50 stoke-less days as of FEB 8th 2008

At my last writing I was headed into a back surgery to fix unbearable sciatic pain in my left leg.

That surgery and what has followed was nothing short of HELL.

During the surgery my large intestine ruptured, leaking bacteria, fungus,yeast, and fecal matter into my abdominal cavity,causing 5 different infectional holds in my abdomen.
This was undetected for 5 days, except by myself and my wife.
After a day or two I should have been over the severe surgical pain, with normal bowel function, and getting up to stand and take short walks.
But I was in MORE pain.
I kept hitting the push button for more I.V. pain relieving dilaudid( morphine).
In fact, I remember being told, I hit that thing 75 times in a day.
( It will only deliver 1dose per half hour ).
They thought I was abusing it, when in fact the pain of the rupture and its consequences were simply un-bearable. As my belly ballooned out and turned purple, I mystified Physicians as a CAT scan at 3 days showed nothing abnormal. By this time my stomach began to bloat and turn purple. The pain was unbearable. I just stayed in a narcotic induced dreamstate.
Day 5 post surgery is when they saw the infections and rupture on CAT scan #2.
A gastroenterologiost told my wife I was in serious trouble and an emergency Colenectomy and "clean-out" of my abdomen would have to be done.

By the 5th day it became obvious to my ace team of physicians that something was wrong.

They sliced open my belly and removed a good portion of my large intestine. Sucked out as much of the bad as they could.
I was given a colostomy bag.
My stomach couldn't handle that stress and began bleeding.... another surgery.
As I lay motionless for some weeks I got a blood clot in my lungs
About a week after my first bleed out my stomach once again began to bleed out, another surgery.
All in all I had 5 surgeries and 3 major procedures.
I lay on my back for 40 days. I lost 40% of ALL of my muscle.
I have drains coming out of my side. I have a 10 inch wound that's almost healed on my stomach along with the colostomy bag.I am still taking 3 antibiotics.
I have to go back and have back hardware removed because of infection.
I have to go back to reverse the colostomy so I can poop outta my butt again.

I figure 2 more months and the worst will be over.
I am so happy to be alive and at home,
THIS IS MY S T O K E for right now,

Surf on all , surf on.... it will be another 6 months until I get out for a paddle, maybe less. Surf on for me and all fallen surfers.