Adios gallbladder.

I meant to write this post a week or so ago, but it never happened. So, I'm writing it now. :)

On August 15, I evicted my gallbladder. It was time for it to go; it was causing me issues with digesting food, which meant stomach issues, food restrictions etc. I didn't want to live like that the rest of my life - and risk my gallbladder actually going bad and making things a lot worse - so I listened to my body, saw the doc and got it handled.

All this started during Memorial Day weekend. I've always had a pretty iron stomach - I can eat just about anything. If I eat too much, it can make me sick, but whatever. Doesn't happen often. Over Memorial Day weekend, my mom BBQed, and I overindulged a little. This time though, I got pretty sick - like, I missed 1.5 days of work because I was so sick. Fever, stomach issues, nausea...I'd never experienced that before after having a big meal. But, I got over it and shook it off.

The same thing happened two weeks later. And during the 4th of July weekend. And two weeks after that. Every time I ate something particularly fatty, I would get really sick. I knew that wasn't normal, so I dragged my reluctant behind to the doctor. He immediately suspected my gallbladder and had me get an ultrasound to check for stones. That came back clear, so I had a HIDA scan done - a dye was injected into my system to see how fast it would move from my liver to my gallbladder. The dye was going to act like bile and show if I had an issue with the bile moving the way it should, which could explain why I wasn't digesting food properly and getting sick.

The HIDA scan was OK...sitting still for 1.5 hours was hard...but the part where the dye was forced from my liver to my gallbladder sucked. It felt like someone had set my stomach on fire...I'm not sure how I stayed still for the 15 minutes it took for the dye to do its thing. The scan results came back showing I was having issues moving bile from the liver to the gallbladder, so I scheduled surgery to kick it out.

The morning of my surgery was an early one. I was supposed to have surgery at 10am, but it got bumped up to 7am, so I was at the hospital by 6am [basically, I didn't sleep the night before]. I got all checked in, talked to my OR nurse/surgeon/ER nurse/anesthesiologist, then waited an hour until they wheeled me back. The surgery itself only took an hour, but coming out of anesthesia was rough for me. I was very sleepy, very nauseous, and I was in post-op for three hours while I struggled to shake it off. I pretty much slept the next 1.5 days away.

The surgery involved using tools in four incision points to remove my gallbladder. This is what it looked like the day after surgery:

The fourth incision was right above my belly button. Those four incision points hurt up until last week. And I mean, HURT. It was hard to sneeze, hard to laugh, hard to breathe...I tend to not take pain meds because I don't like the way they make me feel, but I took Lortab for two days to help curb the pain. It wound up making me feel very nauseous though, so I stopped taking it and sucked it up through my trip to Vegas. Oh, I should mention I had surgery on August 15 and flew to Vegas August 18...I will NEVER do that again. But anyway.

Now that I'm 2.5 weeks post-op, I feel SO much better. The incisions don't hurt, the sites are healing well, I shouldn't have a ton of scarring, and I can eat whatever I want now. I do watch how much fat I eat - if I eat too much of it [like bacon], it makes me nauseous - but it's nice to not have to worry whether what I eat will set it off and keep me in bed all day. I thought recovery would take much longer, and to be quite honest, if I wasn't in the mindset of "I have to feel better now, I'm flying to Vegas this week," recovery might've taken longer. But, it only took about a week tops for me to feel just about back to normal, which isn't bad.

The good thing about all this though:

J came home to visit! He was granted leave to come help me out for a week while I fully recovered, and it was so awesome to have him here. It's the longest we've spent together since he joined the Air Force last year, and it's the first time he's seen JJ since he moved in November. I miss him already but am grateful he was here for a few days.

So long, gall bladder.

I've had a pretty clean bill of health my entire life. I've only been to the ER three times [once because I was in a car accident and had this huge bump on my head; the other two times were due to overnight issues when a doctor wasn't readily available], had asthma that I grew out of, and I've had one surgery [left knee, unless you count getting all four wisdom teeth pulled...then i've had two]. Even my pregnancy was pretty uneventful, except for the high blood pressure at the end that kept me pregnant for only 39w5d instead of 40+ weeks. I've been very fortunate, and I still am.

But lately, I've been having issues with my lovely, lovely tummy. It started during Memorial Day weekend, when I got sick after eating our yearly family BBQ. When that same sickness occurred three times in five weeks - and none of the people that were eating the same foods were getting sick - I knew something was up. It took some coaxing from my parents [i hate going to the doctor], but I finally saw my family physician. Besides my pregnancy check-ups, this was the first time I'd gone to the doctor since sophomore year of college - and that was five years ago. Don't give me that look - I already established I hate going to the doctor. :)

Anyway, he said it sounded like my gall bladder was going bad, so a series of tests were done. The ultrasound came up negative, but the HIDA scan - which sucked big monkey toes towards the end - came back abnormal. So, I get to see a general surgeon tomorrow to schedule a time to get it removed. At this point, I'm just ready for it to be taken out. The upside to this whole thing is that it's forced me to eat healthier because I'm afraid that foods with too much fat will make me sick - so I've cut down on the fatty foods and even on sugar and soda. I've had at least 28 oz. of water every day the past few days [without adding any artificial flavoring, which is a surprise for me], and I've been watching my portions as well. But, the area where my gall bladder is hurts, and I've started getting tummy aches after every meal. I'm hoping removing the thing will help alleviate all my issues and get me back to feeling normal again.

On another upside, this will hopefully all be resolved before the big Vegas trip in two weeks. Hopefully, I can eat, drink and be merry while I'm out there without having to worry about getting sick afterwards. From what I understand, this surgery can be done with minimal cutting and sewing, which is nice, and I won't have any dietary restriction once the procedure is done. I still plan on watching what I eat though - I've started to feel much better after cutting out the crap and going with the good.

Adios gall bladder. It's been a good 25 years, but I think it's time to we part.