Eric - I was TERRIFIED of the Mitrofinoff surgery for about 28 years. I had never had a surgery other than my spinal fusion, so I was not on board with signing up for anything major! I'm also on blood thinners because of blood clots/pulmonary embolism and I'm overweight, so add those two layers of suck to the mix as well. About 2 months after the pandemic hit my gallbladder decided it didn't like me, so I had to have emergency surgery to get that taken out (in the hospital completely ALONE for 5 days). I was scared, being my first big surgery, but it gave me a bit of confidence that the unknown wasn't as scary as previously thought. I've also done childbirth as a quad, without an epidural (not by choice, it just happened that way) so I maybe had a bit of false confidence added in the mix? My quad doc also said that I wanted to have it when my body could better recover before I got too old, considering I just keep getting older... Either way, it was an approximate 4 week recovery with the Mitrofinoff, but my least favorite and worst part was the emptying of the bowels the day before. A day of bed rest and a crazy amount of poo to handle! I did about 2 weeks of bed rest healing and another 2 of light duty at home. No driving for a month and no car rides for a month. My bowel bounced back really well from having the 10" cut out of it for the augmentation, and my incision from belly button to top of pubic line also healed much faster than I anticipated. My only regret was not getting it done sooner and I kicked my own butt for waiting so long! Especially when I have so much more freedom with it. If interested, I would see which docs are in your area. I actually declined the first doc (who did my suprapubic) as he was an ass and did the surgery a bit different. My second doc I went to was soo much better and even had experience watching Dr. Mitrofinoff perform his surgery. That doc knew his stuff and had an excellent procedure. I had a 3 hour surgery and was out of the hospital and home in 3 days.
I'm interested to know how the gentamicin works, as I still get way to many UTI"S. I flush my bladder every other night, just to help keep my new goobers out and in the hopes of keeping infections lower. On Tue, Dec 12, 2023 at 2:24 PM Eric Olson <whee...@wi.rr.com> wrote: > I had my supra pubic done a couple decades ago and it certainly makes > things easier for my care givers. I still have problems with uti's. I was > thinking about the Mitrofinoff,but it is a no joke surgery. I have started > doing gentamicin bladder irrigations. Gentamicin is an antibiotic. It's > not supposed to cause antibiotic resistance the way antibiotics taken > systemically do. I will let everyone know how that goes. I may still > have to go to the Mitrofinoff at some point, but that surgery scares me > > On Mon, Dec 11, 2023 at 2:34 PM SHIRLEY BELL <sbell...@cox.net> wrote: > >> Hi all, well I had my cystoscopy and all he found was a shrunken bladder. >> That is what is causing spasms on and off and rejecting catheters on and >> off. Not lasting as long. They are going to change my meds to see if that >> helps. Botox is an option as well. 47 years of indwelling catheter use has >> taken a toll. Not much they can do but I am looking into it. There is an >> external catheter option called a pur wick for women of course but I have >> doubts about it. I am trying not to worry but geez, not great. A suprapubic >> may be an option, not a cure but may be easier for me and my caretakers to >> deal with this. Hope you all doing ok, quad life is an ongoing challenge >> for sure. Have a great holiday season.Shirley If you want to see how I make >> my living check out my Etsy shop here. >> https://www.etsy.com/shop/ShirleyBell?ref=seller-platform-mcnav >> >
