So I had my first freaky weird thing happen since my surgery a couple weeks ago. I went out to Chinese food with my friends. I ordered broccoli beef. My food tasted weird and to be honest, the whole day I was rather miserable feeling prior to lunch. Not sick, just not feeling 100%. After lunch it felt like I had something stuck in my esophagus. I have learned that if that happens, I can drink a swig of water and generally make myself throw up to clear the blockage that is usually caused by my eating too quickly or not chewing my food all the way. I did that, and I threw up, but I still didn’t feel well. I laid down and ended up sleeping for several hours, but when I woke up I still felt rather awful. I tried eating a spinach salad with chicken for dinner, and I couldn’t. I ended up with that stuck feeling again and repeated the process I had done earlier. By this point I was getting a tad worried. I thought aobut calling my doctor, but who wants to interrupt their doctor’s weekend… Instead, I made a fruit/veggie smoothie so I could at least get some vitamins in me, but I ended up getting sick without water this time. When I realized I couldn’t even keep liquids down, I decided I needed to go to the ER. So that’s what I did. I have closers hospitals, but I decided to drive to the one where my surgery was done, so I knew for sure they would have access to my records as well as doctors on staff that are knowledgeable with my surgery. I was seen right away, and immediately put on IV liquids. I was given a CAT scan and a ton of blood was drawn. The day before I had 7 vials drawn for my 3 month vitamin check, which actually worked out well for the ER doc to use as a comparison. Anyway, the ER doc didn’t find anything on the CAT scan, but called the on call doctor at 2 a.m. for advice (soooooo sorry to have woken you up, Doc) and I was admitted so my surgeon could see me the next day. Around 3 a.m. I was taken to my room and finally got a few hours of sleep before my surgeon’s assistant came to see me. She relayed what we talked about to my surgeon and he came to see me on his way to do someone else’s surgery. He reassured me that it was good that I came in, and he thinks I may have actually had a stomach bug, meaning this whole throwing up thing, may be a side effect of the surgery for me and if I am sick, puking will happen…. YUCK!!!! He said he would be keeping me admitted until the afternoon because he wanted to make sure I could handle liquids okay, and then I was going start my diet over, liquids for a few days, then mushies, then working back up to having whole foods again. In the meantime, it was discovered that my potassium was crazy low so they would be giving that to me in my IV. HOLY MOTHER OF GOD I SWEAR THEY TRIED TO KILL ME!!!! For whatever reason when they give potassium via IV wherever the IV is burns like nothing I have ever experienced in my entire life. I didn’t even cry after I had my surgery and was in so much pain that night, but I was in tears because I felt like my arm was literally on fire! I couldn't press the call button enough times before the nurse came in and flushed my IV with saline and then they mixed the potassium with saline in the line so by the time it entered my hand it wasn’t so hot. They also wrapped by arm in an ice pack and then a warm blanket. This helped dull the pain, but unfortunately it didn’t end it. Thankfully they did more blood work between potassium bags because we were going to do that all over again if my levels had not risen… they did! Thank God!!!! Once my levels were good and I was okay with liquids my surgeon came by and kicked me out. I had my three month follow up the following Tuesday and was feeling back to normal. With a little adjusting of my vitamins, I am doing great… though so sick of protein drinks!
