Cregg Griswold

On November 1,2015, my father went in for what I thought would be a simple surgery. He went under surgery for an incisional hernia repair. (Sepsis and Surgery) An incisional hernia is a hernia in which developed from an incision from a previous surgery. He had his appendix out many years ago, which was a result of the original incision. My mother and I were acknowledged that he will be in the hospital for about a week and should be back to work within two weeks. Unfortunately that was not the case. This was just the beginning for my dad’s fight for his life.

Two days after the surgery is when things changed. He began to have severe swelling of the abdomen as well as a fever with belly pain. Doctors and nurses simply thought this was a post-operative infection and began pumping him with I.V. antibiotics. The surgeon thought the infection should go away within a few days. A few days goes by, and the infection is still present. Further testing is done and it is discovered he has a leak in his colon.

On November 5,2015, here we go again into surgery number two. The surgery he was going into was an exploratory laparotomy with possible colostomy. It was a three-hour anxious wait to discover what is going on. Three hours later, I get the result that I was not expecting. I had no idea that my father was severely sick with septic shock. Sepsis was affecting the function in the brain as well as heart failure. Somehow, a lack of blood flow occurred within the transverse colon, which resulted in a transverse colectomy, a removal of the transverse colon. Stool was leaking into his abdominal cavity and into his bloodstream during surgery. (Sepsis and Perforated Bowel) When my mother and I got to see him after surgery, he was placed onto a ventilator to help him breathe. He ended up having a colostomy bag along with a mucous fistula bag. He had several drains attached to him as well as a nasogastric tube put in to drain stomach contents. This was heartbreaking! He had to ease into his diet starting with ice chips, liquids, full liquids, soft foods, and then a regular diet. This was a total of a thirty-day hospital stay.

It is now the day after Thanksgiving, and my mother and I sure have something to be thankful for! Thanks to the team of Wound Ostomy care and Education nurses, he got through the next few months like a champ. Still very weak, underweight, and still trying to get his strength back up, he makes strides in the right direction of getting his health back in order. The most important thing of all during this tough time was that I had my dad with me during the holiday and into the New Year.

After confirming with colonoscopies as well as more further testing, the colon is believed to be healed and he is ready for a colostomy take down. My mother, father, as well as myself were educated that the colostomy bag was temporary and that he would eventually be ready for the reversal surgery. On February 1,2016, he had surgery to undergo the colostomy reversal process however, the surgery had to be stopped. My heart stopped at that point when I got the news. Not only was the reversal not possible, he also had a heart attack as well as went into cardiac arrest for approximately eight minutes. Once again, he has septic shock which included lung,heart, and kidney failure. More colon had to be removed due to the tissue being dead. He was placed on a ventilator due to the amount of seriousness with the surgery.The surgeon had reached a safe stopping point within the surgery and told us “It was very unsafe to continue the surgery, he probably would not have made it if I continued, he is a very very sick man right now”.

My mom and I saw my dad on a ventilator once again. We cried a lot, didn’t sleep, and were just plain worried. It was unknown at this point what was going to happen next. I felt numb. I squeezed his hand. Still sad and scared for his life, I glimmered with hope that he squeezed my hand back. He’s definitely not gone! Then he opened his eyes, WHILE on a ventilator. I talked to him, asked if he can hear, and he was perfectly able to answer yes and no questions.

February 4, 2016 he goes back into surgery and the surgeon gives him a temporary ileostomy, an opening through the small intestine rather than the large, like a colostomy. The surgeons words when he gave us the news after the completion of this surgery were “That was an awful surgery, anything that could have gone wrong went wrong”. The surgeon put in an order for TPN which is intravenous nutrition. He stayed for a total of 25 days for the month of February.

A few months go by and my mother, myself as well as his coworkers are noticing changes. He has memory problems, sluggishness on the right side of his body, and differences in his speech. He also has had nightmares, vivid hallucinations, and I have even herd him scream in his sleep.

July 21,2016 he goes for the ileostomy reversal. The surgery is a success with some setbacks. A fistula formed underneath his skin, which eventually busted open. There was lots of blood loss as well as stool coming from the cite. He currently has a small tear in the intestine but it is expected to close back on its own. He has had to have a total of eight units of blood replaced which is near a one hundred percent transfusion. He also began to have the begging stages of sepsis (thankfully it was caught early).

With a total of six surgeries, over fifty pound weight loss, blood transfusions, organ failure, and a plentiful amount of health issues, he is thankful to be alive. He continues to get his strength back up each and every day. He has survived so much up to this point and continues to have plenty of fight left in him.

Source: Heather Griswold (Daughter)