not into my regular exercise routine and only using pain pills as needed – mostly at night.
I see my doc this week for a follow-up and am crossing my fingers that this will take of it and my chance of reoccurrence is right up there with winning the lottery.
A Fistulotomy is the surgical repair of a fistula, and surgery is the only way to repair it.
Surgery means sedation. Sedation is good.
The surgeon opens the fistula tunnel, converts it to a groove to allow the fistula to heal from the inside out. So basically you’re paying thousands of dollars for a big gaping wound. I am told that it will take 3 weeks to heal. I am guardedly optimistic.
I’ve been trying not to read too much online stuff because I’ve read it takes anywhere from 3 weeks to a year to heal. My surgeon is pretty convinced this whole thing will be easy-peasy-lemon-squeezey. Although she’s doing the cutting and I am the one being cut. I’m sure compared to other surgical stuff she does this is a cake walk. It’s also not her ass. I rest my case.
Prior to the surgery the patient (that’s me) must do a pre-operative bowel prep. Or as I like to call it, the Fisulotomy Weight Loss Plan (FWLP). The FWLP consists of two parts.
- Clear liquids the day before the surgery. Clear liquids being defined as anything you can “see through” when liquefied. Water, broth, jello and popsicles. Milk is bad. So is ice cream. Curses.
- Two bottles of Magnesium Citrate consumed 4 hours apart. Magnesium Citrate is a powerful laxative. How powerful? Well, I can tell you that mag citrate kicks in approximately 32 minutes after ingesting. Nasty stuff too. I held my nose the entire time I downed the first bottle.
Then it’s basically the patient tucked away in the bathroom with their favorite reading material. I chose a People Magazine for the occasion. Clean as whistle and 4 pounds lighter that’s all I can say. Good times.
The fistulotomy procedure itself went well. No surprise complications. My surgeon had the good sense to prescribe a mild sedative before they wheeled me into the operating room. The anesthesiologist called it “valium gold”. He was right. It’s too bad they don’t dole that stuff out like trick or trick candy. It’s that good.
The post-op is a bit of blur. I slept a lot.
The first 5 days post-op were the worst. No doubt about it. It hurt to walk, climb stairs, sit, stand or bend…add use the potty. Yeah. Also low on the fun scale. It’s good advice to keep up with the liquid diet post-operatively and make life easy. Trust me on this.
After 2 days I finally got up the nerve to look at the incision site. Yuck. Big gaping open wound and bruising that is unparalleled. I wonder if she used some type of vice clamp. I don’t want to know.
I had three days off of work and a weekend and hobbled back to work Monday morning. I gutted it out, but between you, me and the fencepost and another 3-4 days off would have not been unreasonable and it would have allowed me to watch Season 1, Disc 2 of Glee in one sitting.
I’m now on day 10 and the pain has lessened considerably although I am not into my regular exercise routine and only using pain pills as needed – mostly at night.
I see my doc this week for a follow-up and am crossing my fingers that this will take of it and my chance of reoccurrence is right up there with winning the lottery.
Monday, October 25, 2010
Fistulotomy Fun Part I
I hesitate to write on this subject because in all honesty it is one of the most horrifically embarrassing medical problems I’ve endured. And I’ve endured some. But honest -to- pete, I know there is some poor soul out there Googling “fistula” and coming up with nothing but medical reference material. Medical reference materials are, of course, helpful but sometimes you need the personal non-sugar-coated-right-between-the-eyes perspective of someone who has been there, done that. Plus, I have all of one reader so at least this is cathartic and cheaper than paying an actual therapist and the chance of anyone reading this is fairly slim.
What is a fistula you wonder? Well according to the fine people at MedLine Plus Encyclopedia:
A fistula is an abnormal connection between an organ, vessel, or intestine and another structure. Fistulas are usually the result of injury or surgery. It can also result from infection or inflammation.
In my case – my fistula was the result of a perianal abscess. I know. I must have lost a bet because who gets inflicted with an anal abscess and a fistula on top of that? Apparently I do.
