ADHESIONS Messages for May, 2002: Re: small bowel obstruction

I'm so sorry to hear about your pain, trauma and fear. It is not uncommom among us. I, too, was very young (23) when a misscarriage and ruptured ovarian cyst (causing internal bleeding, which went undiagnosed for 3 weeks, during which I was in EXTREME pain and nearly died) forced me into emergency surgery. I have not had a pain free day since.

However, I would recommend you try not to worry about something that may never happen to you again. Obviously you form adhesions when you have surgery, so 99% of us on this board would recommend you don't have any additional surgery, unless you have a life-threatnening condition.

I will keep you in my prayers and thoughts. You will find friendship and support here, from the wonderful people who know what you're living with.

Take care, your friend,

A. Trent

>From: anonymous@medispecialty.com (anonymous)

>Reply-To: adhesions@adhesions.org

>To: Multiple recipients of list ADHESIONS

>Date: Tue, 21 May 2002

I can be sympathetic with your pain. Five years ago I had my appendix removed laproscopacally, now five years later I find myself with quite a large problem. April 11th at 4am I went into the ER. I was in the most severe pain in my abdomen I have ever experienced in my life. It turns out I had a bowel obstruction due to scar tissue from the surger I had five years ago. I had to have emergency sugery. It turns out that three feet of my intestine was just about dead, my surgeon said it was a purple almost black color". He did not have to remove any of my instestine that as soon as he untwisted it and removed the scar tissue it started getting pink again. I am 21 years old and I don't understand what has happend to me. All I read is that this is very rare and that it usually happens to older people. My life has been completely put on hold. I don't know if it can happen again, the docotors said that it could but it usually doesn't happend twice. As far as they tell me there is nothing I can do to prevent it. I am a college student and I live far from home and I have to admit I'm very scared of this. I want to live my life like I did before, I want to be "normal". I'm pretty much left with many questions and no clear answers.