One of my sisters had lap band gastric bypass surgery Tursday. She was supposed to be in and out by the afternoon, but her blood sugar spiked and they kept her in to reduce it. As they were getting ready to release her, they found that she had internal bleeding. The transfused 2 units of blood and did an MRI (or CAT scan). They waited to see if the bleeding stopped, then did another transfusion. This morning she was in surgery for four hours. She was bleeding from the insertion point for a port into her stomache. They thought they’d controlled the bleeding, then they jiggled it to make sure it’d stopped and it started bleeding again. Now they’re pretty sure it’s sewn closed. She’s going to get another transfusion (her 3rd) and she’ll be in ICU for another couple days, probably four more days in the hospital altogether. The scary thing is, the reason they kept her at the hospital at first was because her blood sugar spiked to 324. It wasn’t until she’d been there a while did they discover the internal bleeding. If they’d sent her home who knows if htey’d’ve found the internal bleeding in time?
Wow. Sorry to hear this, but good for her that her surgeon seems to have a good head on his/her shoulders. Tell her to take it easy, even if she feels just fine, she needs to go easy on herself. I know it was scary for you – when I had my gastric bypass, there was a scare with my hematocrit and hemoglobin dropping while my blood pressure bottomed out – I was typed for a transfusion just in case and checked over with a fine-toothed comb, turned out to be nothing but it was a scary couple hours. Your sister is lucky that the staff worried about the blood sugar – most wouldn’t – from what I have seen/heard, it is fairly common for one’s blood sugar to spike after any surgery. Sorry, no cite.
Thanks for the support. My family, probably because it’s so large, seems to have more than its fair share of medical issues. I’ll post an update tomorrow. Hopefuly the stitches will hold and it’ll heal well enough that she can go home soon.
Hi, St.Germain. It’s good to see that you are among some familiar and friendly faces.
I’m sorry that your sister has had such a tough time of it. I hope that she is has had it done locally since there are such good resources here.
I know that she is glad to be out of ICU. They kept me for only one night and all I remember was wanting “to slip the surly bonds of earth…”
Yes, I had a gastric by-pass before they did it laproscopically. Oh it was hell. When I came home, I kept thinking that I was going to come “unzipped.” I enjoyed the good drugs while they lasted and Zeldar kept feeding me baby food bananas.
(Don’t bother with Gerber’s beef and broccoli. It was surely developed by someone who hates babies.)
I hope your sister is up and about in no time. I’ve never regretted my surgery for one moment!
How is your other sister (?) doing. I seem to recall you had a sister fighting cancer as well?
A close friend of mine had complications from some form (don’t know which form) of weight loss surgery (I think gastric bypass) and was in the hospital for a month. Compounded, as I recall, by a MRSA infection. Very scary. That was several years ago now, though. (And she has lost weight).
Is this really laparoscopic surgery? My SIL had it done a couple of years ago (she was unable to change her lifestyle, so it failed, but that’s another story) and I had the idea it was a significant invasion of the body.
I wonder sometimes is some surgeons don’t see these thing as “routine” and fail to pay as much attention to detail on Procedure #2,307 as they did on Procedure #1. Bear in mind my education consists of 18 hours of graduate study in English – still, I wonder …
This was done laproscopically, and should’ve been an out-patient procedure. They say she should hopefully get out of the hospital on Wednesday.
Dangerosa - My other sister is doing very well, thank you for asking. This year that sister had a hysterectomy, two separate lumpectomies and chemo and radiation for breast cancer, and a partial then full thyroidectomy after it was found she had thyroid cancer. It’s been a hard year. I have a third sister, identical twin to the lab-band sister. Right now her health is okay, knock on wood.
