A meal of grilled fish almost made me lose a piece of intestines

I thought I just had a bad stomach after eating grilled fish, but I didn’t expect that going home to celebrate the New Year turned into being hospitalized. I had my first general anesthesia surgery in my life, and I had an oxygen tube, a gastric tube, and a urinary tube. , drainage tubes, anesthesia pumps, a complete set.

Things will start from New Year's Day, 2021...

Shortly after New Year's Day, I suddenly started to feel pain in the lower part of my right ribs, and the pain was even more unbearable every time I smiled. Because it was an intermittent attack, I didn’t take it seriously at first. After a few days, the pain began to spread to the entire upper abdomen.

It wasn’t until one night when I was struck by a joke from my roommate that it made me cry in pain every time I laughed, that I began to feel that something was wrong and rushed to the emergency room.

When I entered the emergency ward, I was in so much pain that I could hardly stand upright. The doctor quickly prescribed a series of tests for me - blood tests, urine tests, B-ultrasound, X-rays and even CT. However, the results of the examination confused them all. I was clearly writhing in pain, but there was "nothing abnormal" on the various films.

Finally, after spending several hours in the hospital, the pain relieved naturally. Since the neutrophil percentage in the blood test report was slightly higher, the doctor speculated that there might be some inflammation in the stomach. But since it was not too high and the white blood cell count did not exceed the normal value, the doctor only prescribed some stomach medicine and suggested that I eat something lighter.

There was no severe pain in the next few days. I ate light meals, thinking that since I didn’t see anything, at least it wasn’t a serious illness and I should be cured soon.

Soon it’s time to prepare to go home for the New Year. The night before leaving Beijing, I made an appointment with a friend for a meal. In order to have a light meal, I ordered a non-spicy grilled fish.

However, before finishing the meal, I already had abdominal pain again and couldn't stand up straight.

After eating, I barely managed to go back to my apartment. I immediately vomited out most of the food and felt a little better. Remembering that there were no major problems in the last emergency examination, I thought that the situation might be similar if I went to the hospital again. In addition, I was going back to my hometown the next morning, so I planned to go home and recuperate slowly.

The next morning, I endured the abdominal pain and boarded the plane.

Abdominal pain is less frequent when sitting on a plane. However, when I got off the plane and started walking, it hurt so much that I started sweating. I struggled to find a toilet and vomited all the little airplane food I had for lunch. I wanted to try to empty my stomach to feel more comfortable, but nothing came out. Unexpectedly, this heralded the beginning of a nightmare.

When I got home, my mother took me to the doctor and got some stomach medicine.

The next night, I was still in so much pain that I couldn’t stand up. The pain frightened my parents. My mother started calling doctors she knew one by one for consultation. The director of the gastroenterology department of the local hospital asked about my condition and asked her to press her fingers on my abdomen and then remove it. I immediately screamed in pain. The director said that this was rebound pain and "suspected peritonitis". In addition, I had not had a bowel movement for two days. This was not just a gastroenterological problem. He suggested that I go to the surgical hospital immediately.

I once had a mysterious belief that hospitalization itself was like a treatment method, and that I would be cured after entering the hospital. It was only after I was admitted to the hospital that I realized that hospitalization was just the beginning of all the pain.

I had another CT examination before admission. The doctor on duty that night looked at the film and determined that there might be intestinal obstruction, which is intestinal blockage. The doctor heard about the upper abdominal pain I had two weeks ago and the fact that I ate grilled fish three days ago, and thought that the cause could not be determined yet. But the symptoms at that time were that my intestines were edematous and blocked, and coupled with the symptoms of peritonitis, the doctor judged that the inflammation was serious and the situation would worsen at any time. Therefore, the first decision the doctor made was to insert a gastric tube.

Gastric tube insertion is to insert a flexible tube from the nasal cavity directly into the stomach to drain the contents of the stomach and reduce the burden on the intestines.

I have an extremely sensitive throat. If I stick the toothbrush even slightly into my throat, I will vomit. I tried to bargain with the doctor.

But the doctor asked me to give up with a simple "Do you want an operation?"

If you want to compare the punishments in the medical system, gastric tube insertion will definitely be among them.

The first nurse poked my nostril twice but couldn't get it in, which made me scream in pain. When she came closer with the tube again, I subconsciously avoided it.

She had no choice but to call another nurse.

