Not getting better

My 81 year old father had surgery 2 and a half weeks ago to remove an 8 inch section of his large intestine which had a perforation and had gotten infected.  He was up, moving nicely a week later only to cough out a stitch which required a new surgery to repair that stitch in the tissue (not the intestine).  Since then, he has not been able to rebound, and instead is listless and very much up and down.  He had a stomach tube until this morning, took a pain pill which caused a great deal of nausea, which required mediation.  This afternoon, he vomited what had been accumulating in his stomach and they put the stomach tube back in to vacate his stomach.  We (My siblings and I) are feeling confused and lost as to what the heck is going on.  He is (was) a healthy 81 year old and now he can't seem to get his bowels to get moving again.  He did poop yesterday and this morning, but the nurse says the volume of "stuff" in his stomach indicates that his intestines are not processing things appropriately.  Anybody have any experience with this situation?  Thanks,

[lizziecee]

Hi Kim,

I am sorry to hear of your distress and concern with your father's situation. You don't say whether the resection was due to Crohn's, and perhaps a stricture, which caused the perforation, or otherwise, so I am not sure how to respond...but I guess any response is far better than none.

I have had Crohn's for 40 yrs (am now 65 yrs young) and had my first resection a year ago. This was due to strictures (narrowing) in both the latter part of the small intestine and first part of the colon...plus many ulcers and a couple of abscesses. The terminal ileum was also removed, and this does lead to motility complications. The large intestine will be affected by the trauma of the surgery and can take some time to work normally.

As far as I can remember, as I was in intensive care for 3 days, I had a stomach tube for about 5 days which aspirated some ghastly green stuff. My wonderful specialist IBD gastro surgeon said the surgery went perfectly, but was concerned that I could not have a bowel movement for about 8 days. Eventually, I was passing gas, and then horrendous diarrhea. Then, suddenly, with no warning I was very nauseous and could not stop vomiting. This was late at night and the head nurse on the gastro surgical ward put in a naso-gastric tube which instantly stopped the vomiting.  This was in for about 3-4 days, but when I went to shower and bent down it came out! The problem was resolved, as I had no further vomiting.

I believe patients do respond differently to surgery, and it could be that your father's intestines just need time to adjust to what is major surgery.

However, I would ask to see the surgeon and, if your father has one, the gastro-enterologist too, for their input.

Hopefully, matters will get better for him in the next few days.

Kind regards,
Liz