Gallbladder: out.

*Let me preface this post with saying that Emory Johns Creek hospital is absolutely fantastic and that I love them for taking such good care of me. Usually you only hear bad things about a hospital, but they were absolutely wonderful*

Uh, hi. Remember me? I used to blog here. Then I got an organ removed. My reverb10 posting came to a screeching halt after the 17th. The 18th we were traveling (2 flight delays). The 19th I was with my family. At 12:30 AM Monday morning I started getting that pain again. Except this time it was more in the center of my abdomen, right below my ribcage and this time it was less in my boob and more like someone was squeezing the heck out of my spine. And it wasn't going away in an hour like it normally did. It wasn't gone at 5:30 AM, which is when I finally managed to sleep. Not at 1 PM, which is when AC called to see what I wanted for lunch and I told him that I needed to go to the ER. My mom helpfully reminded me that I had a dentist appointment at 2 PM- she was kidding about having to go, of course. I don't really take going to the ER lightly and once I told mom I needed to go, she knew I wasn't kidding. 12 hours of continuous, brain-seizing pain is more than I can take. Thankfully, there was no wait in the waiting room and I was in triage about 10 minutes after we arrived.

I sucked up a whole bag of fluids in about 30 minutes.

After triage, I changed into my super couture hospital gown. Not. It was not cute- yes, I care about these things, distractions are good for pain . They took blood and got the results back: my liver enzymes and bilirubin were high. So then they gave me stuff to drink for my CAT scan- I'd heard horror stories about the taste, but mine was mixed in with peach tea so it wasn't bad. I had one to drink between 2-2:30 and another to drink between 2:45-3:30. At 3:30 I had my CAT scan. At 4:30 I had an MRI. You guys, MRIs are scary. The machine was all "Breath in, breath out... stop breathing." Not hold your breath, but to stop breathing. That made me laugh a lot. Thankfully it also told you to start breathing again when you were allowed to.



Things get a little hazy after that, honestly. After the MRI, they decided to admit me so they could run a different test in the morning. It was called an ERCP- Endoscopic retrograde cholangiopancreatography, but the next morning, after they looked at the MRI they decided that it wasn't necessary and they were going to go ahead and remove my gallbladder. I was confused about when the doctor was coming, and that I couldn't sleep that night. AC stayed in the room with me and slept, thank goodness. They came in and took my blood oxygen, blood pressure and temperature every 1.5 hours. That morning, we didn't know what time the surgery was going to be; the surgeon already had 4 scheduled that day and they wanted to fit me in, which they did and sooner than they expected. AC was actually at home taking a shower (my mom was with me in the hospital) when they were like “yeah you're going in a few minutes” so he rushed back.



Right before the surgery, I flipped out. I'd never been totally put under for internal surgery and situations like that scared me. I remember crying, then the anesthesiologist helper making me laugh, being given a Valium shot through my IV, being rolled into the OR and thinking that it was cold. I vaguely remember the mask for oxygen/anesthesia. My surgery was supposed to be 30 minutes and the surgeon was very, very calm about it- he did these all the time. It ended up being an hour, which worried AC and my mom. Turns out my gallbladder was deformed. It explains why I was in pain so often- turns out I was in pain more often and to a great extent than alot of people that have gallstones. Way to be, body. Also, because of the way it was messed up, the surgeon had to dig for it, which means that my recovery time has been harder than it should have been. I do not tolerate pain very well.

Coming out of the anesthesia was rough. Apparently when the nurses asked me how I was feeling, all I would say was “shitty”- I have absolutely NO recollection of that at ALL, which is frightening. The first thing I do remember is hearing my parents talking REALLY LOUD and telling them to shut up. Not nice. I thought I kept saying “shhhhhhh,” but apparently I didn't so that must have been in my head. I came out of surgery at around 4:15 and stayed 24 hours after that, during which I watched a lot of food network and slept a lot. Mostly slept. They had me doing this little lung machine, which I do not like cause it hurt. The respiratory therapist was really nice though.



The rest of the time I just slept. Seriously, the pain combined with the major medication made me super tired. And I've pretty much been sleeping since I got home (so if you've gotten a strange comment from me since I've been home, it's cause I was half-asleep).

Random moments:
* Watching alot of Food Network. They really need to revamp their programming, cause it totally stinks and didn't hold my interest. Actually, all of TV needs to revamp their programming, because there was nothing good on.
* The nurse accidentally dropping the medical biohazard needle drop.
* Waking up from one of my (many) naps to find AC standing over me looking super concerned. Apparently he couldn't tell I was breathing from across the room so he had to double check, which was sweet but startling.
* When we found out they were going to discharge me, I asked to try the medication they were sending me home with (Lortab) and I'm really glad I did. It doesn't work at ALL on me.
* I'd never been admitted to the hospital, gotten an IV, CAT scan, MRI, stitches or had major painkillers. At the end of my 3 day stay, I had done all that plus taken morphine, dilaudid, lortabs and percocet.
* My parents totally stepped back and let AC take charge. That was so, so weird. I'm so used to having my parents asking questions and talking to doctors and whatever. To see AC signing consent forms and what not... it was nice, but strange. My Mom stayed with me while AC went home to take a shower and get something to eat for a total of about 2 hours. And my Dad came once (he admitted that he didn't want to see me with an IV in my arm). My brother came to bring AC some fries and me a frosty but didn't stay very long.
* AC was convinced it was an ulcer from traveling stress. The PA mentioned that as a possibility, which made AC pretty pleased with himself til we found out that it wasn't and I was going to get an organ removed.