Goodbye, Old Friend

My self help gallbladder plan didn’t work. It didn’t have a chance to work really … and now I have no gallbladder at all.

I found out I had gallstones just two months ago, after a few painful nights and an ultrasound from my aunt. I had decided to do a gradual treatment of dietary changes and herbal formulas (which can dissolve stones); the dietary changes I started right away, but I kind of put off going in for treatment because I was busy busy busy with school, work, life.

Friday at work, in the middle of my second massage I started to feel the pain. It came on quite suddenly, and went from mild to severe in about one minute. I’m not sure how but I managed to finish the massage, and then got sent home from work. Thankfully it was a slow afternoon and I didn’t have any other massages scheduled. I got a really strong pain killer from my friend (I know, I know, don’t take other peoples drugs. Whatever. I was in pain!) which pretty much knocked me out for a few hours. I made sure to eat when I took the pill because that kind of stuff usually makes me sick to my stomach, and when I woke up from my nap I felt pretty good. I got up, started walking around, and then got really nauseous really fast. That started the vomiting cycle. I have a fairly sensitive stomach, and usually once I start vomiting I don’t stop again for several hours. This time though, I noticed a conspicuous lack of BILE in my vomit, which was a big red flag. If not for that, I’d probably have thought the pain killer just upset my stomach; but this was different. By 10pm I was calling my dad to ask his advice of what I should do. I’ve experienced the emergency room before, and sometimes they don’t do much and end up charging you a boatload of money, so I didn’t want to rush off to the hospital if this was something that wasn’t really urgent. After a long debate, and talking to my aunt (the same one that gave me the ultrasound), I get a ride to the hospital with Cathy. It wasn’t crowded. They ultrasound me, and sure enough, I’ve got stones (yah, I already told them that), and it looked like one was stuck up in the duct. The ultrasound tech hit me on the back a few times to loosen things up, and then I was sent back to the ER. After a while the doc came back and suggested I get surgery; another debate. I figured since I was already there, and I was just starting my school break it would be an “ideal” time, I would have plenty of time to recover without worrying about school and whatnot. At about 3am they admitted me to the hospital and gave me some pain meds and I fell into a lovely sleep.

Sam took the earliest train he could and got there in the morning. We spent most of Saturday waiting to hear from the surgeon, and then at about 1pm they came in to tell me to get ready, I was going in. I was scared. Before this, I’d never had surgery, never gone under, never even had stitches! I was afraid of the anesthetic, and how you wouldn’t even realize if you died on the table. Melodramatic I know, but that’s how I felt. They rolled me into surgery not long after that, Sam was able to go with me right up to the end, and then they laid me out on the table. I asked to keep the stones and they said they couldn’t, they’d need them for testing. (Bummer!) They had given me something to make me kind of sleepy and relaxed, and then they lowered the mask onto my face and told me to breathe deeply, and I only had time to think “Gee, this kind of burns, is that normal?” and I was out. I woke up with a sore throat, and very out of it. I remember trying to talk, to ask questions, but I had no voice. The rest of that day is kind of a blur. I was upset because I couldn’t eat anything for another full day. They told me my gallbladder had been twisted, and I had a stone stuck in my common bile duct, and I had to have another procedure the next morning to take care of that. People came to visit me, but it felt like swimming up to the top of my consciousness to talk to them, and I mostly just slept.

Sam spent the night; he was so great that whole weekend. I could tell he was worried. He was with me the whole time. At 6am on Sunday the vampire came to take my blood. He was very mysterious; he came in and flicked on the light with no regard to the sleeping people. I asked him who he was, and he didn’t meet my eye, just pulled out my right arm and started probing around. He tried the needle once, and found nothing. He tried again, lower this time, and hit blood. He looked at me in the too bright light and said “I thought you’d run out of blood.” He was tall, and dark, and swarthy, and had an accent that could have been from eastern Europe. He came for my blood. The Vampire ‘doctor’.

My procedure on Sunday was much shorter. They prepped me in a very cold room full of x-ray equipment; I was told they would use x-ray dye to find the stone, and then take it out. I was told to lie on my stomach and before I knew it I was unconscious again, and waking up with a sore throat. They had to insert a tube down into my stomach and work backwards through the duodenum to get the stone out. This was early in the morning, and I had the rest of the day to feast on clear liquids and visit with people who came to see me. Sam and I were alone most of the day, talking, sleeping, reading. He stayed again that night, and at 6am the Vampire was back. This was my first night without intravenous pain meds and I was sleeping the sleep of a normal person, not a drugged unconsciousness. He flicked the light on, and I was confused, struggling to wake up, fighting against my dry eyelids to open my eyes and see what was happening. The Vampire laughed, “It’s your worst nightmare come to wake you!” and he took more blood. He left and Sam and I exchanged a long glance. Not a prime candidate for a phlebotomist if you ask me.

Monday was spent largely alone. Sam left in the morning for work, and my mom was with me for a while, but I just wanted to be alone. Every meal was a graduation (clear liquids for breakfast, full liquids for lunch, real food for dinner!), and I was waiting waiting waiting … time to get out, time to get on with life. I felt sad. I still feel sad. It’s a strange thing, to have part of you taken out. You only get one body, with so many parts, and when one is gone all of a sudden … it’s sad. I went home that evening, and stretched out on my own bed, and slept soundly, knowing that I still have the rest of me to take care of.