On Wednesday, I figured out that we had reached our maximum outpatient procedure limit from our insurance when I had my esophagus scoped back in March. I cancelled the appointment I had for Thursday morning to go have my gall bladder scanned. I figured that I could deal with the discomfort until the new year- it really wasn't all that bad. Wednesday night around dinner time, my tummy started feeling a little upset. It felt like I had some air bubbles trapped in there. I ate a light dinner and went to bed several hours later with the same level of pain. I then woke up around 2:30 in the morning (on Thursday) feeling really bad- like my whole abdomen had been pumped full of air, and my side had started to hurt, too. I couldn't go back to sleep so I relocated to our guest room. I took medicine. I googled exercises to help with gas pains (which is what I thought it was) and did those for HOURS. I tried lying down in every position imaginable. Finally around 6:30 I went and told Brandon that either he needed to go down to Kroger and get me some different medicine, or he needed to take me to the emergency room. He chose the former. Then the nausea set in.
Two hours later, I decided I needed to go to the doctor. My side was hurting worse, and obviously no over the counter medicine was doing me any good. I got to the immediate care center by our home ten minutes before they opened, and I was the first one in the building. When a doctor finally saw me, I described my symptoms and he said he suspected it was my gall bladder acting up. Irony! He poked my side with his hand so many times (and so forcefully!) that it made me cry. He said I needed to go to the emergency room right then, and that they might want to take my gall bladder out that day. Fun times! I made it back home and my mom came and picked me up and took me to the ER. It took a long time for a doctor to see me but I started feeling better once they got me hooked up to some pain and nausea meds. This time when the doctor poked me in the side it almost made me throw up. They did an ultrasound and saw I had "several" gall stones, and got in touch with the surgeon on call. He came and talked to me eventually and said that he would have taken out my gall bladder that day, but he didn't have any openings, so they'd do it the next day- Friday morning. He sent me home with prescriptions for meds and I spent the rest of the day at mom and dad's house, until Brandon got off work.
Then on Friday morning we headed off to the hospital, they drugged me up, and took my gall bladder away. When the anesthesiologist came to tell me what they were going to do, he was kind of abrupt and didn't seem very friendly, but before he left he asked if we'd like him to pray with us. Um, duh. Of course we would! And he prayed to Jesus, which was nice because I was a little worried he might do one of those generic "lord of the universe" prayers that they sometimes do at college graduations. I was comforted that he knew the same God I did. The surgery went fine, I guess. I was asleep for it, you know. And when I got back home (to mom's) I was able to eat a bit of milkshake and take a few more naps. I slept on the couch last night because I couldn't really do the bed thing, and half the time I was upright. I had to change out my ice packs every few hours, but I did ok. I watched several episodes of the Golden Girls on DVD. It would have been fun if I wasn't in pain.
So yeah, that was my vacation week. I canceled a gall bladder test, only to end up in the hospital because of my gall bladder- and then I got it taken out. I was bummed because my vacation week was more than halfway over, and now I get at least two more weeks off to recover. By the time I'm back to work, November will be half over. Bananas!
I just got up to try to eat a little something (oatmeal- blech) and check the news, so I think I'm going to head back to my couch now and try to nap some more. Mom will be picking me up in a few hours and taking me back to her house to babysit me. I think I will sleep better in their recliner than I have on our couch.
It's been a pleasure to babysit!
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