Well that happened, I guess

So, I’ve been hinting on mastodon that I would write a blog post on what exactly happened last year to me health wise, to turn these small hints into a complete picture. Turns out that it is actually still somewhat hard to talk and write about a deeply traumatic experience. But I’ve been dancing around this now for so long that I think it makes sense to at least briefly write down what happened, and maybe the extended version talking about all the grimy details can come later.

Something is wrong

Last summer in July, right before we wanted to go on a holiday to Dalsland, Sweden, my health wasn’t particularly great. I had a very weird, wandering back pain that no doctor I talked to could really make sense of. But both my GP and my Orthopedic were sure to assure me that going on holidays was fine and that reducing stress would probably help.

Well, it didn’t. As soon as we got to Sweden, I got a high fever, the pain got worse and at some point my face started to turn yellow. This was a pretty clear hint that something was going wrong and so I ended up in an emergency room in a local hospital (Where local in rural sweden means something like 150km away, of course). I was immediately admitted and a procedure to remove my infected gall bladder (and with it the gall stones I knew I had) was scheduled for the next day. Technically, this is a standard procedure and you shouldn’t be super worried to have this carried out in a smaller hospital. I was told that if everything went alright, I could be home in two days.

Trollhättan / NÄL

Well, it didn’t. From now on I will just quickly summarize what happened, because it is a lot and because of the reasons I laid out above.

During surgery, an artery in my liver was accidentally cut. This was probably not recognized until they tried to wake me up and I started to bleed heavily. In the ensuing emergency procedure, by trying to compress the liver to stop the bleeding, a thrombosis in a liver vein was caused. The team was unable to find the source of the bleeding, unfortunately, and knew no better than to further compress the liver, pack my abdomen with gauze and then transfer me to the Gothenburg university hospital, Sahlgrenska. Not that I particularly cared in my articifial coma. But I can say that I have finally flown in a helicopter.

Gothenburg / Sahlgrenska

After a bit of preparation, another emergency procedure was carried out, this time identifying the issue with the liver artery, reconstructing the connection between the bile ducts and the small intestine.

A few days and one intervention (for laying a bile drainage and checking the bile ducts) and another procedure (to fix the reconstruction) later, I was finally stable enough to be transported to the university hospital in Hamburg, this time by plane and ambulances.

Hamburg / UKE

In Hamburg, I arrived on a monitoring station and made a bit of progress until, one night, I started bleeding again. Four procedures (two of them being emergency procedures) and about two weeks later, I was finally cleared to move from the intensive care unit to a normal ward, at the time with about five drainages and a so-called vacuum dressing (with an actual pump attached to remove wound secretion and bile). Unfortunately, I developed a fistula that was directly moving bile from a leakage at the so-called anastomosis, the connection between the bile duct and the small intestine to the last part of my operation wound, making this very slow to heal. I was told that this could take time, as the leak needed to heal and the conditions for that are not particularly great with bile being a somewhat aggressive liquid.

About five weeks later, I was discharged, still with two drainages, but finally at home. It was now October 2024.

At that point, I had lost about 15kg of body weight, mostly muscle. I was a shadow of myself and had to use a rollator (a walker with wheels) when walking. I needed daily care by a professional and I had frequent infections that had us sitting through various nights in the emergency room and three slightly longer stays in the hospital with IV antibiotics and additional examinations.

The aftermath

In February 2025, I finally got rid of my last drainage. Shortly before that, I felt strong enough to finally put my ass on a bicycle again, something I had longing for for a while.

At some point, the remaining wound became small enough that we were able to seal it with a waterproof bandage, which allowed me, after more than 7 months, to take my first shower.

In the middle of March, the bandages on that wound finally stopped having the minimal amounts of bile in them we were seeing until then. On the 18th of March, I first noticed that the wound had completely closed. Almost 8 months after the initial procedure, my body finally had healed on the surface.

The now

I am nowhere near 100%. I still can’t sit on my ass for longer periods of time before it starts to hurt. I am still regaining my core strength and that unfortunately means I am constantly plagued by back pain but now I know exactly where it is coming from. There will hopefully be a full rehab at some point in the near future.

But I can work. I can enjoy a good walk in the sunshine. I can eat yummy things. I can give and receive hugs. I can love. I can live. And I can write this blog post. There were a couple of brief moments in the last year where it wasn’t super clear if all of that would be possible. Put differently: There was a good chance of me coming home from Sweden in a wooden box. Like my father did in 2005. Fuck.

The stuff I left out

There’s so much I left out in this brief post. The pain medication that gave me hallucinations and anxiety attacks. The PTSD that definitely needs professional treatment in the near future. What all of this has done with my SO and my family and friends. All the small stories that made this both the worst year of my life and also a strangely positive experience in many ways, as I got to know so many awesome humans that cared deeply about me and everyone else in the three hospitals. Not that I can recommend this to anyone.

This is probably a horrible text, and not a particularly good read but I wanted to get it at least partially out of my system and I wanted to have something I can point to. And now I can hopefully start writing normal posts again. Which are less traumatic to write. That would be grand, thanks.

In the end, I have no idea how I would have fared without the help of my SO, Klaudia. Her love and her care carried me through this and I know that this took a lot of effort, a lot of willpower and a lot of hidden or not so hidden tears. I will forever be in her debt for this and I hope we can find the time and space this year (and how ever long it takes) to heal together.