#abdominal surgery

[thepastisalreadywritten]

[somehowalivestill]

June 5th, 2026 at 4:35am

Pray for me pls, my body feels so angry with me. Can barely eat and I’m getting headaches from it, my pelvic area is still hurting a lot and I can still feel my ovary when going up stairs, and I keep having weird poops that just irritate the nerves everywhere in my pelvis and just makes the healing pain worse. Really over did it the other day and just feel like garbage.

Spent pretty much the whole day laying down and sleeping and still feel yuck. I guess the dog can tell I’m not doing well too, because when my dad handed me something earlier, Ken ran up, tried to nip him, and continued growling at home until he backed up. Ken gets super over protective of me when he can smell something is unwell, so at least it’s affirming that the dog also agrees I’m worse for wear.

Gonna use the hysterectomy pillow again and might return to the Tylenol and ibuprofen regimen they gave me after surgery. I’m probably gonna send a message to my doctor’s team just to make sure this isn’t something portent.

[royalpain16]

Kate Middleton joins King Charles in Sandringham alongside Prince William, kids

Princess Kate is reportedly doing well enough to travel. The Princess of Wales left her home in Windsor estate with husband Prince William a

[macgyvermedical]

Hi hope you’re doing well!

in The Last of Us episode 5, Joel gets stabbed in the gut and immediately pulls the blade out.

Obviously if you get stabbed, the best thing to is leave the weapon in place and get to a hospital immediately, but I’ve heard some people argue that in this circumstance (zombie apocalypse, with enemies pursuing them) that Joel did the right thing, since there was no hospital/surgeon he could go to anyway, and the knife would get in his way if he needed to fight or ride on a horse.

I was wondering what your thoughts on this were because I’ve been thinking about it a lot haha. I don’t think his survival in the show after that stab wound was particularly realistic but, what’s typically the best course of action in such a low resource environment? (I understand you can’t give medical advice obviously)

anyway thanks for your time and have a good day!

The reason you're leaving an impaled object in is because you want to take it out in as controlled an environment as possible.

The most controlled environment, in the case of a gut stabbing, would be a fully staffed operating room with blood products standing by, IV antibiotics hanging, and anesthesia/paralytic agents on board.

The reason for this is that there are a lot of things in the abdomen that can cause severe problems when stabbed. If i'm interpreting the gifsets correctly the stab was in the upper right part of his abdomen. It doesn't look quite high up enough to have hit his liver, but that would be a concern depending on the direction and length of the impaling object. Livers bleed a LOT when stabbed. And pulling a blade out generally does more damage, as well as preventing that blade from putting any pressure directly on the source of the bleeding.

Not only that, but Joel's intestines are probably in the way of the blade as well- they're really packed in there, and it's exceedingly difficult to stab someone without hitting intestine. The intestine, of course, is full of poop. And the sac holding the intestine is otherwise sterile, so if you spill poop into that sac you generally cause a massive, massive infection called peritonitis (the same thing you can die of if your appendix ruptures). Pulling the knife out here would spread the poop around a little more, and again possibly done more damage to the intestine, which also needs to be intact to later digest food.

There is also an aorta, which would have caused Joel's death pretty immediately if stabbed, and some other smaller vessels that he probably could have survived getting severed, assuming they did not serve something he needed later, like a stretch of intestine.

Now, as you mentioned, Joel will never have access to a controlled operating room with trained staff. So while he might be making things worse by pulling out the blade, he know's he's either definitely going to die now because he can't fight/escape or probably die later because of damage that really has already been done, so he chooses the latter, which still gives him the best chance of survival.

Now, his absolute best-luck scenario here is something like this account of low-resource surgery taken from Improvised Medicine by Kenneth V Iserson:

Along with this description of a low-resource abdominal surgery, being sure to flush as much as possible of the poop out of the abdominal cavity with saline as possible- called peritoneal lavage- can help decrease the bacterial load in the abdomen and decrease the risk of sepsis.

Probably the second-best thing he could hope for would be something like the attempt to save Malachai in Alas, Babylon by Pat Frank (fictional prep for an abdominal trauma surgery, but very well described):

[Dan] crawled out and said, "He's in shock and shouldn’t be moved and ought to have a transfusion. But we have to move him if I'm to do anything at all. On what?"

There was a discarded door in the toolhouse. They moved him on that.

They laid Malachai on the billiard table in the gameroom and then massed lamps and candles so that Dan would have light. Dan said, "I have to go into him. Massive internal hemorrhage. I've got to tie it off or there’s no chance at all. How? With what?"

"My hunting knife, the one I shave with? It's sharp as a razor, almost."

"No, Too big, too thick. How about steak knives?"

"Sure, steak knives." The short-bladed steak knives even looked like lancets. The Judge and Randy's mother had bought the set in Denmark on their summer in Europe in 'fifty-four. They were the finest and sharpest steak knives Randy had ever used. He found them in the silver chest and called, "How many?"

"T’wo will do."

