So What Happened?

As a reader of this blog would realise, this surgery and initial recovery did not go as per my earlier liver resection on 26th May last year.

From my own faulty recollection and Teresa's input, the surgery completed as scheduled a little after 6:00 PM, it started shortly after 2:00 PM.  I went into recovery until about 10:20 PM then was transferred to the Special Care Unit.  My first memory is of a nurse phoning Teresa so that I would talk to her about 10:30 PM.  At this stage all was as expected.

The next morning, Saturday, I had little pain but felt very ill.  The main issues were very low blood pressure, vomiting and Postoperative Confusion (POCD) .

In order to resolve the low blood pressure I was literally pumped full of intravenous saline solution.  I suspect I may have had some drugs to help as well.  I am not sure yet, but I think the low blood pressure was as a result of some drug administered during surgery to reduce bleeding from the liver.  I gradually recovered normal blood pressure and by Monday morning was around my normal levels, but I was like a balloon.

The vomiting may have been complicated by the excess fluids, I don't normally have this problem after surgery.  In order to assist to resolve it a Nasal Gastric tube was inserted.  While the insertion process was not too bad, I would not recommend it as a required life experience.  With the tube in place my stomach contents were sucked out.   Nothing bad was found, but lots of fluid.  I continued to suffer from nausea until Tuesday, but medication pretty much controlled it.

The POCD was "interesting".  I was warned about the potential for it before surgery.  Apparently it's probability increases as I get older and the more time I spend under general anesthetic.  For me, it meant that I was quite confused at times, even paranoid.  At one stage I believed that there was some conspiracy to kill me!  Looking back it seems stupid but it was very real and disturbing at the time.  That has resolved during this week, but I do feel for some of the abuse the nursing staff got from me.

Overall these problems seem no big deal, but I was very concerned about my state of health at the time.  Only after I got home Teresa told me that  one of the Registrars had said that I borderline on recovery, I assume without having to go into the Intensive Care Unit for a while.

On Monday I went into a general surgical ward (the normal stay in the Special Care Unit is usually only about one day) and gradually recovered until release on Wednesday.

Recovery at home has been a struggle, I have suffered from nausea at times (with no vomiting) and also some diarrhea.  For the past 2 days I have got more lazy and not pushed myself as much.  I am sleeping 14 hours a day but have my full appetite back and I am feeling quite good with little pain.

Looking back at progress from my last liver surgery, I am now in the about the same point as last time.  I am losing 1Kg of weight a day (same as last time) but this should stabilise over the next few days.

Writing this post has been a real struggle, my brain still has a way to go to recover.