Nov
30
2009
When I woke up from surgery, about half an hour after they sewed me up again, I felt nauseous. They gave me an injection of something which helped a little, though I did stay nauseous all the time in the hospital.
I have an anecdote there: I got this medication that didn’t help so much, so one of the nurses (bless her) switched me to something else, and that worked great. This after exclaiming:
But this stuff relaxes your stomach! You don’t have that anymore, I will give you something else.
The stuff I got after that worked great. The next time they wanted to give me that other stuff again, but I and TG(TallGuy aka bf aka grimm) protested heavily and I got the other stuff again. They also turned down the epidural (took away one of the opiates) to help with the nausea.
It never went away completely.
Now that I’ve removed certain foods from my diet (wheat-products and milk) and have stopped taking the Plaquenil I have a lot less nausea. It hasn’t gone away completely (yet), however, it has gone away a lot. Instead of mostly nauseous with some nausea-free hours, the reverse happens most of the time. I only have the last week or two to look at, so I won’t yet do a little victory dance. It looks good, though, and that makes me happy.
Mar
15
2009
Yeah, this one, the one with the three siblings and their CDH1 gene mutation, causing HDGC, that aired on March 12th.
Continue Reading »
Nov
23
2008
Some time ago I had to go to the hospital.
Due to a genetic mutation I have an extremely high risk to get (and die from) a particular nasty kind of stomach-cancer. To prevent the getting and dying part, I decided to have my stomach removed (a total gastroectomy).
Because this runs in the family I have seen what it can do to someone and what happens when the stomach gets removed. I’ve had five family-members before me, and two after me having the same procedure.
One can live without a stomach, it just takes time to adjust.
It has taken a bit more time than I expected, though, but I’ll manage. Due to complications I had to stop taking my rheumatoid arthritis medication for a while, which caused it to flame up. I have started them again and now have to wait for things to calm down again, which takes a month or two.
Dealing with this consumes a lot of time (which I have plenty off) and energy (which unfortunately, I have very little off), and I try to still do fun stuff. My RA tends to flame up during winter so I suspect I have a bumpy ride ahead of me still.
During this time my fridge has started to act up, something I do not want as the lack of stomach acid also means I have far less protection against evil germs in food. Luckily I saw it as an opportunity to channel my creativity into designed a new area for my fridge and pantry (with drawers, yay!).
I have found ways to boost my energy a little, so I plan to do more fun stuff (and update my poor blog a bit more cough). I’ll probably post random content, of anything that keeps me busy, and drawings where possible. The RA makes drawing uncomfortable and I don’t want to see drawing as something painful, I have to limit it for now.
So, who has the stomach for some horror-surgery-stories?
I just couldn’t help myself!
Jul
28
2008
I got released from the hospital about three weeks ago and have stayed at my parents for a while. Right now I still have a lot of recovering to do, and I haven’t drawn as much as I wanted to. I did however make this one drawing in the hospital when my IV once again got shifted from one arm to the other.
All went well, no complications during surgery and only a minor pneumonia after (which caused no problems). I went home after 9 days with a feedingtube still attached. Recovery will take time, hopefully I can spent much of it drawing.
Jun
26
2008
See you in a couple of weeks!
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