Has anyone experienced Hernia or ARDS complications??

Hi All,

 Has anyone experienced hernia or ARDS complications as a result of the IL surgery??  My father's IL surgery was successful, but 5 months later he had to have a second operation for a hernia.  A few days after that operation he developed serious complications, specifically ARDS (Acute Respitory Distress Syndrome).  Has anyone had a similar experience?  I would REALLY appreciate any information.  This came totally out of the blue for us, and we are having a hard time understanding how someone can be cancer free for months, only to end up back in the ICU with a life threatening illness.  I dont recall the doctors EVER menitioning this as a potential complication.

 Any adivce?

To those of you battling this disease, please be strong and take care of yourself.  An esophajectomy is a huge operation.  Be patient with your recovery.  Being cancer free is possible!

Hello,  I am sorry to hear about your Dad and the complications.  No one told me about possible hernia, but I did have one.  Actually, the one hernia surfaced quite soon after my surgery 5 years ago, but I didn't want to do anything about it then.  I just left it alone and pushed it back in when it was bothersome.  It was in the incision near my navel.  About 6 months ago, it became painful and quite bothersome and I had forgotten about a lot of the past surgery so I opted to get it fixed.  When the surgeon got inside, he found that the scar tissue had wrapped itself around the hernia and also the "daughter" hernia that he found.  Anyhow, what was to be a quick in and out surgery kept me in the hospital for 3 -1/2 days and I experienced all the old symptoms. (Lots of vomiting & constipation) My intestines shut down and had to wait until the intestines decided to "wake up".  The surgeon said that is quite common and most people's intestines don't like to be touched.  He also told me that the hernia's are quite common and of course so is the scar tissue, etc.  All in all, it is over and now I find I am not vomiting again.  When I asked the surgeon, he said the hernia and scar tissue build up could make vomiting occur, so when he cleaned it up I was fine.

Breathing.  I don't know much about this, other than my breathing is compromised and I use a rescue inhaler.  I don't have any life threatening problems there.  Radiation can damage the lungs. 

I also found from this website: http://www.ards.org/learnaboutards/whatisards/brochure/  that aspiration of contents into the lungs can cause ARDS.   Of course,  all of us who have had esophageal surgery deal with the aspiration problem.  My doctor  puts me on antibiotics immediately after I have had a bout with aspirating contents into my lungs.  I have only had 2 serious aspirations in the 5 years so I am very blessed.

I hope your Dad gets better fast and has no further complications.

Hi. Thank you so much for responding to my message. I did read online that aspiration can cause ARDS, but I never thought this would happen. The doctors had told us many times that vomiting and nausea are common after IL surgery, and my dad's symptoms did not change much when he developed the hernia except for steadily increasing pain, and nausea. I feel like I should have noticed that something had changed and taken him to the doctor sooner. It sounds like your hernia might have been a little different. How exactly do you push the hernia back? My dad's bowels ended up in his chest cavity, so in his case moving it was not an option, unfortunately. When your surgeon said hernia's are common, did he mean that it is common in general, or after IL surgery? Also, how did you know when when your aspirations were "serious"? I am very happy to hear that you are doing well and that you are no longer experiencing vomiting!! It is great to hear that people can move on after such as scary diagnosis.

Husband had escalating pain and nausea too. Then he started throwing up something like sewage. Like your dad, my husband's herniated into the chest cavity, and that in itself is very life threatening even before you add the respiratory complications. The surgeon told me he might not make it off the table before he went in, and he was the only emergency surgery he did in a 4 or 5 days stretch that made it home alive.

The learning curve here is huge, and it really takes time to figure it all out. We can't possibly know all the things we need to know to be the best caregivers, or all the questions we should be asking. Please try to be compassionate with yourself. 

He also had some adhesions from his feeding tube which they cleaned up when they resected his bowel. The doctor said the EC would kill him even though he was clean at that point. 3 weeks later he had mets in both lungs again. We have had another 1-1/2 years since then and he is battling lung mets for the 2nd time since the hernia surgery but is doing well all in all. He went into chemo about 5 months out of the surgery, did 3 rounds to get rid of it, had six months off chemo and started again this year in March when the spots started to resurface again. He is now 3-1/2 years out from a stage 4 diagnosis, and we have had lots of quality time even though he has been in and out of treatment numerous times.

Also, how did you know when when your aspirations were "serious"

Hi,

I am so sorry to hear that your dad is having so many complications after surgery. My dad never had surgery but did have problems with aspirating to the lungs. Apparently, it had been happening quite often when he was coughing up all that"stuff" and we didn't know. No one ever mentioned that he may be in danger of aspirating. I wish we wouldv'e known. I can't help but think that it might have made a difference with my dad. He developed ARDS, along with some other complications, and passed away in August.

EVERYONE'S situation is different and please don't think that what happened to my dad will happen to yours. It sounds like you are ahead of game! My advice is to err on the side of caution and not wait for the aspirations to get serious. Drive the drs crazy if you have to, but have them make sure that he is not aspirating. Stay on top of it so that the drs will stay on top of it.

Take care of yourself and know that you are doing a great job taking care of your dad. He is blessed to have you!

Chrysti

Hi Chrysti, Thanks for responding. My father also passed away from ARDS and complications resulting from it. I suspect he got ARDS because he was regularly aspirating into his lungs, but we never knew. I keep going over events is my mind, wondering what we could have done differently, wondering if this could have been avoided. I don't know what your experience was like, but the ARDS to us was worse than the chemo and the operation. He was on a respirator for 3 months, and on a rotating bed for a large part of that time. We had excellent doctors, but it did not seem as though they were as concerned about post-operative care. I hope you are coping as well as can be expected, considering your loss, and that you have a good support system. You are in my thoughts. Jess