OUCH! Internal bleeding. Out for the season.

[Dromond]

Please excuse my grammar, as they have me on a of drugs.

The long version:
On thursday, after two excellent days of skiing at Stratton, VT I took a wrong
turn off of the trail which led to a rather uncomfortable event. Basically I
meant to turn right back onto the trail, but missed the turn and accidentally
went through some thin snow at a decent speed. I hit a submerged rock which threw me about down feet down the trail and over a small, 2 ft ledge. All would have been well except that a fist-shaped piece of granite was waiting for me on the other end. I landed on it with my solarplexis/abdomen squarely. At first I thought I might just have the worst case of wind-knocking-out-of ever, but when my organs started to ache I knew something was up. It was an experience very similar to gettin punched by 2,000 lb gorilla.

So after a ski patrol ride on a sled to the base area their local doc
reccomended I go in a for a catscan right away. So I was ambulanced off to the Brattleborough hospital right away for the scan. The results there suggested some possibly severe pancreas damage. So another nausea/vomiting filled ambulance ride later I found myself a the Dartmouth medical center. Talk seemed to be focused on surgery, but I couldn't hear much of as (I have since found out) I don't handle narcotics very well.

After something like 5 hours under the knife I find myself rocking a whole new
setup. Apparently my pancreas got hit so hard that the middle of it was a
giant, usueless bloodclot. The surgeon's solution was to cut out the bad part
in the middle and staple off the ends. They then routed a new stomach-connector to one half and intestine connector to the other. So now I have basically two functioning pancreas's. So weird!!!

I've spent the last couple days here at the Dartmouth hospital. Overall things
are working out really well. I'm on my feet again and hope to be toning down on the paints meds soon. morphine does not agree with me well. The worst part is that I'm still not able to eat or drink ANYTHING. (Only little icecubes.) Let's just say I'm preparing for the best glass of water ever consumed by man or beast.


P.S. included is a photo o fme being pieced together by the stratton ski patrol.
You can say what you will about the company but these folks were tops notch.

[Core Shot]

Holey Pancreas, Batman, that musta hurt.

Get well soon.
+++++ healing vibes sent.

[Endlessseason]

Holy WOW. That is horrible!
It obviously could have been even worse that it was. A few inches different and it sounds like it could have killed you. Glad to hear you're alive.

[spanky]

I remember Stratton ski patrol taking my father down when I was a kid - they are top notch.

Good to hear you're doing better. Heal up man. +++++++++++++++++vibes

[divegirl]

Holy shit Dromond!!! And holy pancreas batman is right! You have two?! Have they tested this scenario out before this?? I hope so - but I'm no doc so I couldn't tell you. Wow. I really hope you feel better - and definitely take it easy - sad to hear your season is over. But shit - this is a new one in the gimp forum. I just read the "internal bleeding" part and it gave me chills. Hope you feel better - and drink that water!

Edit - that's pretty funny in a weird f-ed up way that you were able to get someone to photograph your incident clean up!

[Art Vandelay]

Sorry to hear man. Good luck with the healing process!

[72Twenty]

Damn! Sorry to hear this.

Hope you're back in the saddle again soon, so to say!

[truth]

Sweet jesus dude...best wishes and a full recovery.

[trainnvain]

Glad to hear they gotcha all patched up. Biking season is only a couple of months away. Get better man.

[mildbill.]

Sounds like the fix of your pancreas was in line with your nail-for-a-b-screw rear derailleur fix. nice setup--gotta keep it consistent. heal fast man!

[Dromond]

Holy shit Dromond!!! And holy pancreas batman is right! You have two?! Have they tested this scenario out before this?? I hope so - but I'm no doc so I couldn't tell you.

It (they seem to be working so far. i.e. they spit out the right enzymnes and everything. I mean two should be better than one, right. Right??

Edit - that's pretty funny in a weird f-ed up way that you were able to get someone to photograph your incident clean up!

