The second time around - Kind of -

gary561454

Hi, my name is Gary and I was a member back in 2011 when I originally had my bariatric surgery (Roux-n-y). Things went well back then and I lost about 100 lbs from an original weight of about 360. Unfortunately over the years I began to put it back on and most recently was at 330 lbs. In late 2011, about 3 months after surgery I developed an ulcer and had a lot of blood loss. I went to the emergency room and a Dr. scoped me and "repaired" the ulcer. I had no problems until recently. In early November of this year (2018) I started having stomach pains and aches and in some cases it felt like I had a blockage in which food wasn't even getting to my stomach pouch. I went to the Dr., a new one since we had moved about 300 miles away, and they felt I had pancreatitis and began treating me for that. With no relief, on the Friday after Thanksgiving I went into the emergency room at our local hospital and they felt also that I had Pancreatitis. They gave me some pain meds and sent me on my way. The next week with the issue still there I went to see my gp and he brought up the idea of getting scoped again. The scope was set for Dec 8th. I had that done and the surgeon said "Oh, you have an ulcer." He put me on Carafate and said it should heal up.
Ten days later on Dec 18th I woke up about 3:15 am and began vomiting blood into the bathroom sink. My wife called a neighbor and 911 and I was taken to the local hospital emergency department. This is a hospital in a small country town who does their best but just does not have the experience or equipment to handle some major problems. They tried to find a hospital in the nearest major metro area, Indianapolis, that would take me. Unfortunately many hospitals and Dr's refused because of my prior gastric bypass surgery so I laid there bleeding and vomiting in the local hospital while they tried to find somewhere to send me off to. Fortunately I was accepted by a Dr. at IU North Hospital in Carmel Indiana. I was transported there and arrived almost 12 hours after my episode started at home. I had been given a transfusion for the ride since my hemoblogin (HGL) had dropped to around 11.
I can't say enough good things about the staff and the comfort provided at this hospital. Within about 4 hours of my arrival the Dr. decided to scope me to get a good look at the issue. He said, oh yeah, there is an ulcer, it's a big one, and it's bleeding! At this time my HGL was about 10 and still dropping. I then received my second unit of blood and after that was put in and labs came back my HGL was still dropping but not significantly, now about 9.8. They tried to work on me with various methods to get my blood level going in the right direction, unfortunately it continued to drop until two days later while they tried to get me to sit up in a chair I passed out, my bp was 74/34, and when they checked my HGL was down to 7.2. Now what? The Dr. came in and said they were going to surgically remove the ulcer, which was located at the connection between my pouch and intestine, and then basically give me a second Roux -n-y. My wife and I both felt that this was the only way to protect from further problems with that ulcer. The surgery was completed and I returned home on December 24th, Christmas Eve. Obviously Santa had been very good to me and my family.
I'm 65 years old and know that I have to do it different this time. I need to listen to all of the advice and do the physical exercise and proper food preparation all the time. Thanks for reading this long post and I hope to be working and reading on here for years to come.

Pav2019

It sounds like you have plenty of reasons to make this happen now. Theres alot of great people here who can give plenty of advice so your in the right place.
Time to make some big changes ahead. You can do it!