November 30, 2016
In Febuary 2016 I had emergency surgery to have my gallbladder taken out because bile was backing up into my blood stream. After the surgery I became light headed, and my resting heart rate was in the 150s. The hospital spent a day poking and proding me with needs and ivs. Finally after a CT scan they found a major artery near my belly button incision had been severed during my surgery. After a day of dizziness, pain medication that didn't help and two blood transfusions I was finally brought back into the OR, for what my Dr called "minor bleeding". However it took hours to repair. The Dr told me I would be fine to go back to work in a few weeks but it took me a month and a half to get back to doing light duty. I still have frequent pain, trouble lifting and bowel/eating problems. None of the Dr's I have seen so far know what's wrong with me. They have tried a few different medications and nothing has helped yet. My liver enzymes have been elevated since surgery.
If you're talking about the abdominal aorta that was severed, as far as I know (and I'm not a doctor), that's definitely not supposed to happen in gallbladder removal surgery (which is fairly routine). Specific steps should be taken during surgery to prevent severing major arteries. Sounds to me like you may have a case, but you would have to obtain your hospital chart, so that it can be reviewed to make sure.
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