The second nurse reached out and took the tube. Before I could react, she quickly and violently inserted it into my nasal cavity. Before I had time to make any resistance, the gastric tube had already penetrated deep into my throat. , I instinctively began to reject it, but the nurse shouted desperately: "Swallow quickly! Swallow quickly!"

I followed the instructions and swallowed downward, and the gastric tube was quickly inserted. The head nurse breathed a sigh of relief and prepared for the next step.

However, I clearly felt that my throat was constantly twitching, and my stomach began to churn. Before I had time to lie down on the bed, I said "Wow" and swallowed the medicine I had drunk and the food I had eaten. All of it spurted out, directly onto the clothes and quilt, one after another, I couldn't help myself.

When I was vomiting to the point of darkness, the nurse shouted from the side: "Don't touch the tube! Don't pull the tube out! Hold on!" This distant cry supported my remaining rationality and restrained myself. The urge to pull out the stomach tube that was finally inserted.

Three overwhelming minutes passed. Everything in the stomach was vomited out. In the end, only gastric juice and bile were left that flowed into the gastric tube. The yellow, yellow, and green colors are a bit scary.

After my stomach emptied, I was hooked up to an intravenous drip, which I heard can slow down the secretion of digestive juices in my stomach. My body became more comfortable and I gradually accepted the fact that the gastric tube existed. I began to desperately tell myself that this was a normal thing. However, if anyone touches my tube even slightly, I will still cry uncontrollably.

This pipe became the biggest nightmare in the next few days.

The next morning, the experts consulted, looked at my CT films, and pressed my stomach a few times. They thought it was suspected intussusception, which means that the intestines are like stuffed sausages, with one section covering the other. Inside. This situation is basically difficult to heal on its own. If left alone, the intestines will continue to be unable to work normally, which will lead to necrosis. Therefore, external force must be used to untie the intestines as soon as possible. To make matters worse, doctors weren't sure whether part of my intestines had become necrotic.

The result of the consultation was that the doctor recommended that I undergo surgery immediately. If it is found that part of the intestine has been necrotic during the operation, the necrotic part can be directly removed during the operation.

Surgery? Isn’t it just a bad stomach? Why do you need surgery? I couldn't believe that the stomach tube was inserted last night just to avoid surgery, but I quickly calmed down and agreed to the surgery.

The first thing to prepare for the operation was all kinds of scary informed consent forms. Seeing my mother couldn’t bear to read them, I quickly took them over and signed them. Poor parents in the world, she shouldn't have been so panicked when she had the surgery.

Surgery under general anesthesia requires the insertion of a urinary catheter. I had not yet come out of the shadow of the gastric tube. I watched the nurse approaching with the tube and subconsciously wanted to avoid it. But this time the quick nurse didn't give me this chance. "It will feel a little uncomfortable. Just hold on and it will be fine soon!" Before I had a chance to shout, my urethra hurt and the tube was inserted.

Soon, I was moved onto the operating table trolley, and a dramatic scene occurred next. The nurses in dark green surgical gowns pushed me into the special elevator, and others gave way to us. My body was tightly tied to the car with a belt. In my field of vision, I could see the overhead lights flashing from the ceiling. In my ears, I could hear the nurses shouting to each other, "Go call doctor so-and-so", "Go prepare so-and-so equipment", and there were hurried pushes. The sound of rolling wheels.

I was a little panicked when I entered the operating room. A group of people were busy around me.

Suddenly, a mask was placed on my face, pressing against my stomach tube, which made me very uncomfortable. I wanted to yell to have it moved away, but I couldn't. Soon, I fell into unconsciousness.

After some time, I began to regain consciousness. Half drunk and half awake, all I dreamed about were the stories I heard at the grilled fish dinner table before leaving Beijing. A PPT with three options appeared in front of me, and I felt that the gastric tube was constantly rubbing against my throat. , made me want to vomit violently, and a distant voice told me that the only way to avoid all this was to choose the correct answer, "C!" I shouted loudly at the PPT in front of me, "I choose C!" < /p>

During the struggle, I gradually regained consciousness, and the PPT gradually disappeared from my eyes. I felt the nurse come over to comfort me and put a mist on my throat, and it gradually became less uncomfortable. After I was pushed back to the ward, I heard the nurse say to my family: "She can't sleep for these 6 hours." My family started chatting with me in turn. I went back and forth between drowsiness and conversation, and finally managed to sleep normally at night.