Haha yeah that would be my new girlfriend Susan, who I was skiing with at the time. She's pretty awesome and is a great caretaker as well for this broken pile of skin. For such an awful experience, it's been somewhat pleasant

I'm feeling a lot better now. Morphine was pretty awful for me. They have me on hydromorhpone or something like that which is much nicer to my psche, stomach, and bowels. And not that expelling a gallon of blood and GI today was that pleasant, the the apple juice I had (first fluid in days) was the best I'd ever tasted!!

Looks like I'll be at the hospital for awhile yet, maybe ever a week but i should be doing good by then. I have a lot of blood the replenish and organs to heal.

Perhaps I'll be up for some spring skiing, and tranNvain is right, the riding season beckons! I'm pretty psyched about that. Play it safe folks. And watch the thin cover!!!

[LAN]

Jeeeeeeeezus! How's your spleen? Hopefully you're not getting your fingers poked every hour, due to your custom pancreas setup.

Hope you feel better soon!

[Dromond]

Hopefully you're not getting your fingers poked every hour, due to your custom pancreas setup.

Allll the fricking time. Blood sugar levels looks good though. Yeah it's a pretty sweet setup.

This would be me on lots of drugs, pointing out the gaping hole in my jacket made when my camera case ripped out of the breast pocket. Gnarly.

[Telenater]

Jeeeeeeeezus! How's your spleen? Hopefully you're not getting your fingers poked every hour, due to your custom pancreas setup.

Hope you feel better soon!

Glad you're doing relatively well Dromond.

As another that's played the internal bleeding game recently, please take it easy and follow your doctor's recomendations.

It's been a long process for me, and given that they actually operated on you, it probably will be for you too.

[divegirl]

Haha yeah that would be my new girlfriend Susan, who I was skiing with at the time. She's pretty awesome and is a great caretaker as well for this broken pile of skin. For such an awful experience, it's been somewhat pleasant

I'm feeling a lot better now. Morphine was pretty awful for me.

Susan is a keeper!! That's wonderful that she makes it bearable.

I hear you on the Morphine. In '01 when I shattered my lower tibia, I believe they put me on the stuff for pain right after the surgery. Well, my body didn't respond very well because while in the recovery room, they had to give me heart-pumping medicine - my heart rate went down to 23 TWO different times.

Hope you're feeling better.

[Dromond]

Well I'm finally home after 2 weeks (!!!) in the hospital. The nurses and doctors were top notch but I'm so glad to be out of that sterile-smelling place.

So since I could eat anything for 12 days my stomach feels like it's shriveled up to the size of a prune. I have a frequent stomach ache and can't eat anything larger than a bagel at once. This is tricky because I'm starving all the time. I lost 13 pounds in the horse-pital. I'm still on the opiate-painkillers, but less frequently. Only at night so I can drive during the day, (hopefully.)

Lesson learned: be nice to your guts. They are very complicated, fragile, and take a long time to heal! There's also no real way to protect them, other than not falling on pointy rocks.

Be safe in the thin cover kids.

[Yeti]

While I was skiing solo on thin cover recently, your story probably helped me keep my guts inside. Best wishes for recovery. How's it going?

[Squatch]

Good luck on the healing man...+vibes+

[Dromond]

Well, one month from that point of impact, I got the last of my tubes pulled. And I do mean PULLED. That hurt. A lot. However that was on Thursday and now I'm feeling tons better. Yay for eating somewhat normally and not feeling like dogshit all the time! Oh and yay for not being on any painkillers and thus not waking up in a cold sweat every hour! (I tapered off on them so it only took like 3 days after the last dose for that to go away.) Anyways all of that took only, say, 31 days or so. Perhaps I can even do a little low-key spring skiing in a month or so, if there's any snow left! In summary.

-Please, please, please be nice to your internal organs. A Pancreaticojejunostomy is not fun. (Yes, that's the actual name of the procedure.)
-Beware of thin cover ahead of where you're skiing, rather than just the snow you are currently on.
-Definitely meet a hot future-nursing-student-who-skis before splitting your pancreas in half. It will make the whole process much more pleasant.