An abscess is a whole other bucket of fun and can be caused by a whole host of reasons. Mine was caused by bad luck. I endured weeks of walking around thinking I had some type of angry internal hemorrhoid. When I couldn’t stand, sit or walk without searing pain, I finally called the doctor.
Generally an abscess is “handled” in the office. If you read between the lines that means a localized numbing agent is administered in a delicate area with a needle while the patient is chest down-butt up on a proctology table – just to add further embarrassment to the whole experience.
Important tip: If your doctor says anything along the lines of “most people tolerate this procedure really well in the office”, ask for a bullet to bite on. They are lying.
Perianal abscesses are wickedly painful and an injection in an already tender area is very low on the fun scale. At least I got 2 days off of work and prescription of hydrocodone for my trouble. In my ignorance I figured the worst was over. My abscess was “taken care of” … let the healing begin. Unfortunately rates of fistulas’ after an abscess are staggeringly high. Like somewhere is the neighborhood of 50% - 65%. And there is pretty much nothing the patient can do to prevent it. 12 sitz baths a day won’t improve your chances of better healing. I know. I tried. More bad luck.
The worst part of the abscess/fistula tango, is the waiting game. The patient (in this case me) has to gut out 3 long months of potential healing time before confirming a fistula diagnosis. Basically where the abscess was, never heals and there is a tiny tunnel from the inside of the body (in my case the rectum) to the outer incision. Good times. The fistula spasms pretty much constantly (pain) and the patient walks around with a wad of gauze tucked in-between the butt cheeks 24x7. Suffice it to say I now own stock in Johnson & Johnson.
Three months later I was able to trot back into the surgeon’s office for a 5 minute, $178, exam to confirm what I already knew. Congratulations, I had a bouncing baby fistula and now required a Fistulotomy to repair it.
Yes, I’m pretty sure there is a black cloud over my head.
What is a fistula you wonder? Well according to the fine people at MedLine Plus Encyclopedia:
A fistula is an abnormal connection between an organ, vessel, or intestine and another structure. Fistulas are usually the result of injury or surgery. It can also result from infection or inflammation.
In my case – my fistula was the result of a perianal abscess. I know. I must have lost a bet because who gets inflicted with an anal abscess and a fistula on top of that? Apparently I do.
An abscess is a whole other bucket of fun and can be caused by a whole host of reasons. Mine was caused by bad luck. I endured weeks of walking around thinking I had some type of angry internal hemorrhoid. When I couldn’t stand, sit or walk without searing pain, I finally called the doctor.
Generally an abscess is “handled” in the office. If you read between the lines that means a localized numbing agent is administered in a delicate area with a needle while the patient is chest down-butt up on a proctology table – just to add further embarrassment to the whole experience.
Important tip: If your doctor says anything along the lines of “most people tolerate this procedure really well in the office”, ask for a bullet to bite on. They are lying.
Perianal abscesses are wickedly painful and an injection in an already tender area is very low on the fun scale. At least I got 2 days off of work and prescription of hydrocodone for my trouble. In my ignorance I figured the worst was over. My abscess was “taken care of” … let the healing begin. Unfortunately rates of fistulas’ after an abscess are staggeringly high. Like somewhere is the neighborhood of 50% - 65%. And there is pretty much nothing the patient can do to prevent it. 12 sitz baths a day won’t improve your chances of better healing. I know. I tried. More bad luck.
The worst part of the abscess/fistula tango, is the waiting game. The patient (in this case me) has to gut out 3 long months of potential healing time before confirming a fistula diagnosis. Basically where the abscess was, never heals and there is a tiny tunnel from the inside of the body (in my case the rectum) to the outer incision. Good times. The fistula spasms pretty much constantly (pain) and the patient walks around with a wad of gauze tucked in-between the butt cheeks 24x7. Suffice it to say I now own stock in Johnson & Johnson.
Three months later I was able to trot back into the surgeon’s office for a 5 minute, $178, exam to confirm what I already knew. Congratulations, I had a bouncing baby fistula and now required a Fistulotomy to repair it.
Yes, I’m pretty sure there is a black cloud over my head.
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