From the dining room Helen called, "I've put on water to boil-a big pot." The dinner fire had been going and Helen had piled on fat wood so it roared and Dan would soon have the means of sterilizing his instruments. Randy put them into the pot to boil. After that, at Dan’s direction he put in his fine-nosed fishing pliers. Florence Wechek ran across the road for darning needles. Lib found metal hair clips that would clamp an artery. Randy's six-pound nylon line off the spinning reel would have to do for sutures.

There was enough soap to cleanse Dan's hands. Dan went into the dining room, fretting, waiting for the pot and his instruments to boil. It was hopeless, he knew. In spite of everything they might do sepsis was almost inevitable, but now it was the shock and the hemorrhage he couldn’t lick. He wondered whether it would be possible to rig up a saline solution transfusion. They had the ingredients, salt and water and fire; and somewhere, certainly, rubber tubing. He would not give up Malachai. He wanted to save Malachai, capable, quiet, and strong, more than he had ever wanted to save anybody in his years as a physician. So many people died for nothing. Malachai was dying for something.

In the gameroom Helen was at work, quick and competent. She had found their last bottle of Scotch, except what might remain in Randy's decanter upstairs, and was cleansing the wound with it. Randy and Lib stood beside her. The pool of blood in the round hole ebbed and did not rise again. The water was boiling in the big iron pot when Randy walked into the dining room and touched Dan's shoulder. "I'm sorry," he said. "I'm afraid it's all over."

Third best is probably to pack the wound, since sewing or otherwise closing the wound would trap everything inside. Hopefully there's not a ton of damage to the intestines (a couple of very small nicks might scar back together without needing surgery if he was really lucky).

[nothwell]

hurt/comfort logistics help

need some help with the medical details of a scene

setting: low magic fantasy with 1890s-1910s medical technology*

gruesome details below readmore

place: in the woods, in winter, while it’s snowing

people:

a. the patient, a young man with his abdomen sliced open and his intestines spilling out

b. the patient’s boyfriend

c. the patient’s uncle (conveniently on the scene for blood transfusion purposes, since we haven’t quite got the hang of blood-typing just yet, and a near relative is more likely to have the type of blood that won’t give the patient a seizure)

d. a surgeon who specializes in abdominal surgery and has brought his bag with him

animals: three horses and a labrador retriever

the problem: how to get patient from woods to hunting lodge without killing him?

I’m assuming that he needs to get warmed up to avoid hypothermia/shock, and that the surgeon should put his intestines back inside with at least some temporary sutures, and maybe perform a blood transfusion?

There are better facilities at the hunting lodge, and there will be more medical professionals there by the time they transport the patient to the lodge. How they get the patient from the woods to the lodge, however, is stumping me.

Would it be completely out of the question to try and hoist him into a saddle with another rider to hold him up? If so, could they even go much faster than a walk.

Would building a sledge of some sort out of tree branches, etc., work better?

Or, are they at liberty to wait for a carriage or sleigh to arrive from the hunting lodge? Do they have that kind of time before the patient kicks it?

* For reference, I’m using SURGICAL CONTRIBUTIONS FROM 1881-1916. Vol. II, ABDOMINAL SURGERY; BY RUTHERFORD MORISON, M.B., F.R.C.S. Edin., F.R.C.S. Eng. Consulting Surgeon Royal Victoria Infirmary, Newcastle-on-Tyne, Professor of Surgery Durham University; Examiner in Surgery, Liverpool University. 

[chronic-confessions]

Confession #3,102

I finally got the surgery to remove my large intestine and part of my small intestine and I’m living with a bag until I can get the 2nd and 3rd surgeries, but honestly I feel so much better than I have in years. I don’t wake up in pain and I’m not worried about leaving my friends alone bc I had to run to the bathroom. Years of pain and suffering have just dissolved and I am so positive on my life now and everything looks great. And it does get better. It gets worse first, but it gets better :)

[sweetmiyu]

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[chronicallyugh]

hospital survival kit

wingman - family, friend, some levelheaded responsible adult who can be in the room with you when doctors say stuff to you while you’re too medicated/disoriented/in pain to comprehend; can also double as a bouncer to remove unwanted visitors

documents - photo ID, insurance card (if you have it, you lucky duck)

list of medications - current list of meds, doses, and allergies (maybe on a google doc shared with your wingman)

entertainment - book, tablet loaded with shows/movies, coloring book and pencils, whatever will help keep your mind focused on something other than being sick/hurt; hospital TV sucks

scarf, bandana, knit cap, etc - if you’re vain like me, you’ll want a quick way to cover your gross bedhead when visitors or cute nurses walk in

basic toiletries

soap, hair stuff, body wash, whatev from home - on the off chance you get to take a shower you can smell like you and not like hospital soap

deodorant, unscented baby wipes - cuz you might not get to take a shower, and can’t nobody feel better when they feel gross

toothbrush/toothpaste/mouthwash - take care of your teeth however you can; it’s easy to forget when you’re all medical crisis all the time, but you will get out of that hospital and you won’t want a mouth full of cavities when you do

lotion & lip balm - hospitals are arid sterile wastelands; great for discouraging germ/bacteria growth, hell on skin

I’ll be spending most of next week in the hospital (got a problematic section of gut that needs cutting out) and I’m trying to get my go-bag together. Am I missing anything?