Hey Dan,

Like I said earlier if you need a ride or groceries or whatever, just call or email.  Happy to make you some meals too!  Mushy peas, right?

Jennifer Laevens

519-436-4600 Ext 2926

From: ckcycle-bounces@lists.ncf.ca [mailto:ckcycle-bounces@lists.ncf.ca] On Behalf Of Daniel Brousseau
Sent: December 11, 2009 2:27 PM
To: Chatham-Kent Commmunity Cycling Group
Subject: [CKcycle] Dan's Surgery

Hey everyone,

Due many people had questions and all + some had no idea, I decided to just do 1 big email with info and picture.

So bottom line is I had a herniated stomach. Now this is usually caused by trauma but you can also be born with it and flame up over the years.
For my circumstance we are suspecting I had this since my child hood due to the many Cardiopulmonary Resuscitation I had due to my Asthma when I was young.

As some of you had noticed, in mid November I was starting to have stomach pains and looked like I was pregnant.
On Thursday Nov 26th I was asking around the office if I would be better to go to Wallaceburg or Chatham to get checked.
After my shift I left right away to the Chatham Emergency Dept. and had to stay overnight. Doctor could not pin point what the issue was but certainly things where not normal.
So they let me leave in the am 9:15am after doping me with morphine and booked some tests to be done following week.

On Wednesday Dec 2nd I showed up back to Chatham Emerge for my testing and was told it was actually booked for the next day.
I refused to come back as my pain was still bad. Now I had not eaten anything since 7pm the night before due to the tests I was to be undergoing.
So now here I am sitting in Emerge hungry as heck and they where refusing to let me have anything to eat or drink as they will try to book me for a Ultrasound asap.
I managed to get one later on in the afternoon and the technician certainly saw something but could not say anything.
Went back to Emerge where they asked to see if they could squeeze me in for the CatScan before my booked time of the next day due to the new revelation.
Near supper time I finally got it done, here I am asking the doctors what they saw and they came back saying of possible emergency surgery to my stomach.
Had no other info till a couple hours later where they stated I will be admitted for a Stomach Hernia and would be seeing the surgeon asap.
Well I did not see the surgeon till the next afternoon and being told I will be squeezed in later in the evening and I still could not eat or drink.
So now been close to 36 hours with nothing in my stomach.. MAJOR hunger pain.
So around 7pm I was hauled in the OR and was back in my room near 11pm. This was to be a quick surgery but it seems I was on the table close to 1 hour.
The next morning I was pretty much forced to get up on my feet and just stand there for as much time as possible.. I lasted max 1 minute. This had to be repeated several times throughout
the day.
So now here I can't even stand up straight nor do anything that involved my abdomen as the pain was too great.
Day 2 after surgery I had to start walking on my own with no help from anyone.
Finally day 2 after surgery I started getting a liquid diet. Had nothing to eat or drink since Dec 1st and now we are Dec 5th.
Had a stipulation that I could not leave till I can actually pass gas + any bowel movement.
Dec 7th at lunch got finally some real food but made me ill as my stomach still did not know what was going on.
Dec 8th I started eating solid but soft food
Seriously be appreciative of your abs as you can not do anything when your stomach is mangled.
Dec 9th the surgeon came by and removed the bandage and to my surprise the cut on my stomach was long and had 35 staples. Doctor wanted 1/2 of the staples removed.
The nurse got to work and boy was it not comfortable at all getting them removed, she also took care of many blisters from the bandage that I had on for so long.
Dec 10th I finally got released with many rules that I must follow;
- No lifting anything over 5lbs for at least 6 weeks
- No sitting still for long period of time
- Be as active as possible but with no abdominal exercise
- Eat a HIGH Bacteria Diet to help my stomach cope with food (Milk/Cheese/Yogurt)
- Be off work and rehabilitate for the next month

So think about it, this means I can't ride my pedal bike like I normally would, can't ride my motorbike, can't go and get my own groceries, can't tie my own shoes, extremely difficult to get in and out of a car, even trying to get out of bed in is very painful


This is not a pleasant recovery... this will be a long and painful recovery and will need lots of help from my surrounding.

If you are willing to assist me in some tasks and rehab please let me know... I seriously will need all the help I can get.

Here is the latest picture of my abdomen... you will see it is deformed and still have some pretty bad blisters



On Dec 6th I would of loved to be at the get together but was unfortunately stuck at the hospital. :-(

If you go the Competitive Edge Gym, you might cross me doing some rehabilitation.

Dan