Minimally Invasive Colon Surgery Got Mary Ellen Back to School on Time

Posted: May 1, 2007

While heading home from a family vacation in August 2004, Mary Ellen McCormack-Mervis was suddenly overcome with severe flu-like symptoms including sharp abdominal pain, fever and chills.

Visiting her doctor a few days later, Mary Ellen described her symptoms. Suspecting diverticulitis, he prescribed antibiotics to treat the infection. A common disease of the bowel, diverticulitis occurs when small pouches that form on the outside of the colon become inflamed.

Although antibiotics cleared up the initial infection, Mary Ellen suffered a second attack in early January 2005. The infection subsided after another round of antibiotics, but Mary Ellen continued to suffer from recurring bouts of diverticulitis.

“It was getting to be like clockwork,” she said. “Every six months there would be a recurrence.”

The symptoms always came on suddenly with each episode of diverticulitis knocking her out of circulation for several days.

Although Mary Ellen’s doctor urged her to consider surgery to prevent further infections, she was reluctant. Mary Ellen recalled the pain and long recovery of a previous surgery she had years earlier. As the International Baccalaureate Diploma Program Coordinator for Reagan College Preparatory High School, a Milwaukee public high school, she couldn’t afford to take significant time off from work.

“These students work so very hard and our program requires adherence to a strict schedule,” explained Mary Ellen. “I have to be here for them.”

But continuing episodes of diverticulitis were occurring more frequently and wearing her down. Her doctor warned her it was dangerous to leave the diverticulitis untreated.

“If the pockets ruptured, it could have been seriously damaging to other body organs, even lethal,” Mary Ellen said.

So on the advice of her physician, in January 2007, she visited Dr. Lyle Henry, a laparoscopic surgeon and co-founder of the Milwaukee Institute of Minimally Invasive Surgery at Columbia St. Mary’s.

After Dr. Henry explained the minimally invasive procedure and the recovery involved, Mary Ellen left his office convinced surgery was the right decision. She underwent surgery on March 5.

To perform the colon surgery, Dr. Henry made three small incisions and inserted laparoscopic tools. A larger four-inch incision was made to remove the affected part of Mary Ellen’s colon. Unlike conventional surgery, the smaller incisions made it unnecessary to cut through muscle or suture under tension.

Mary Ellen has been amazed with the results of her surgery. She was up walking around shortly after the operation and left the hospital after just three days. She required only extra-strength Tylenol to treat her pain symptoms and returned to work before the end of March.

“The surgery seems like a dream to me now,” Mary Ellen said. “I feel like I did before I first got sick.”

Mary Ellen’s friends, family and co-workers have been equally amazed by her quick recovery.

“People I’ve talked to thought I had the surgery last summer,” she said. “They can’t believe it’s only been one-and-a-half months. My gait, my energy level, everything is the same as it was before the surgery.”

Mary Ellen said this surgical experience is entirely different from her previous surgery.

“I was in a great deal of pain then,” she said, describing the experience as a cycle of prolonged recovery. “I would take a pain pill, but then become so groggy I couldn’t walk around. I’d sleep for hours, and then the pain would come back so I’d take another pill. It took a long time for me to get my strength back that way.”

To sum up her previous surgical experience, Mary Ellen recalled going Christmas shopping with her 85-year-old mother five weeks after coming home from the hospital. She had to ask her mother to slow down because she couldn’t keep up.

In contrast, Mary Ellen was taking short walks around her neighborhood only days after undergoing laparoscopic colon surgery.

The only regret she now has about her recent colon surgery is that she didn’t agree to the surgery earlier.

“I feel terrific,” she said. “It was an easy way to solve a difficult problem.”

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