Sunday, December 15, 2013

Surgery Day Summary

HE LIVES!!! After six hours in the hospital and about 69 snapchats to anyone I've ever met in my whole life, the doctor came out and told us that the surgery went better than they could have hoped and my hot little hubby would be out of PACU within the hour! I swear I heard the Hallelujah Chorus from on high! (Also, please excuse my excessive use of exclamation points. I'm just pretty freaking excited.)
Here he is right after surgery.
So handsome, right?
I don't think I'll ever forget that moment when I saw him lying in that hospital bed. You know how in your mind everything that takes place in the hospital is exactly like Grey's Anatomy? Maybe that's only me. Let me warn you that it is not. I ran to his side and asked in my most cheerful voice, "Hey Babe, how are ya?" Trust me, my least cheerful still sounds like I've won the lottery so I'm sure he was just really excited to hear the twinkling bells in my voice. 
He answered, "Terrible." and closed his eyes. 
Awesome.
I should tell you that Matt is super lucky and has about as much tolerance for pain as Superman does for Kryptonite (nerd alert). It only took until midnight for the pain meds to kick in and his pain level to drop below a nine. NBD. After his family left he grabbed my hand so sweetly and said, "I wanted to say my pain was a ten but I didn't want them to think I'm a wuss." Isn't he adorable? I could just kiss his face a million times. 

Enough of that mush, though, and let me get into the nitty gritty. Matt has Crohn's Disease and that means that his intestines like to be inflamed and irritated all the time. There's a spot where your small intestine meets your large intestine that is called the Terminal Ileum and for some reason that is the favorite hangout for inflammation. Matt has been having problems pretty much since January with pain, weight loss (we're talking 30 pounds in three months), loss of appetite, fatigue, etc. A week after we were married he had a really bad flare up and ended up at the doctor's office in which he was told he probably needed surgery. That was a great moment for me. Ya know, I think I only cried for three months, so I was totally cool about it... Well, we decided to try about every medication we could to no avail. Thus, we find ourselves here.
They didn't tell us he'd be getting "groomed"
before surgery. A hairless tummy is kind
of hilarious.
The surgery  is what we medical people like to call a Hand-Assisted Laparoscopic Ileocecectomy. That's just a big name that means removal of the Terminal Ileum and surrounding intestines. They cut him open in three places. Two incisions above the belly button and one below. One of the cuts was a few inches long- long enough for the surgeon to get his hand inside and feel around. Talk about gross. The surgeon (who is heaven sent P.S.) said that when he got in there he found about 6-8 inches was just solid, "like a lead pipe." As terrible as that sounds I think both Matt and I were relieved that he was sick enough to actually need the surgery. Can you imagine if they got in there and were like, "Oh, uh.... well... I guess we'll just take out the appendix while we're in here since nothing looks too bad...."? That's no good. 
In total Matt lost about a foot of his intestines. As if he wasn't skinny enough... No, really, we feel so blessed and grateful for the technology and experience of those medical professionals that made this surgery possible. The road to recovery is going to be long, but completely worth it. And do you want to hear the best news? The surgeon said that they checked out the rest of the colon and didn't find any other areas of inflammation! Here's to "decades and decades" of good health! 


We told him to smile for this picture. Obviously he's thrilled. 

1 comment:

  1. Oh my goodness! So glad that he's doing better. Sounds like quite the adventure! My thoughts and prayers are with you!

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