BOWEL ISSUES FOLLOWING RALP

Sorry to hear about your husband’s issues. I suspect the issue could be more to do with the umbilical hernia repair. Has he had an MRI to look at what’s going on?

Hi.

Seeing the Consultant in two weeks for his second appointment following the surgery. You may well be right as there were complications with both during the surgery. Saw the GP and he hadn't got a clue and eventually spoke to a Nurse who didn't either.....as this has been going on for months now it is really bringing him down as there just doesn't seem to be any support out there! The whole scenario from the first appointment in November to date has been a nightmare. Infections followed by pneumonia and mrsa as well!

The only googled suggestion is that it sets off post op IBS, but the pain in his stomach seems to be coming from around the incision sites, especially the main drain one on the right which there were issues with straight after surgery.....he relates it to being in labour lol!

It's an all too familiar tale of the patient being very much on their own after treatment has finished. 

Obviously doesn't happen all the time but I have noticed this issue a lot.

Other question here could be, assuming the surgeon did both ops, how qualified was he to do a hernia op as well as prostate removal. Ok, both next to each other but two very different procedures.

Steve

You are so right! Even our Macmillan Nurse at the hospital says there is a serious flaw in after care.....unfortunately Hubby's Urology Consultant and Surgeon are at two different hospital's! Apparently he was supposed to see the Macmillan team there for the support prior to the operation but this never happened...and there is certainly none post operative.....not their fault it's the system! But it does seem to be every man for themselves.......

The Surgeon is one of the top in the country....however as he is a teacher as well....another Doctor carried out the actually surgery under direction.....he was in theatre for 6 hours and then the same in recovery because of complications...and still wanted to send him home within 24 hours!....took 4 days and massive amounts of morphine just to get him into the car for the journey home.....

Hopefully we will get some answers or at least a way forward with all of this in a couple of weeks........although it should never have been left until then and he should have been seen ages ago.....but trying to get an appointment bought forward is near on impossible!

Call the surgeons secretary and ask about this.  Please do not suffer in silence.  The secretary will either have experience with this or will ask the surgeon to call you or suggest something. 

Sadly trying to go down this route is equally challenging.....you can never get them on the phone and they don't respond to messages on their answerphones.......

We have waited this long now so only another week to go....just hope to get some answers and certainly will not be leaving until something is done or put in place to find out what is going on .....

Thanks for your support.....

That is very annoying.  If it was me I would now turn up at the hospital either in the ward I was treated on and ask for advice - hoping that the surgeon would be there or would be called or in A&E.  However, as you say you only have a week to wait now so probably not worth doing this. 

Hope you get some answers and some help.

Take care

Des

Hi Des

In normal circumstances that is exactly what I would do....however the Consultant isn't based at the hospital where the surgery was carried out and floats around a number of them. We were told if ever there were issues to go to the A & E were the operation was performed and not walk across the road to our own local hospital which is a pain as they do not have the specialist knowledge to deal with it all and not to let any of the on call doctors near him and for them to contact the ward to see if one of the team were on duty! No simple way forward as you can see!

As you say, less than a week to go now until the appointment, of which they rang yesterday to try and cancel and rebook for a couple of months time, although once I explained the issues, they left it as it was thank god!

Julia xx

Nothing is easy is it?  it is going to be so difficult to access the team.  We have similar problems here as most of the specialists revolve around 3 major hospitals and a couple more local hospitals.  So its hit or miss whether he is there on the day you need to see your specialist urgently.  I can't believe they tried to cancel the appointment -as they did the same with me even after my radiotherapy even though I had been in touch with the radiotherapy on numerous occassions as was having difficulty with other problems which were impacting on my prostate and needed help.  They then offered me a telephone consultation but no good for me as I am deaf and would probably miss a lot.  Eventually got to go to an appointment with my consultant and he was fine and continued me on face to face consultations up to the 2 year mark.  I think it is the admin side that does all this as they are trying to save time and money where the consultants are trying to provide a good service.  Think sometimes they are pulling in different directions.

Take care and hope they sort something out.

Des