Details

I'm sure it must be hard to make sense of what's happening to me without knowing the details of this last week. Before I get back to the story of my protracted illness, I thought it would be best to bring you up to date on these current events.

Tuesday morning I had a colonoscopy as part of my treatment plan leading up to another surgery. During the exam a polyp was found, removed and sent off to a lab to determine its nature.

The surgeon expected the biopsy would reveal the tissue was benign but the type of tissue that is considered to be pre cancerous. Everything else in the exam went as expected and I was sent home with instructions to take things easy for the day.

The last three weeks I have been spending more and more time in the barn as my strength has begun to return but I didn't feel all that great after the colonoscopy. I spent most of the first day dozing on the couch.

The next day I resumed the duties I have been doing in the barn, measuring and soaking beet pulp, some turn outs and filling some water buckets. After that I usually rest while the beet pulp soaks, then I feed it and that's pretty much it for me so that's what I did both Wednesday and Thursday.

I was pretty tired after I was done but that's been the way I feel most days so that didn't surprise me but I had gotten to the point after resting for a while where I no longer felt totally wiped out. I would recover some for the evening but after the colonoscopy that just wasn't the case.

By Thursday after I had finished my barn chores I was feeling pretty beaten down. I remarked to a couple of friends that I felt like I'd been set back at least a week if not more since I'd had the colonscopy.

There was nothing on the instructions from the hospital about tiredness . The other symptoms mentioned to watch for I was not experiencing until Thursday evening. I went to the bathroom after getting off the phone with a friend and that's when I discovered I was bleeding.

I found blood on the top edge of my underpants. When I looked closer I found blood leaking from the underside of the ostomy bag. Then when I checked its contents, at least a cup of blood flooded out into the toilet.

Some of that blood was dark but some was bright red so I knew I was actively bleeding. Because I am on blood thinners there was no question about going straight to the emergency room so that's where Dave and I headed.

Thursday night at the ER was a zoo. There were over twenty people ahead of me and even with triage I ended up waiting over two hours before we saw a doctor. They did draw blood during triage and I believe my results were probably checked as soon as they came in and that's what determined it was safe for me to wait that long.

Once I saw the doctor, they tested my blood pressure in different positions. It was the worst when I was standing and the best when I was laying down. They also monitored my vital signs for a couple of hours to be sure nothing was changing.

While I was there, my surgeon just happened to be at the hospital for an emergency. He saw my name in the computer and came down to the ER to see what was going on. The ER doc had planned on calling a GI doc to consult but once my surgeon came there was no need of that. My surgeon checked over all the test results, ordered a test for the levels on my blood thinners and then they sent me home.

The determination was my body was coping with the bleeding adequately that it was safe for me to be home. My instructions were to lay low until after the bleeding stopped and call the surgeon in the morning for an appointment. I was to return to the hospital if I felt light headed, dizzy or passed out. The other thing to watch was the unusual bruising. Any of those things and I was to return right away to the ER.

On Friday, Dave and I forgot about calling the surgeon for an appointment. We didn't get home from the ER until around 3 am. I had to have my blood thinner shot at 8 so set my alarm to "eat something" at 7;30. I drank a bottle of juice and fell back asleep until Dave woke me at 8.

Normally I lay in bed for a while because I have a reaction to that darn shot. It's painful and it makes me awful but I don't fall back to sleep. On Friday I think I was back to sleep before Dave left the room and I slept until 10:30.

Then I only got up because I was hungry. Dave and Lindsay were out doing barn work so I just waited for someone to come in to fix me my nutrition drink. I wasn't moving around anymore than I had to and within a few minutes Dave came in checking on me just as I knew he would.

The first twenty four hours after leaving the ER I continued bleeding. The more I moved around, the more active the bleeding was. As long as I laid pretty still, it was much lighter. I pretty much slept most of the day.

I have not had any of the other symptoms and currently the bleeding appears to have stopped. I am going to continue to lay low for a few days except for doctor appointments. I have three of those this week. I do have a pre surgery appointment at the hospital tomorrow and must have blood work done on Wednesday.

Tomorrow Dave will call the surgeon's office to check in since we forget to do so on Friday. My understanding is because of my trip to the ER there is the possibility the date of my surgery could be re-evaluated. For now it is set for the 25th of this month. Hopefully that will not change.

The scheduled surgery is for the reattachment of my colon and I really can't wait for that to be done even if it does mean I'm going to be laid up again.


This video is Scandalous Dare. I must admit being stuck in the house again is getting depressing pretty quickly.