6 replies to this topic

[shan17]

Man I just need to vent, had the scariest afternoon of my life, my hubby who has been following these boards in the lead up to surgery (and this is his account) had his lap band surgery today....what a disaster, he was in for 3 hours and for the last 1.5 hrs no one was telling me what was happening. I am 7 months pregnant with a high risk pregnancy and started having regular contractions from stress,here I was home with 2 little kids and another on the way and no idea what was going on, I knew op was sposed to take 45 mins to 1 hr so in the third hour I knew it was bad, especially as they are giving me the line 'we can't really say anything over phone, just that he is still in surgery, surgeon will call when its over....ummmm when the hell will that be??? Called my family to look after the kids so I could drive to hospital as trying to keep it together in front of a 2.5 yr old and a 4 yr old was a struggle. Turns out they punctured his stomach or something during the procedure whether surgeon error or his stomach was an unusal shape or a bit of both I couldn't say, but at least he is alive, but no lap band. I am fairly tolerant of potential mistakes (not that I am certain one was made here.. maybe .just one of those unfortunate things) as I am studying nursing so am sympathetic for the non existant threshold for a mistake in medicine, but still I am scared and upset.
Poor bugger has gone through all this, optifast and surgery and now has to stay in hospital for approx 5 days instead of going home tomorrow, and STILL has to go through it all again from scratch in 3 months if he wants a lap band. Its so crappy.

Anyway for 2 hours I thought I had no husband and I would be having this baby and raising the others on my own....what a nightmare.We were doing this so that doesn't happen

Anyway had to talk it through, hopefully it will be a really smooth sail from here

[rockabette]

OMG.... Im so sorry to hear that this has happened. How is your husband tonight? Is he emotionally and physically okay considering the circumstances?

I go in for mine on 8 March and the older I get the harder I find to get under the knife and its been 4 times in the last 5 years.

Best wishes for a speedy recovery and hope that you will post again to update us on his progress.

[Kiwivic]

Hi shan17

I think you've just described every potential banders most inner fear and I'm so very sorry that you were the one to go through it this afternoon. The not knowing would have been excruciating and if I were in your place I would still be reeling with shock and worry.

I know things are not ok emotionally but are you and bub doing ok physically? It's easy for me to say try not to stress but the reality is you're in a terribly stressful situation so do you have people around to help with the other kiddies, drives to hospital etc? If not, perhaps the hospital has a support person who may have some ideas?

You've come to the right place to 'talk' and I'm sure you'll find people willing to listen. All the very best to your husband for a swift recovery and reband and sending much peace and calmness your way.

Vic

[JaimiM]

Thank god he is ok, and by that I mean alive as I'm sure he doesn't feel ok. I hope he gets better soon and whatever he decides that his weightloss journey still goes ahead. Good luck with bubs too

[shan17]

Thanks everyone, yes me and bubs fine, took some anti contractions meds and as time went by the contractions slowly stopped thank god, hubby was ok last night as they had him on morphine , so he couldn't understand why he couldn't get out of bed lol, wait till that little pill stops, he won't be quite so keen. It will be sore as they were faffing around in there for a few hours, can't sleep well, surprise surprise, man this has blown the cost of this little exercise out of the water, I beleive they will cover the cost of the next surgery, don;t know about anaesthetist and I'm sure not the extra excess on my health insurance. Also my hubby is a contractor so no work, no pay and he now has to take longer off that he would if he actually got the lapband as the injury is worse and now he has to take off time again, obviously I am not working at the moment with 2 under 5 and one on the way. Also I spose anaethetist will now charge more as he was in there 3 times as long.Not the most important issue I know, but now he is going to be ok I am a little worried about that, as to be honest this was a stretch to start with. I wonder if we should mention it down the track to surgeon, maybe he can give me a discount if I want the surgery later after baby etc lol (I did before....now I'm not so sure). this is a bummer, thank god I have the health insurance I guess, imagine I was one of those paying upfront, if it was 10,000 extra to have 1 surgery and stay overnight, imagine 2 surgeries and staying 5 nights wowsa.

Hope you dont mind me babbling but at 5.00 in morning what else to do lol

[jan123]

What a traumatic start to what is supposed to be a new beginning!!
I am sure you are on a roller coaster of emotions. I guess one of the complications of banding is damaging the stomach, if you watch the op you can see why. I watched it before I had it done and it does look relatively simple but as with all surgery there are risk factors. I think complications are uncommon but that's no help to you right now.
If I had woken up and not had the surgey done I would have been really, really pissed! The Opti and the emotional buildup . I hope that your hubby is ok when he realises what's happens. I guess he may be very disappointed and frustrated, poor guy.
I would talk to the surgeon and find out the reason this happened. I am also a medical person and realise unfortunately that these things sometimes happen, humans are to infallable.
Hope that you are all ok today. Think calm thoughts for the one in the tummy

[Time2Change]

Similar thing happened to my Husband. They just couldn't do it. He had said to me before hand I bet it doesn;t happen. Then when I saw him in recovery he said, do you know? Do you know they couldn't do it? I couldn't believe it. I felt so bad for him. He'd been on optifast for three months too.