Gall Bladderless

As of Friday, I've been gall bladderless for 11 years. My grandma reminded me and I laughed. It helped me figure out why I was having crazy hospital flashbacks the day before. Goofy little thing, that subconscious....

The gall bladder thing sounds tame, but it really wasn't. It seems like every other person has had their gall bladder removed, but it doesn't feel too tame when it's actually you. (Actually, SOME people I know go shopping later that day....but not me.)

I had my gall bladder out a week after Joseph was born. One week after a c-section is not considered the best time for another surgery, but it was unavoidable. I spent the week after Joseph's birth in so much pain, I was hardly functional. I couldn't change his diaper, I couldn't stand upright, I couldn't sleep, I was not able to hold him much, I had the creepy experience of hearing someone moaning in pain and then realizing it was me, my face was chalk-white. It was a terrible week. No one believed my pain level. To the medical community, I was the wimpy lady who had the c-section and couldn't handle a little discomfort. Inside me, though, I knew something was wrong. I remember being hunched over in front of the mirror one night, seeing my deathly-white face, and whispering, "Something is really wrong with me." The next evening, I hobbled out to the table to attempt to eat. I lowered myself halfway into my chair and froze as a wave of pain hit me and I started screaming. I pretty much startled Brian and my mom out of their wits. I wish I could have blacked out, but the pain just kept coming.

My mom called an ambulance and off I went into the land of IV's and tests. I was incoherent from pain and pain medicine. I could still feel all the pain, but the medicine made me unable to respond to it. It was terrifying. After a few hours and some tests, I was admitted in the middle of the night and scheduled for surgery early on a Saturday morning. Then I knew it was real. No one gets surgery on a Saturday without a good reason.

My gall bladder was three times its normal size. It was full of something they all called sludge. There was no stone to pass. My gall bladder had to come out or the infection would eventually kill me.

I was in the hospital two and a half days. I had a nurse that tried to kill me by emptying my bed pan without gloves, not washing her hands, and then putting a new drip in my IV (still without gloves). She also put an IV in so badly that my entire arm filled with fluid and they had to call in the anesthesiologist. The woman was terrifying. By the time I got home, my milk was mostly dried up, I had a newborn baby I hardly knew, and I was still in pain from the surgery (both of them). I cried a lot for a long time. So did he. I don't really have a big moral or lesson from this little life adventure. I just thought about it a lot today. I hugged Joseph one extra time just because I'm not sure he got enough mommy hugs in his first couple of weeks.