Definitely an Obstruction

So here's how this all went:

Again I was up at 3 am Monday morning with stomach pains. I tried to hydrate myself and things started to feel better. Went to work, pain got worse and left work. CVS got some laxative type stuff and layed in bed. My stomach was soft and lots of rumbly noises so I was hopeful.

Then last night all the sudden my stomach got 100% worse. It was so tight that I could barely touch it. I had the feeling I was going to vomit (red flag) but I didn't. I told Scott to call 911 :( The ambulance came and then of course I start to cry my eyes out. Thinking to myself, is this really happening right now?

I get in the ambulance and they inform me that they're not able to start IV's in that specific unit. Ugh. I just wanted hydration. I had an obstruction last August (amongst several others) and I knew that hydration and lots of it, did the trick last time.

We get to the ER and my stomach looks like a basketball at this point and they did their assessment again on me. I was able to stop crying but just in so much pain. The nurse comes in to start my IV and poor thing had such a hard time because I was beyond dehydrated so she had to stick me 3 times. I felt so bad that my veins weren't cooperative. So they infused Normal Saline on me and gave me Zofran for my nausea and Dilaudid for the pain. As soon as the nurse started to push the Dilaudid I vomited :( Luckily the basin was ready to receive. From there on out for hours I just kept vomiting despite Zofran. They bring me in a 32 oz. oral contrast to drink. That made no sense to me. You know basically from my history and presenting symptoms that I'm obstructed, I'm vomiting non-stop, how am I supposed to drink this stuff and keep it down? I tried and no sooner one sip of contrast I was vomiting uncontrollably again.

They went to take me down to CT and my nurse said forget it, they'll just do IV contrast on me. Yay, no more drinking and vomiting. Well they have me move from the stretcher to the bed and no sooner the Radiology tech was telling me what to do I was begging for a basin. That's right vomited a hundred more times. Poor guy wasn't ready for that one.

I get back to the room where Scott was waiting for me and I'm still vomiting. I asked them to please give me something different for the vomiting since clearly the Zofran didn't work on me. So they gave me Phenergan and that did the trick for me! Granted I was completely passed out but hey at least I wasn't vomiting non-stop anymore. Scott left to go have his Gallbladder ultrasound done (he's in the middle of a GI workup currently) and came back without me knowing he'd ever left. I was so sleepy!

The nurse decided to put a pulse ox on me half way through my stay. My sats were 100% but after the Phenergan I was so passed out that my sats dropped low. This has never happened to me before. She put me on 2 Liters of O2 which was fine. But I caught myself holding my breath for some reason. Weird, maybe I was just that sedated? I'm not sure but I remember I was holding my breath? Weird. I definitely wasn't doing the "normal" breathing. I was also given ice chips at this point too. I've never been happier to see ice in a styrofoam cut in my life. Ahhh.

Well they came back and said that my CT was ok. I was just happy that this one reversed on it's own too. Last time I was in the middle of a surgical consult when nature called thank goodness. This time we never even got that far. When I was 19 it was so bad they put an NG tube in gave me Golytely, gross. So overall I'm extremely grateful that it wasn't as bad as it could have been.

The hospital called me tonight though which alarmed me. A doctor got on the phone with me and said that my CT scan was being "re-read" and that they wanted me to come back to the ER for another one. Huh!? Then I wondered to myself why was I even discharged if something was wrong? So I questioned it and then finally said that I was a G.I. nurse and could they please just tell me what it said.

• First was intussusception of the Ascending colon
• Dilated common bile duct
• Enlarged small and large bowel
• And lastly them not visualizing my pancreas fully

Thank goodness I asked about this or I would have worried sick. These are the exact same things as I had during my last CT scan. Which, mind you, was done during an obstruction as well. I just wish the radiologist would have read my history before calling and scaring the crap out of me. Then he questioned my pancreas, I said "I have CF." And as for the common bile duct stuff, I've had my gallbladder removed, and my duct is dilated on purpose as per my surgery so that the stones could pass easily (bile duct sphincterotomy) I mean if they know someone is in the middle of an obstruction, do they really expect the small and large bowel to look "normal?" Just wondering.

Well I'm glad to be home now in my own bed. I was offered to take the day off tomorrow, but I don't know what I'll do. I feel fine now, just tired....exhausted really. The nurses were great to me, and as always Scott was wonderful and so worried about me. I'm so grateful to have such great people in my life.