Goodbye dear gallbladder!

So it finally happened. The gallbladder has been removed. It was quite sudden and unexpected, but perfect timing I say! 

I have been having regular gallbladder attacks for a few months now, I would say an average of 2 or 3 a week. Now, most of them are just mild to moderate attacks, and I have a really high pain tolerance, so I just dealt with them. I've been procrastinating about having it taken out even since they told me that it wasn't so bad that it had to come out, and hoping that I could somehow avoid it. (Not sure how I thought I was going to do that.) 

But early Saturday morning I started into the second major attack of the week and this time it didn't let up, instead jumped to level 10 pain and stayed there for at least 45 min. I was almost delirious with pain, and hardly in control of my body anymore. So I woke my sister up and we went to the ER.  My pain do come down a little but was still horrible. 

Thankfully the ER doc didn't fight me this time about whether it was my gallbladder or not, and he actually OFFERED a CAT scan before I even got the chance to request an ultrasound. It was such a blessing! In the mean time they gave me and IV, yes, I still had to get one since I can't have contrast through my PICC since it isn't the power PICC. And I got Zofran, Dilaudid (such a miracle worker!!), and then benadryl to help with the remaining nausea. Lets just say I was pretty stoned! 

Waiting for the dilaudid and Zofran to kick in...

The CAT scan came back and they compared it to the results of my ultrasound that I had done a couple months ago and it was significantly worse, and there was fluid building up around my gallbladder. A surgeon looked at my tests and said that he wanted to take it out that day, so we went with the plan. I was a little shocked, seeing as I had expected to go in, having to beg for anything, and being sent home with maybe a script for pain meds. And here I was, preparing for surgery. 

Laying a mere 10ft. from the site of my horrific blood patch. And the Anesthesiologist who worked with me this time remembered me from the blood patch, though he was not a part of that experience. (It made me wonder what was going on that he knew me from that time, 9 months ago, yet he wasn't the doctor that worked on me....hmmm....scary!) I told him how horrific it was and he was getting sick just thinking about it. Yeah, it was that bad!  

But I know that it all happen this way for a reason. I had been procrastinating about the surgery, not wanting to loose yet another body part, with the risk of yet another problem with my stomach/diet, the nearly inevitable setback from the anesthesia and surgery, and just the general idea. But as it happened, I didn't have time to worry about it, and I was in enough pain to actually be THANKFUL that it was all going to be over with very soon! Isn't God's timing simply amazing?!? 

At the time it seemed sort of bad timing, with Mike's being gone and it just being me and Minnie here. But as it turned out, it was perfect. We didn't need to worry about the kids, or having food ready, or any of those things that come with more people and especially kids. This way Minnie was able to stay with me the entire time, no worries. AND, I have an entire week to recovery until everybody is back. 

Getting ready to leave on Monday! 

The surgery went well but they wanted to keep me Saturday night for observation....I think I was having a long hard time coming out of the anesthesia, as I always do. But then we were having a hard time managing my pain. I was taking Norco, Toradol, and morphine, and it still wasn't cutting it. I can handle pain, but they really want you to be able to breath, move, and cough when you need to. Shocking, I know. Finally they switched the Norco to Oxycodone and it helped a lot! 

I was also having problems urinating, something said usually only happens after you've had a foley, but I didn't to my knowledge, so they ended up keeping me the second night as well. The nurse was concerned that I was just going to end up in the ER later, which none of us wanted. It was so nice that they were so willing to help me so much! I have to say, its the best experience I've had with that hospital yet! The Doctors and nurses and CNAs were all so nice and helpful! 

Unfortunately, I still had to have an IV, since I couldn't get the contrast through my PICC line. By Sunday afternoon it was bleeding but the nurse didn't seem concerned, said that it was common. But the evening shift didn't like the way it looked, it was streaking up my arm and was pretty painful, so they removed it an used my PICC from then on. It still hurts pretty badly where it was and it is bruised all along the vein and up my arm, so so strange! 

You can't see it that well since it is washed out. 

Well, I've been sitting here staring at this screen, my mind blank for probably 30 minutes now, I think I'm fried for the night. I'll try to write about the rest later. 

In the mean time, I am on oxy every 4 hours, SO thankful for pain management!! 

Also, I have to go to the dentist in the morning. Not really looking forward to having to sit on that hard chair, so still for so long, but I do know one thing, I won't have oral pain. This dentist out here can numb me like NO OTHER dentist ever has! The only 2 times in my life that I haven't been in pain while having dental work done are with this dentist. He is great!! 

Thanks to everybody for all your love, thoughts and prayers over the last couple days!

I'll write more later....

Ciao.

::Edit:: I remembered what else I was going to say. 

So today I was allowed to take the little dressing off my incision and just leave it with the steri-stips. So we took of the dressing but it hurt so much worse with it off that I ended up taking a PICC dressing that I can't use anymore, and cut it down and made another dressing. It was slightly oozing and it hurt to have just my shirt brushing my stomach so I figured it best to dress it back up.

Looking pretty good, but feeling terrible. How typical. 

I'm still swollen about 5 lbs between my belly and feet/legs. 

I'm excited for my preggo belly to go down and to be able to sit up and lay down normally. In the mean time, a BIG THANK YOU to Minnie for all your help!! 

Love you sister!!  <3 

I have my follow up appt next week. I am excited to see what the results all came back as. I only had one request, to test it all for Lyme Disease!  :)  

That's all folks! If you made it the whole way through, congratulations! It was a long one today!