I had my initial colon surgery to remove my tumor in June 2019. I needed a second emergency surgery 10 days later. I started chemo and immediately developed horrible diarrhea and spasms. They had me stop the xeloda, and a few days later I developed horrible abdominal pain requiring me to be transported to hospital. I had a SBO caused by adhesions. They did multiple things to try and clear it (the last being a small bowel follow through scan) and at that point, I started throwing up contrast mixed with stool so ended up having surgery. He got rid of 15 cm of small bowel and removed tons of adhesions. But my bowel was nicked (we didn’t know) and I developed a leak. This turned into a fistula that eventually turned into a perforation and sepsis. When they repaired the perforation, he removed more adhesions. I haven’t had any obstructions since but have had a few times where I felt the symptoms coming on. I immediately stop eating, drown myself with fluids, heating pad and massage constantly. It’s always in the same place and I can deeply massage until the pain clears.
The obstruction was very stressful and mentally wrecked me for a good three or four months. My husband was out of town and I had to leave my kids by themselves for hours while he flew home. The pain was horrific and the NG tube was awful so I feel for your wife a lot. I would recommend surgery for her