Recovery After Right Hemicolectomy

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Safasks
Posts: 1
Joined: Fri Jun 17, 2022 7:09 pm

Recovery After Right Hemicolectomy

Postby Safasks » Fri Jun 17, 2022 7:15 pm

Hellooooo,
Just wondering if someone could put my mind at ease or maybe share their story after colorectal surgery. My husband 22 years old has just undergone a laparoscopic right hemicolectomy. He is in severe pain and requires his morphine pump quite a lot, he also struggles to be active whilst in the hospital. We’re currently on day 4 and he’s managed to walk around twice up and down the ward and seems to be improving however there is still no BM movement. Can anyone give me some advice on how to help or what to ask the doctors and nurses as I am concerned for him. I just hope he’s not developed lieus!!!!!!
Really hoping he has a BM soon, can anyone share their story on when they had a BM, just need to put my mind at ease.
:D :D

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Peregrine
Posts: 255
Joined: Tue Mar 01, 2022 1:18 am

Re: Recovery After Right Hemicolectomy

Postby Peregrine » Sun Jun 19, 2022 1:06 am

Safasks wrote:...
• Can anyone give me some advice on how to help or what to ask the doctors and nurses as I am concerned for him. I just hope he’s not developed lieus!!!!!!

• Really hoping he has a BM soon, can anyone share their story on when they had a BM, just need to put my mind at ease.
:D :D

Safasks -

Welcome to the forum, and I'm sorry to hear that your husband is having such a difficult recovery. Normally the doctors claim that laparoscopic surgeries have the advantage of shorter post-op hospitalization (e.g., only 3 or 4 days in hospital before discharge), so it is understandable why you might be a bit concerned if your husband is still in the hospital after 5 or 6 days .. but there might be some reasons for this.

Your post did not have any replies in the first day. I was hoping that some of the members here with laparoscopic hemicolectomy experience might have replied by now, but unfortunately that was not the case. I'm a bit reluctant to post my own thoughts here because my past surgeries were not laparoscopic and were not as extensive as a hemicolectomy. Furthermore, I am a bit biased because all of my past surgeries have been open surgeries, and I am not generally in favor of any kind of laparoscopic or robotic surgeries. Nonetheless, I will post some thoughts here just to keep your post active a bit longer so that maybe some hemicolectomy patients might see your post in the next week or so and decide to reply.

Right now I'll just mention one possibility here -- something related to the anesthetist's (anesthesiologist's) pre-surgery meeting with your husband. In your husband's pre-surgery meeting with the anesthesiologist your husband was probably asked to give a complete list of medications taken. Then your husband was probably given an instruction sheet describing what to do, and what not to do, in preparation for surgery.

For the surgery, the anesthesiologist will be in charge of administering two kinds of anesthesia -- (1) a general anesthesia (usually Propofol) to make the patient unconscious, and (2) a regional anesthesia to calm the bowel to keep it from jerking around during surgery. It's the anesthesiologist's job to manage the dose levels of these two medications. To do this properly, the anesthesiologist needs to know what other mind-altering drugs or substances the patient has taken the day or two just before surgery. This includes any kind of product that has the potential of altering the neural activity of the central nervous system, such as herbal teas, alcohol, anti-anxiety drugs, sleeping pills, recreational drugs, etc., etc.

Sometimes there is a problem with non-compliance whereby the patient fails to give the anesthesiologist a complete list of such products he is taking. In that case there is the possibility that the patient will be inadvertently overdosed with anesthesia because the anesthesiologist does not have complete information about what other mind-altering drugs are circulating in the patient's body,

The result, then, may be a prolonged recovery period, and perhaps a bit of ileus (temporarily paralyzed bowel) that has to be overcome.

The best way to try to overcome this and to shorten the recovery time is to encourage the patient to walk or move around so as to flush the excess anesthesia out of the body as soon as possible.

Here is a reference with some information about the anesthesia requirements for surgery:

    "Likewise, certain medications and nutritional supplements need to be avoided prior to surgery since they can affect bleeding and swelling during surgery. Some may also create blood clots, cause bruising or even prevent healing after surgery. So it’s important that the anesthesiologist receive a complete list of anything the patient is taking in order to minimize risk."

    Reference: https://www.theapprenticedoctor.com/wha ... hetist-do/

======

Meanwhile, what you could do that will help in the long run is to prepare a signature for your account here once you have received the pathology report and the surgery report from your husband's surgery. Here's an example:


casjongb1
Posts: 3
Joined: Tue Nov 15, 2022 10:28 pm
Facebook Username: cas states

Re: Recovery After Right Hemicolectomy

Postby casjongb1 » Tue Nov 15, 2022 10:45 pm

Hello i am new to this forum.I had a laparoscopic right cilectomy 5 weeks ago.Did not have bm in 6 days, had the ng tube back , not good.Anyway , i have to add that i had radiation 6 years ago for rectal cancer so the damage from that did not help.Anyway 7th day back in surgery.They found blockage in small bowel and fixed it.Things now going well.Starting chemo on 28th


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