Durka-Durka-Muhammed-Jihad!!
Okay - it's a little later than I had planned, but here's the basic cause for my recent hospitalization.
Since last spring I've been experiencing problems with my blood pressure. Because of the specific kidney disease that I've got (FSGS or Focal Segmental Glomerulosclerosis), my blood pressure gets jacked around and has been spiking in the evenings. When it spikes really high as in my case, I'd get severe migraine headaches and I'd end up in the Urgent Care or Emergency Room at least once or twice a week where the headache would be treated with morphine along with a couple of different BP meds intravenously.
The upside was that the morphine would always kill the headache and would also help bring my blood pressure down; the downside was that morphine would cause my digestive system to 'back up', i.e. constipation. After several months of this, my digestive system became really backed up and this led to a three inch tear in the small intestine; I was rushed into emergency surgery, where some part of my small intestine being removed. I was the unwilling recipient of what is known as an ileostomy.
Yup.....lucky me. In addition to having to contend with a freaking kidney disease, now I've got an ileostomy bag to complicate life just a little more. Nothing is more fun than waking up after being heavily sedated for seveal weeks to find that I've got hardware attached your stomach.
I'll get reexamined in about six weeks to see if this will be permanent or not. So far, the docs are 'hopeful' about the chances of getting all of my plumbing reconnected.
So there you have it - how Mikey dodged another brush with death. My wife tells me that I've got to have an angel sitting on my shoulder and I'm starting to believe her.
** UPDATE **
I went to see the surgeon that operated on me for a follow-up and got some interesting news.
As it turns out, the doctor didn't operate on my just one time but rather he operated on my two times - once when I was initially in the emergency room (several hours after I was admitted) and then again about a day later. The first operation was to remove the section of my colon that was perforated; the second time was to remove the rest of my colon because I was basically crashing and they were trying to save my life.
When I asked about possible reconstructive surgery to "reconnect everything", he informed me that I wouldn't be a good candidate for such an operation; I asked if it would be a basic 'jerry-rigged' operation and he said yes it would be and that the resulting quality of life for me would be me living in fear of having 'accidents'.....those accidents being having little to no control of crapping my pants whenever I sneezed, coughed, or sat down. Given that choice, I'm going to be sticking with the ileostomy bag that I've got now.
So....it's kind of good news/bad news. The bad news is that I'll have to contend with my current situation for the rest of my life whereas the good news is that I won't have to worry about embarrassing skid marks in my underwear should I get into a car accident. I also don't have to worry about farting in public seeing as how the plumbing isn't connected for that any longer.
Let's try this again (spam blocker at mu.nu is working overtime)
The BEST news is that yo
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nunya said:
Man Mikey, eventually your just gonna be a brain in a jar hooked up to the Net ;-)
Glad to
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Man Mikey, eventually your just gonna be a brain in a jar hooked up to the Net ;-)
|| Posted by nunya, February 9, 2009 07:34 AM ||Glad to see you're back here online, was getting worried. The conservative blogs are dropping off like wall street stocks and I have nobody to troll!
Thinking of you and your family, and hope you start making a turn real soon!
Let's try this again (spam blocker at mu.nu is working overtime)
The BEST news is that you're alive. The bonus is that there's potential to reverse the anastomosis.
One of these days, we're both going to be healthy and we'll be able to go back to our hellraisin' ways.
|| Posted by Da Goddess, February 10, 2009 03:23 AM ||