The gastric tube is still bothering me. It not only makes swallowing very difficult, but also makes me secrete a lot of saliva. In the end, I can only spit it out. My parents have to wipe me every half a minute. saliva. Not eating or drinking for many days, my saliva turned into small white bubbles. For the next few nights, I was like a dying fish in shallow water, sleeping, waking up, and blowing bubbles.

After I woke up from the anesthesia, I heard the doctors’ diagnosis. I was lucky. There was no really serious intussusception or partial necrosis. There was just a section of intestine tied up by intra-abdominal adhesions. Yes, the edema is severe. Doctors successfully removed the adhesions during minimally invasive surgery without removing the intestines.

The doctor believed that the cause of the adhesions was intra-abdominal inflammation, because during the operation it was discovered that in addition to the adhesions in the intestines, I also had large-scale adhesions in my liver, gallbladder and abdominal cavity, and this kind of adhesions can only be caused by inflammation. may cause. Maybe when I had upper abdominal pain in Beijing but nothing was detected, it was inflammation.

In retrospect, this condition should be a transfer of previous inflammation. At that time, the doctor did not prescribe anti-inflammatory drugs for me. Although I improved by controlling my diet and recuperating on my own, the inflammation in my fragile intestines and stomach recurred when the grilled fish irritated it, and began to spread to various parts of the abdomen, causing adhesions and entanglements. The intestines were blocked until surgery was necessary.

The doctor said that the adhesions between the liver and gallbladder and the abdominal cavity could no longer be untied. Fortunately, if I don't get sick, it won't affect my daily life. If I pay attention to some diet and exercise, I may be able to get better on my own.

Therefore, I need to rest after the operation to allow the intestines to clear up as soon as possible.

Every day the doctor would come and ask: "Did you fart?" I could only shake my head anxiously.

In the past, farting has always been regarded as the most embarrassing thing, and there were even stories of aristocratic ladies committing suicide in shame because of farting in public, but now I am here, hoping for the stars and the moon, hoping that it will come out loudly in public.

During the review on the fourth day after the operation, the doctor pushed the contrast agent into my stomach through the gastric tube. In the afternoon, I began to feel intestinal peristalsis and hurried to the toilet. The dull fart sound echoed. , and had loose stools by the way. The heavy stone in my heart was finally removed. Shit and pee, these things that are usually laughed at by people, have become the most happy signs today.

Before and after the surgery, I was filled with tubes. After my intestines were partially unblocked, my biggest wish every day was to remove one of the tubes and replace it with normal body functions.

The smoothest thing is the oxygen tube. There is not much difference before and after insertion and removal. Every tube removed after that was a little adventure.

Next came the anesthesia pump. After it was removed, my movements often suddenly froze. Because of the pain in the wound, I could only grit my teeth and wait for it to leave on its own.

The next step is to remove the urinary catheter. In order to prevent the person from losing the ability to hold in urine and urinate with the help of the urinary catheter in the past few days, it is necessary to hold in urine several times before removing it to allow the bladder to regain its autonomy. Since I had never drank water before, I urinated the first few times without a strong feeling of holding back my urine. In the end, the removal of the urinary catheter took two days to be completed.

The most troubling thing is that the gastric tube must be removed after the intestines are confirmed to be unobstructed. Otherwise, if the intestinal function is not restored, it will pressurize the intestines. Therefore, after defecation and ventilation, and after another three days of observation, the tube that had helped me but once made me feel uncomfortable and suffocated was finally pulled out of my nasal cavity. I finally don’t have to have someone wipe my saliva every day like I’m having a stroke!

The last tube on the body is the drainage tube, and you can leave the hospital after this is removed. This tube is buried deep in the body after surgery. It is inserted from the lower left side of the abdomen to the pelvic cavity. It is used to drain the fluid accumulated in the body after surgery. When it is pulled out, it is equivalent to pulling it out directly. At the same time, it will also be mixed with Friction occurs on the skin, and every time I think about this scene, I feel creepy, looking forward to and scared at the same time.

The day of extubation came. In order to divert my attention, I kept playing games. Before the extraction, every time the iodophor cotton lightly touched the wound, causing a little pain, I became so nervous that my body tensed up. In the end, I only heard the doctor say, pull it out and hold your breath, it will hurt a little. As soon as I took a breath, I felt the tube being pulled out, and then a stream of liquid followed the tube and continued to gush out. The doctor quickly started treating my hole with cotton. Although there was still a little pain occasionally, I finally relaxed - the tube was removed!

