Hospitalization #3

On May 19th, my family and I looked forward to a fun-filled day.  Both sets of grandparents came up to watch Jake's baseball game.  Afterwards, we would have a little party celebrating Katie's birthday.  She turned 9 on the 18th.  At the early afternoon baseball game, however, I noticed some vague cramping in my abdomen.  It continued to worsen, and by the time we set out cake and presents later that afternoon, I was in bed writhing with pain while everyone sang Happy Birthday to Katie.  By 8pm, Jeff drove me to Hillcrest once again.  I had a partial small bowel obstruction.  Given my history, Hillcrest transferred me to the Clinic's main campus for treatment.  By the time the ambulance came to transport me, I could not stand upright and could not stop vomiting.  They shoved a tube up my nose and down my throat to suck out the remaining contents of my stomach and intestines.  The ambulance drivers gave me a barf bag and off we went.  Good times.

At main campus, my treatment would be bowel rest, meaning I could have nothing to eat or drink for the next few days while the nasal-to-belly tube sucked everything out of my body.  The good news was that I had a morphine drip for pain so resided in La-la land for much of my stay.  Because I was feverish and my white blood cell count was pretty high, someone took a stool sample that tested positive for C. Diff.  Really??  Again??  C. Diff. surfaced only in the colon, I had thought.  Apparently I was among the unlucky minority to contract the bacterium in my small bowel.  Hooray for me.  (more info about C. Diff in the small intestines: http://www.gutpathogens.com/content/1/1/7  )

One of the colorectal docs finally explained what was going on.  The C. Diff. caused the small intestines to become inflamed.  The inflammation was severe enough to create a blockage, so nothing could move through.  After a few days of IV Flagyl and oral Vancomyacin, the C. Diff went away and the blockage resolved.  Whew!  Got out of there after only 5 days.  From a hospital stay perspective, I was improving, right?