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Let's see, last update, which was last Friday, I was feeling pretty positive about my gall bladder, and for Saturday and Sunday I ate normally, ate my Chinese medicine, and nothing untoward happened. But then. Sunday dinner. It was pretty normal stuff at mom's place -- rice, some veggies, nothing super fatty, so I was like "all right, I'm in the clear, I'm gonna slowly save my gall bladder!" Then I get home and around 10pm I'm like "oh, I feel the back pain that comes before the gall bladder stuff, but maybe it won't be too bad, because I've been taking the Chinese meds." And at first, it wasn't that bad. But then, when the worst of it was supposed to be over, it came back, slightly different and MUCH WORSE. First I feel bloated, then around 11:30pm I throw up, and then it REALLY hits. OMG it was BAD. Not just waves of pain, but constant, 10/10 must scream, can't do anything else, shaking limbs sort of pain.
So spouse is like "we need to take you to the ER."
We get to the ER around midnight. I linger, screaming in the waiting room, until about 12:45am, at which time I'm finally let into the ER part of the ER and put on a bed, and then half an hour later, a doctor finally sees me and is able to okay the application of pain meds. Sweet sweet pain meds. (So basically I was screaming nonstop for 2 hours, yay).
Anyways, spouse goes home at 2am to sleep. I dose off, blissed out on pain meds, and then around 3:30am they give me a CT scan, which reveals that in addition to my worsening gall bladder issue (apparently the walls are thickening), it has also triggered an inflamed duodenum (the first 10 inches of my small intestine). The inflamed duodenum was preventing my stomach from putting anything into the small intestine, hence the vomiting.
And then I vomited 4 times between 3am-5am. Including ice chips that I'd had. So... nothing is allowed down my stomach, then.
Surgery resident talks to me at about 5am to learn about what's been going on. Very calm and thoughtful surgery doc talks to me at about 9am and basically said that priority #1 is getting the duodenum swelling to go down, and also that she ordered a test to see if the gall bladder was still working. She was very nice -- she explained that she was worried that removing the gall bladder if it's still functioning would just cause more stress to the duodenum, but also she said that modern diets are usually low-fat enough that the gall bladder is... maybe not so necessary. Which makes a fair amount of sense. Also I maybe was feeling quite betrayed by my gall bladder -- here I was, trying to save the little sucker, and instead it decides to inflame my duodenum? Betrayal most foul.
Anyways, Monday 11am-1pm I do a HIDA scan which revealed that my gall bladder was basically not functioning. I talk to surgery doc #2 around 2pm, who tells me that they plan to admit me and get my gall bladder out that night. But then apparently there weren't any hospital beds so they couldn't admit me until 6pm, and by then it was too late for surgery that day. So I spend the night (in a very quiet corner of the hospital, yay!), and then Tuesday I was informed that the surgery was scheduled for 5:30pm. I meet surgery doc #3 at around 9am, and then settle in to wait. But then at around 1:30pm I get rushed into pre-op because a 3pm slot opened up! And so I end up being done around 6pm and booted out of the hospital by 6:30pm.
So yeah, by Tuesday 6pm, I no longer had a gall bladder. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Just got the biopsy today and apparently my gall bladder had thicccc walls and had sludge and a single big gallstone measuring 2.8x1.9x1.6cm. :0 It's a chunky boy, and probably the Chinese meds wouldn't have been able to help dissolve such a big one. So... I'm glad I did surgery.
Been recovering at home the past 2 days. Doc says at least a week, but I'll probably go back to school on Monday -- the kids have had 3 full classes without me and are pretty feral at this point. Things are mostly fine. Been reading far too many Witcher fics. Part of it feels like post-C-section recovery, in that I'm not great at sitting up from lying down position, and also I need to eat lots of small meals, so I'm waking up at 3am to eat, etc. I'm not needing much pain meds, so that's also good. Trying to stay low-fat for the first few days and then start adding the fat back in.
Tomorrow I hope to go for a walk that's longer than a block, and also be able to get up from horizontal position without spouse to pull me up.
So spouse is like "we need to take you to the ER."
We get to the ER around midnight. I linger, screaming in the waiting room, until about 12:45am, at which time I'm finally let into the ER part of the ER and put on a bed, and then half an hour later, a doctor finally sees me and is able to okay the application of pain meds. Sweet sweet pain meds. (So basically I was screaming nonstop for 2 hours, yay).
Anyways, spouse goes home at 2am to sleep. I dose off, blissed out on pain meds, and then around 3:30am they give me a CT scan, which reveals that in addition to my worsening gall bladder issue (apparently the walls are thickening), it has also triggered an inflamed duodenum (the first 10 inches of my small intestine). The inflamed duodenum was preventing my stomach from putting anything into the small intestine, hence the vomiting.
And then I vomited 4 times between 3am-5am. Including ice chips that I'd had. So... nothing is allowed down my stomach, then.
Surgery resident talks to me at about 5am to learn about what's been going on. Very calm and thoughtful surgery doc talks to me at about 9am and basically said that priority #1 is getting the duodenum swelling to go down, and also that she ordered a test to see if the gall bladder was still working. She was very nice -- she explained that she was worried that removing the gall bladder if it's still functioning would just cause more stress to the duodenum, but also she said that modern diets are usually low-fat enough that the gall bladder is... maybe not so necessary. Which makes a fair amount of sense. Also I maybe was feeling quite betrayed by my gall bladder -- here I was, trying to save the little sucker, and instead it decides to inflame my duodenum? Betrayal most foul.
Anyways, Monday 11am-1pm I do a HIDA scan which revealed that my gall bladder was basically not functioning. I talk to surgery doc #2 around 2pm, who tells me that they plan to admit me and get my gall bladder out that night. But then apparently there weren't any hospital beds so they couldn't admit me until 6pm, and by then it was too late for surgery that day. So I spend the night (in a very quiet corner of the hospital, yay!), and then Tuesday I was informed that the surgery was scheduled for 5:30pm. I meet surgery doc #3 at around 9am, and then settle in to wait. But then at around 1:30pm I get rushed into pre-op because a 3pm slot opened up! And so I end up being done around 6pm and booted out of the hospital by 6:30pm.
So yeah, by Tuesday 6pm, I no longer had a gall bladder. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Just got the biopsy today and apparently my gall bladder had thicccc walls and had sludge and a single big gallstone measuring 2.8x1.9x1.6cm. :0 It's a chunky boy, and probably the Chinese meds wouldn't have been able to help dissolve such a big one. So... I'm glad I did surgery.
Been recovering at home the past 2 days. Doc says at least a week, but I'll probably go back to school on Monday -- the kids have had 3 full classes without me and are pretty feral at this point. Things are mostly fine. Been reading far too many Witcher fics. Part of it feels like post-C-section recovery, in that I'm not great at sitting up from lying down position, and also I need to eat lots of small meals, so I'm waking up at 3am to eat, etc. I'm not needing much pain meds, so that's also good. Trying to stay low-fat for the first few days and then start adding the fat back in.
Tomorrow I hope to go for a walk that's longer than a block, and also be able to get up from horizontal position without spouse to pull me up.
