Finally had the follow-up with the surgeon at Emory about my bile reflux problems. He talked with my regular doctor, and has all my test results and the surgical report from my RnY.
He feels that he could go in and surgically correct my situation by making the connection between my pouch and small intestine longer, which would make it so the bile couldn't reflux back up. However, because of my history of wound infection, and the mesh I have in place from my hernia repair in 2005, he also feels that the risk of wound complication would be rather high. In other words, if I have the surgery to fix the reflux, I stand a pretty good chance of getting a post-surgical infection. This surgeon, though, is on top of his game and it's at Emory, which is THE unusual case hospital of Georgia. If you're going to be a strange, hard-to-manage case, you should be at Emory.
On the other hand, each time I have a reflux episode I run the risk of aspiration, which (if I don't wake up quick enough) could lead to burns of the bronchial tree and aspiration pneumonia, which has a mortality rate of up to 11% as an outpatient, 25% hospitalized.
I'm going to call Dr. Eubanks tomorrow and make an appointment with her to discuss this. I honestly don't know what to do. I think Mike is worried I'll die or something if I have surgery; I'm worried I'll die from the next round of aspiration pneumonitis (which is basically aspiration bronchitis), since it took 14 days of Bactrim DS to knock it out...
