Update on Dad and my Restriction

Thanks for all the good wishes everyone. After a very long day my dad was admitted into the hospital for at least the night. It turns out he had a BIG hernia according to the doc and it took at lot to untangle it all and fix it. The surgery took at twice as long as planned, but everything went very well according to the dr. My dad had a few problems waking up from anesthesia – breathing and took about two hours to be able to accept vistors – which isn’t that unusual just a little long for a normal 20 minute band surgery.


When he finally was up and running he was sent down to xray for his swallow – which he failed. Dr. K was a little concerned because he decided to go with a Realize C band instead of the large LapBand since after fixing the hernia the band fit around his stomach easily. You could tell that Dr. K was beating himself up a little about that decision and the plan at that time was to admit Dad and watch over him during the weekend and then go back in a change bands if the swelling didn’t go down enough.

Turns out after Dr. K checked out the xray the band was actually fine!! The problem was actually with the fixed hernia. Tightening the muscle around the esophagus so the stomach would stay put caused a slight bend in the esophagus. The liquid was going through – just really really slowly. He still decided to admit my Dad just to make sure that things didn’t get worse, but hopefully he will be out early tomorrow.

The biggest problem of the day was all the waiting! We got there at 6:45 and my Dad was out of surgery by 11:00, but mom and I didn’t leave until almost 8pm – and he still didn’t have a room. We wanted to stay, but he kept telling us go and when it started to storm the nurses said that we should leave to get home before dark.

By then mom and I were ready to get out of there. Exhausted and Stressed to say the least. The nurses were funny in the beginning – especially when most of the patients were gone, but by the end it was just down right annoying. One of them even told my dad I had a “nice rack”. OMG! And when I asked a question about the pain meds (he hadn’t had any in over 8 hours) I was told to “shut up” and let my dad talk (he wasn’t trying to say anything btw – he also wasn’t with it so of course I would as a question). She said it in a joking way, but that isn’t the way to treat stressed family members.

As for my restriction – I woke up too tight this morning. I PB’ed my shake early this morning, but was able to get the rest down a little later. However, when I tried some mashed potatoes at lunch they came right back up. The dr kept asking me about it and after I told him how tight it was he said some had to come out. I was so upset. Not because some had to come out but because I pushed him to push it a little and it back fired. I didn’t want to inconvenience him because of my mistake (I could get liquids down at that point).

He was a little upset that I wasn’t going to ask for an unfill because of that. So a little later when my dad was in the bathroom he told me to get up on my dad’s bed and actually unfilled me right then and there – in post op between surgeries. I think he took about .25 ccs out, but said tomorrow when he checks on dad he can take more out if needed.

I feel sooo much better. I can actually eat food again – or at least mushies. I tried some French fries at Mickey D’s (a long story for another time) and they went down fine – until I stuffed my mouth and swallowed them practically whole (ok I wasn’t that bad, but close).

I am off to bed now and will post an update sometime tomorrow. Maybe I will even be able to read a couple more blogs, but how knows what tomorrow will bring. All I know for now is that I am really thankfully my dad made it out in pretty good shape. And thankfully for a great surgeon who worked a really long day (still doing surgeries at 6pm) and still took time to fix my band.