Attack of the Gall Bladder

Sorry for the ugly post-baby belly, but this is what my stomach looks like all thanks to one of my organs that attacked me late Wednesday night. Here's what happened. Benton and I were enjoying a quiet evening at home happy to have some time to spend together and relax. We were watching tv and I dozed off for a bit and woke up about 10:30. I sat up and had this weird pain in my stomach that wouldn't go away and kept getting worse and worse until it was pretty much the WORST physical pain I've ever had in my life. Think super strong contraction in your upper abdomen for 40 minutes with NO break, just constant horrible pain. Benton woke my mom up and none of us could figure out what the crap was wrong with me, so we left Macey with Mom and rushed to the ER. It was jam packed and I thought I was gonna die having to wait for our turn, but by some miracle the pain subsided about 15 minutes after we got there and I was able to relax and wait, and wait, and wait and wait some more. It ended up being a mini high school reunion in the ER, 2 guys I went to high school with were there, sadly both with their little boys, there is nothing more sad than to see little babies in the ER.

So, about 5 hours later we were finally in a room and I got a bed to lay on, Benton, poor guy, got stuck with another uncomfortable chair to sit on, but at least we had some privacy. I was glad for that cuz I'm a nursing mom and hadn't nursed in about 12 hours and well, yeah you get the picture. Benton ran home and brought back my pump, thank heavens!

The doc finally came in and took some blood and ordered an ultrasound and from there they found that my gall bladder was jam packed with stones and the enzyme levels in my liver were elevated which is very bad. So he gave me 2 options, have surgery right then and get the gall bladder out, or wait till it attacks me again to take it out.... yeah, not much of a tough decision to make.

The surgeon came and talked to me, great guy, I'd highly recommend him if you ever need your gall bladder out. He said they were booked all day but he'd try to squeeze me in cuz this thing needed to come out. So we were more or less expecting to be there for most of the day waiting. Mom brought Macey so I could feed her and see her before I went to the OR, which was so nice, I was so sad thinking I wasn't going to be able to see her for 24 hours! Another good/fun thing was that Nadia, my sis-in-law, who happens to be an ER nurse was working that day and she got to be my nurse for the rest of the time in the ER. And my uncle, who is an anesthesiologist (sp)there was working too, so I was in good hands. It was very reassuring being surrounded by family who knows exactly what's going on and knows the docs that were doing my surgery and thought very highly of them. Uncle Dan told me exactly how everything was going to go from start to finish, some may have found it frightening, but I thought it was very cool and interesting, they take your gall bladder out of your belly button!!

So, to our surprise about 9 am, they came to take me up to the O.R. So off we went upstairs. Benton and Uncle Danny gave me a blessing and then they stuck something in my IV and the next thing I knew I was waking up in the recovery room. I couldn't see very clearly yet, but I spotted my uncle Dan across the way and he came and gave me a full report. Apparently I had a big gall bladder so I had to keep me over night, but everything went very well. The only downside was that they had to keep me over night because my gall bladder was rather large and so they had to make a bigger incision than normal. I didn't mind, staying over night meant more sleep and room service, who can say no to that? So after 5 hours of waiting for a room, I finally got out of the recovery room we got a real room and Benton was soon fast asleep. Poor guy.

I'll tell you the worst part of gall bladder surgery is the shoulder pain!!! They don't touch your shoulders, but it creates gas and makes a bubble that sits up there and gives you heck! The vicaden doesn't help either.

The did some more lab work the next morning and everything looked good, so we were on our way home!! It's good to be back, though it's a lot like being in the hospital, I just sleep a lot and take pain meds, I'm being spoiled. But all is well and I'm SO glad I don't have to worry about being attacked my that silly gall bladder ever again!!