Unexpected Surgery, Part One

So this weekend has been a hard one, as you might have guessed from the title. 

A few months ago I began having more issues in my intestines and I began wondering if somehow despite my awareness that a hernia was not hard to do, if I had indeed done it again. (I had one after my first c-section 13 years ago. But that’s another blog post.) When traveling in April in a hotel room and unfamiliar sleeping arrangements I half-asleep picked my daughter up wrong and felt something hurt. Oops. 

Well skip to May, I finally went to the urgent care clinic.  My husband was actually home, classes were done. There were not many explanations given for how I was feeling, comforting (read that with sarcasm please), but a ct scan was done. It showed 2 small hernias in the midline and something else that they couldn’t quite figure out what it was. My system had been empty as I was recovering from being sick, again.  

Instead of seeing a surgeon right away I reached out to Fit2B and the Tummy Team to figure out if in general if no issues were presenting from a possible hernia might it be better to do rehab first or do the surgery first. After a lot of discussion, and my operating from the assumption given to me by urgent care that I had two small midline hernias and nothing else, I decided to wait and setup care with a new primary care doctor prior to talking with the surgeon. 

Before you start berating me, I’ve had 11 surgeries in my lifetime.  Four of them have be abdominal. I am never in a hurry to jump under the knife if there is another way. Especially one that should leave me stronger.  If I completed rehab first there was a chance I could close my hernias if they were small enough.  Yes that was a big IF. But more importantly to me with four small ones at home, doing rehab first would make my possible surgery recovery process much shorter and easier as my core would have already been healed some from it’s wide open current DR state. 

I also became more diligent about my Fit2B exercises and began wearing my tummy splint that I had ordered from The Tummy Team when I purchased my online rehab course so that when my husband was done teaching for the summer in mid-July I could begin heavily into the program. Allowing me to get most of the 8 week program done before he returned to work for the fall semester.

Things were going well, except getting in with my hopefully new primary was going to take a few months. 

Well speed ahead to this past weekend and heading to bed Friday night it appeared to be starting all over again. The difference this time was hubby was home and didn’t have to go to work the next day. The pain came in waves overnight and I finally decided after 7am as little one nursed I had to see someone. I didn’t want to wait for 9am to see urgent care again so I went to the ER. 

Turned out after examination I indeed had large hernia in the incisional are of my last csection (what??? She’s15 months old!?!) and my small and large intestine were both caught. I needed emergency surgery.  The surgeon left the room and in tears I reached out to the Fit2B group in Facebook and my best friends. 

There is so much more to write about, and I will write and post more later today. Right now I need to eat, I’m starving! 🙂