Life After Bile Reflux: Surgery Day...Third time is the charm??

Surgery day is here. I check into the surgery department and the prep for surgery begins. The typical sequence of events takes place. I get changed into a gown, placed in a bed, nurse comes in, IV started, history gone over, and the wait begins. This time I don’t have wait too long, an orderly comes to get me at 7:00 am and I say my goodbyes.

I am taken back into the holding area and wait for a few more minutes.. The Anesthesiologist is the first to come in and we go over all the little details related to that. Dr. Rasmussen comes in next and we go over all last minute details/questions. Once he is gone, the OR nurse comes in and cracks a few jokes. Thankfully, this is all the same staff from my surgery in December, so at this point, it is the familiar faces I am extremely grateful for. He puts my cute hair hat on and away we go down the hall. To OR room #4. This is has become a familiar room to me. I am wheeled into the room and some of the staff introduces themselves and then I move over to the OR table. The Anesthesiologist and the nurse begin their routine. The BP cuff goes on, the next is the heart monitor stickers and I am covered up. Then I get the good juice and the world goes black.

I wake up in the PACU room and I remember fighting the tube. This is a first for me. They take it out and I remember being in a lot pain. I am assuming I get doped up because the next time I wake up is upstairs in a tiny room. Everything with the surgery went well. The feeding jejuonostomy tube was placed. We will wait for 24 hours before starting any feedings. Apparently I also had some sort of hernia/scar tissue issue in my upper right quadrant. This caused my intestines to attach themselves to the biliary tract which was causing my pain. Dr. Rasmussen was able to release this and clean up the scar tissue hopefully also resolving my pain. The plan is to still go home on Friday if the tube feeds go well. Those will be started in 24 hours.

(Here is a smattering of a few of the floral arrangements and balloons my amazing family and friends brought to me. I only took pictures in the beginning before things started going downhill)