Since I'm new I don't know everyone yet, but I'm *always* ready to celebrate a cancer free notice! Great news!
Thanks butterfly. Cameron is my 22 year old son who was diagnosed with Lympohcyte Predominant Hodgkin Lymphoma just before Christmas in 2010. He spent most of the first six months of 2011 in a St Jude bed at the Children's Hospital of Illinois in Peoria where we live. Long story but he had all kinds of issues including a Pulmonary Embolism that put him in ICU for a week. A clot formed on his central line and piece broke off flowing through his heart and lodging in his lung. He had a really rough time with the after effects of Chemo that worked as it is put him in remission within 3months of starting treatment, but it caused bad neurological issues (went to Mayo five times for diagnosis and treatment of conditions). He has had 12 surgeries since being diagnosed, so he has had a very rough five years and as parents it hasn't been very easy for my wife and I.
The connection he has to our world is that he developed very bad gastroparesis from the failed nissen fundoplication I was discussing with Larra where the Dr cut his vagal nerve. That controls your pyloric valve so his stomach was only emptying about 20% 4 hours after eating. This caused horrible nausea, dizziness, dry heaving and retching. A local surgeon basically wanted to take his stomach out. I had learned about Dr Keshishian from a board before this place (the sane people left than place and Liz started this one with the help of Diana) so I emailed him about Cameron and he called me back 5 minutes later..that was about 5AM Saturday morning California time. Dr K didn't know me from Adam and he spent 45 minutes talking with me discussing possible options and telling me that I should be able to get a local surgeon to do this surgery for Cameron. BTW, he wouldn't take my insurance card and bill me for a consultation. His response, I love my job, this is what I do. Well we saw a surgeon as suggested and when the quack wanted to take95% of his stomach that is when I called Dr K back and said we are coming to see you. He would have gotten Cameron in the next day if we could have been there but we were there within a week and he put in basically a big gravity drain off the greater curvature of his stomach so food that didn't flow through normally would come out this Rouxen Y Drain. Yes is an RnY would be no weight loss component because only a few inches of intestine are bypassed...just enough to get the food out and not have to worry about it refluxing back into the stomach. Dr K also repaired Cameron's Nissen wrap, fixed a small ventral hernia, and found something called a meckel's divirticulum that he removed as well.
While we were out on that trip Dr K and I hit it off and began a discussion about me because at that time I had been on CREON for about 8 months for my severe malnutrition from my original DS. We decided to let things go until around the 2 years surgiversary of my DS. By that point I should have normalized as much as I was going to and my absorption should have been at its maximum. That would have been September. Well in late July lost 17 pounds in a week. Dr K said I needed to either immediately start TPN or get out for the revision to extend my Alimentary Limb to improve my absorption. I know you are looking at a revision so please pay attention that it was my AL and not my Common Channel that was too short (about half the length it should have been if my surgeon had given me a proper HESS DS). So many people talk about the CC as if it is the end all be all of the DS and the only thing that controls the amount of weight we lose and our nutritional status. The CC is important but just as important is the AL and relationship of the CC, AL and Bilpancreatic limb to length of the small bowel). Anyway Dr K did my revision of last year and I immediately stopped taking the boatload of creon I was taking daily to survive.
So that is how Cameron shares a connection to the bariatric world. We both had a surgical repair from the best bariatric surgeon in the world and the best man you will ever meet in all ways. Follow up care and concern for patients, technical skill, accessibility, learning, etc. Not sure if you picked a surgeon but I couldn't recommend any better surgeon to give you the second phase of your DS, the switch. The sleeve is phase one and btw, you didn't the VSG failed you. It simply doesn't have the long term success of the DS, so you are making a very wise decision and you will get the weight off as long as you eat protein first and take your vitamins.
Thanks for your well wishes and best of luck on your journey.
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