June 2, 2002
January 14, 2003 – March 10, 2003 - This had complications; bowel block; loss of a part of the small gut, and infection that left me with an open belly wound and no reconstruction.
November 2003
March 2004
March 2005 – Parastomal Hernia returned and repaired a 3rd time
December 29, 2005 – New hernia appeared
June 15, 2006 – Surgery to repair break in mesh
My present surgeon has great compassion, and wishes that he could attempt a new procedure that has now been perfected by two surgeons in Florida USA, where they open up the abdominal area, and lay back all the muscle and fascia and then begin to reattached various parts down the middle of the abdomen where all was originally knit together. They then reinforce the midline with pig gut, which will eventually be absorbed as the body's own rebuilding takes place; then they further reinforce the entire abdominal area from side to side with a special Mesh unit that is one piece which then prevents any further hernias from ever developing. As I understand it no plastic mesh is used, and when all is done one's abdominal area has been returned to its original tight construction. Now, how this would be done for one with a stoma I do not know. At present I have a special mesh designed to fit
around my stoma, but with protection from doing damage to the Ileum conduit, nevertheless I still have bouts of pain in that area....probably due to the fact that my muscle structure is all messed up to begin with.
At present I am having to deal with one place where mesh is implanted that the scar tissue has broken and the mesh broke through. My surgeon has cut away the mesh to expose the raw tissues and I am on a regimen of packing the wound daily with a medicated material to hold down infection as we wait to allow new tissue to form. So far this seems to be working. Please understand that all of the skin down my midline is scar tissue from the open wound I had in 2003, and in fact my belly button is now offset about two inches from center, and mostly closed up.
As for the Anemia problem. I did write about that previously, and at last report I had finally seen a Hematologist about this problem. The first thing he did was require a complete exam of both my upper and lower GI to eliminate bleeding as a source of the Anemia, as well as a Bone Marrow & Bone Biopsy. I had all this done, including a new Cat Scan, and all proved negative for bleeding or any cancer. At last report I had been forced to get released from one hospital since there were too many procedures to be done all at once, and I followed up by spacing each so all could be done to satisfy my Hematologist. The results of the Bone Marrow Biopsy, and Bone Biopsy turned out to show why and where the Anemia was coming from. My Bone Marrow showed virtually no IRON to produce Red Blood Cells, therefore the diagnosis was "IRON Deficient Anemia"..... ........As for B12 I can get
all that I need through using an under the tongue tablet that dissolves directly into the blood stream. IRON, however, was another story. He tried me on 325 mg IRON (Ferrous Sulfate), three times a day, but after about a week this caused such gastric distress I had to stop taking it. Next I was scheduled to have IRON Infusion by IV, but since the first of what was to be 10 sessions could not be scheduled for over 2 weeks, and my gastric distress had settled down I opted on my own to begin taking an OTC version of IRON called "Slow FE-Ferrous sulfate time released" but only the one small pill per day.
Curious as to how that might help I requested blood work last Monday at my Family Doctor's clinic, and the results were amazing. From a low Hemoglobin of 9.0 I had come up to 11.1. When I first saw the Hematologist my Blood Hemoglobin was 8.0, and because of that he had me transfused with two units of whole blood, which helped at the time, but leveled off after two weeks so that I only held to the 9.0 Hemoglobin. I told the Hematologist that I was now showing the 11.1 reading, but he felt the IRON Infusion by IV would help me much more, so I went to have the first treatment yesterday... .......WOW. .....What a disaster that was. It took over an hour and a half to run the test of a diluted version of the IRON to see how I would react. Nothing showed up so they began the full dose, but within about 45 min I began to feel sick, and flushed so they were forced to stop the Infusion, and
it was determined I could not tolerate this type of treatment.
That was not the end of the story....... ..My wife brought me home from the hospital still feeling a bit sick, and I began to notice some difficulty swallowing. Later I called the Infusion center and they said I could take a Bendryl (not sure that's spelled right) at 3 PM. I did and slept for a while, and woke up feeling slightly better and hungry. About 40 minutes later after getting up my BP crashed, and so did I, ending up on the floor with my wife calling 911. My BP went down to 63 over something, and I was taken to the ER. After tests, and some 3 hours it was determined I had some type of "drug related" event from the IRON Infusion. I was released and got home last night at 9:30 PM. So much for the Iron by IV......I cannot tolerate it at all. However, a point of interest was when they ran blood work on me at the ER the Hemoglobin readings came back showing I
was now up to 13.1. Since the small amount of IRON that was Infused had not had time to affect my Bone Marrow I now know that taking the simple OTC Slow FE is working well, however I am so mucked up today I will not take anything until Monday to let my body recover from the bas scene last evening. My last BP reading was 117 over 63 so I am feeling much better.
I do not know what doctor you are seeing at present, but what you need is a "blood man", a Hematologist, and possibly a Bone Marrow Biopsy. I had heard those were painful, but I never felt a thing when they did mine, and only had a slight soreness where they took it from my hip if I sat in a hard chair, but that went away within a week.
As for the Anemia...... ..all the symptoms I had ended up being miss diagnosed earlier as having COPD because of the shortness of breath. Once my Hemoglobin began to come back up all that disappeared. Anemia can cause severe shortness of breath,, weakness, loss of energy, depression, anxiety, endurance, along with a number of other symptoms that are easily miss diagnosed. I became suspicious when all the treatments for COPD failed to give relief, and even Oxygen did not help at all. Of course not.....without enough Hemoglobin the body is starved for Oxygen as there are no Red Cells of the right type to carry it to the tissues, and the lungs react trying to get Oxygen to the blood, but cannot do so. Constant coughing and fluid buildup in the lungs and airways is also a problem I had, and now that has almost all gone away.
Forgive the length of this reply, and I do hope it helps, and they you find the help you need soon.
Bob Query
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