Scars

Last summer I became a member of IG.  It's an iphone app called Instagram.  On this app you can get to know people who you choose to follow and choose to follow you; through pictures.  I followed some mommy's over from another app called "The Bump".  It's basically a large support group for mommies.  Now I know you probably think I'm crazy and that these women are not who they make themselves out to be; but I've gotten to know a good handful of them over the last 7 months.  We share a lot of our fears, hopes, dreams. Some of us have really been there for each other!  More than I can say for some of my "in real life" friends. Things change when you become a mom.  Friends disappear!
More recently I have began to confide in some of these moms about the never ending barrage of issues my husband has; emotional and physical! My IRL (in real life) friends get sick of hearing about all of this; so I digress...
He is a walking time bomb.He's told me bits and pieces of his experience over the last 16 years; so I end up having to put it together.  Some of this (about 1/2) I have lived through with him face to face.  But I recently found out that he originally started having "issues" when he was about 9 years old.  He has told me that his stomach has never really been "right"...  always bloating and cramping and things of that matter (I don't want to embarass him with gory details) When he was 12 it got really bad one night and he ended up in the ER.  To his disbelief they told him, after running him through a battery of tests, that it was nothing and sent him home with a dose of pain killers.  From what I understand he ended up back in the ER the next morning where upon they discovered that he had acute appendicitis.  They scheduled surgery immediately and ended up finding out that it had ruptured and he was also suffering with Peritonitis.
While he was in the hospital recovering from this surgery; he had his first bowel obstruction.  It's where scar tissue (adhesions) decide to wrap itself around your organs...  In his case, his small intestines.  They performed another surgery.  12 years old and 2 major surgeries, a brush with death, and a month out of school!  He will tell anyone that this is when his life changed.  His mother says she noticed an immediate difference in his demeanor and in his attitude.  He became very bitter, withdrawn, and anti-social.
I remember bringing his brother home from school one Friday afternoon when we were in HS.  My husband was in his first semester of college and I was absolutely enamored with him.  He was always outside washing his truck when I would pull up in my BroncoII.  Somedays he would have a tank top on and on this one day he had his top off... NICE!  Anyway, I noticed his scars.  And I asked him about them (because I'm nosey like that).  We weren't dating at the time so I was just being a nosey 17 year old girl with a crush.  He told me that he had had some surgeries and it just amazed me.  It didn't scare me it all... Especially coming from a girl who had never in her life been cut on.
When we did start dating, several months later, he would briefly tell me tid bits here and there about his experiences in the hospital.  To me; it made him different from all the hardcore guys I had dated (jerks) and for some odd reason it made him appear sensitive to me.  This big kid with muscles and a rough exterior had been to hell and back...  Had met God face to face and told him to F*off!  WOW! 
When we had been dating about 6 months (May 1996) he had another episode and he ended up in the hospital.  To make a long story short; he ended up with 2 bowel obstructions and was in the hospital for a month.  I made it up there to see him every single day (except for 2).  He tells me now that he knew then that I was "the one"...  he still says that any other girl would have run far away! It was at this time that I was told there was no cure for this.  There is no prevention.  Every single time they open him up; it leads to more adhesions.  And the only way to get rid of the obstruction is to open him up!  He is a ticking time bomb!
The following year; in March, he ended up in the hospital again and he had to go through surgery AGAIN!  3 major surgeries in less than a year...  My sweet husband; honestly, I don't know how he does it!
Over the next several years he experienced several 'close calls'; where he thinks he's having another episode of a bowel obstruction.  We go to the ER, they take xrays, and they stick an NG tube down his throat.  He stays in the hospital for a week and we consider it a close call because he comes out of it without being cut on.  But every time we go thrugh those doors, it wears on his soul a little more, I know it does!
He has PTSD from this; he suffers with anxiety, panic attacks, nightmares, insomnia.  The thought of not knowing when it will happen again but that it WILL happen...  Good Grief!  I try to push it out of my mind and move on; but he has to live this each and every day.

37% of bowel obstructions are fatal 11-21% are reoccurring 

I don't want to lose him to this; but on the really hard days, I know I already have. 




So if you ever question my fear of having a second C-Section (because you know, "It's easier than pushing your baby through your vagina") just remember why; I've watched my husband deal with this for the last 16 years.