The day before New Year’s Eve, I was finally discharged from the hospital. It was my first general anesthesia surgery in my life. I saw the magical PPT, which made me still remember this meal that caused such great consequences. It is new and gives me a little unique pleasure in the pain of medical treatment.

And once I got sick, I felt the meticulous care of my parents and the warm concern of my friends. After I was discharged from the hospital, although there were still many dietary taboos, I also realized that there were so many people around me who loved me silently. Consciousness Even small things like being able to speak, drink water, and walk freely turn out to be such blessings worth cherishing. This is the best gift that illness can give to the new year.

Intestinal obstruction refers to the obstruction of the passage of intestinal contents caused by any reason. It can occur in newborn infants to centenarians. It is a common surgical acute abdomen.

There are various causes of intestinal obstruction, including mechanical intestinal obstruction, dynamic intestinal obstruction and vascular intestinal obstruction. The intraoperative situation of this case is a common manifestation of "adhesive intestinal obstruction" among mechanical intestinal obstructions. Adhesive intestinal obstruction is also the most common type of intestinal obstruction. Patients with a history of abdominal surgery and intra-abdominal inflammation (such as acute appendicitis, pelvic inflammatory disease) are high-risk groups for adhesive intestinal obstruction.

The principle is that under normal circumstances, the surfaces of the intestines and other organs in the abdominal cavity are covered with a smooth serosa layer, and a small amount of peritoneal fluid secreted in the abdominal cavity can lubricate the intestines. However, during abdominal surgery or other complications, After abdominal infectious diseases, factors such as lack of serosa layer, invasion of foreign bodies, inflammation, etc. in the abdominal cavity may cause intestinal adhesion and twisting, obstruction of the passage of intestinal contents, and subsequent intestinal obstruction.

The general symptoms of intestinal obstruction are abdominal pain and distension, nausea and vomiting, and cessation of exhaust and defecation in the anus. If the obstruction continues to worsen, intestinal blood supply is impaired, and secondary intestinal necrosis and perforation occur, the clinical manifestations will worsen, manifesting as severe abdominal pain, fever, shock and other symptoms of acute diffuse peritonitis, which can be life-threatening. Clinically, the diagnosis can be made based on the abdominal X-ray findings (step-like air-fluid level).

The treatment of intestinal obstruction is divided into general treatment and surgical treatment.

Most adhesive intestinal obstruction can be relieved by non-surgical treatment measures such as fasting, anti-infection, and fluid rehydration. Gastrointestinal decompression is an important therapeutic measure during conservative treatment. That is, the gastric tube is inserted into the gastroduodenum through the nasopharynx and esophagus, and connected to a continuous suction device to extract excess digestive juice and gas and reduce the load on the intestinal cavity.

A small number of patients develop adhesive bands, which seriously affects the movement of the intestines. When conservative treatment is ineffective, surgical treatment is required. This is likely the case in this article. The timing, indications and methods of surgery for intestinal obstruction need to be analyzed individually based on the patient's location, cause and degree of obstruction, whether there is intestinal necrosis and perforation, etc.

The experience of the case in this article can be called "a tragedy caused by a grilled fish". So how to avoid the occurrence of intestinal obstruction or postoperative recurrence in life?

The most important thing is to avoid overeating and excessive intake of fishy and greasy food; eat less glutinous rice products such as rice dumplings and glutinous rice balls that are not easy to digest to reduce the burden on the intestines; eat less celery and bamboo shoots and other crude fiber foods. After abdominal surgery, we are also encouraged to get out of bed as soon as possible to reduce the occurrence of intra-abdominal adhesions.

It should be noted that the incidence rate of colorectal cancer has continued to increase in recent years, and some patients with colorectal cancer have intestinal obstruction as the first manifestation. As the most common digestive tract tumor, intestinal cancer does not necessarily cause clinical symptoms during its development stage.

Personal experience sharing does not constitute diagnosis and treatment advice and cannot replace a doctor’s individualized judgment on a specific patient. If you need medical treatment, please go to a regular hospital.

Author: Jingjing Firth

This is the Nutshell Patient, focusing on telling health stories.

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