GB GB

Goodbye gallbladder.

The morning was fine. I barely slept, but nerves kept me awake. I was fitted with some sort of odd paper gown that apparently can be inflated to keep me warm or cool. I didn't play with that feature, but thought it was interesting. I got an IV, BP cuff, some EKG probes, circulation stockings plus those inflatable circulation cuffs. For half a second I expected them to roll in a bag of mag. Not a good flashback. But the nurses were all really great and when my doctor came in, he got on a soap box about capitalism when commenting about the book my husband was reading. If you knew my husband, you'd know how hysterical that was.

The surgery went fine, really. Being me, my anatomy was a little odd and apparently my gallbladder sat up higher than normal and behind my liver in an odd way. So the surgery took about an hour longer than normal. The doctor told my husband he had to "dig around a lot." Yum. He said my duct looked fine (that was unexpected) but that my gallbladder showed thickening indicating long-term dysfunction. He didn't seem to think it was in terrible shape, but definitely wasn't healthy. I was relieved to know that we hadn't done this for nothing.

I had a little trouble keeping my O2 up in recovery- nothing scary, just enough to set off the alarm on the monitor. The nurses woke me several times to tell me to take a deep breath but a few other times I woke when I heard it and tried my best to do it myself. I'm fairly certain I once told it to fuck off. I was tired, cranky, in pain, and frankly, the months I spent listening to it beep at me in the NICU gave me the right. I am kinda of hoping that maybe I didn't say it aloud, though. Either way, it leveled out and I was fine.

The pain was more than I was expecting, honestly. When I first woke up, I kept waiting for a nurse to ask if I was in pain and it seemed like it took ages. I tried to move as much as I could (I couldn't speak yet) to indicate I was awake and one came and ask and I nodded yes immediately. In reality it was probably only a few minutes, but I REALLY hurt. Fortunately whatever she gave me knocked me right back out again.

Eventually they took me back to my room. They gave me some oral pain meds & some pudding & juice. All of the tubes & wires started to really get to me. I wanted to go. I had to keep food down and pee before I could, so I asked David to feed me some pudding (seriously, how do you eat when tubes & wires everywhere?) and asked the nurses to take me to the bathroom. I was pretty wobbly, but got there.

We were on our way home a short while later. I went straight to my bed and haven't left it for long most of the day. David was on Robbie duty, which was sort of hit or miss. Robbie doesn't understand why I can't pick him up and he can only snuggle me halfway. It makes me feel bad, but hopefully I can at least indulge in full body snuggles within a few days.

The pain is coming and going. I definitely know when the paid meds are due. I'm usually fairly noncompliant about pain meds, but not this time. I'm definitely very uncomfortable. Really hoping tomorrow is better. I know it's temporary, so I'm just doing the best I can.

In any case, it was a success. Step one complete. In a week, I'll call my OB for an MFM consult. Let's just hope the most painful part of this process is over.


--Trish