Ever since Cael was three months old I had been having on and off stomach pain. At first I thought it was my ribs readjusting causing my insides to also readjust. After a few months, this annoying upper stomach and back pain got irritating enough that I couldn't exercise/run and it hurt enough that I was "slightly" ornery. Since the pain would last all morning varying 2-5 days/week I went in to see my doctor and asked her if my symptoms sounded like gallstones. I didn't have textbook symptoms and couldn't point to one spot that hurt so she ordered lab work and a chest x-ray and told me to have a follow-up appointment. The labs and x-ray didn't show anything and I had a feel-good week so I canceled my follow-up.
For the most part I went a few months feeling pretty good, then two days before Valentines day I.GOT.SICK. I blamed it on Jeremy's delicious bean soup.The next day I woke up feeling fine until noon then got slammed again to the point that I was puking nothing because I already puked my guts out. The next day, Valentine's day, I woke up feeling fine again. I got in a good run and we went to lunch to celebrate Valentines day. I barely ate half of my chicken sandwich and my upper stomach and back started to hurt. We had to cut our outing short since I wasn't feeling good. When we got home my stomach hurt so bad I couldn't lay down or even touch it. Jer was conviced I had gallstones so we headed into the ER. I had laugh attack #1 in the car thanks to Brock and his "shooting a duck" as he puts it; it hurt so bad to laugh that I couldn't stop laughing, making this horrible "hee-haw" sound. Jer told me I needed to get it together so we could get onto post, the ID checker probably thought I was crazy cause that just made me laugh even harder. Roughly four hours later I had laughing episode #2 when my nurse gave me morphine so I could get an ultrasound done. A little goes a LONG way for me and all of my 95 pounds. I was feeling pretty good. The ultrasound showed stones in my gallbaldder along with stone(s) blocking my common bile duct which had my liver pretty ticked off. Liver function labs are normally in the 30's, mine were over the 700 value. I was told to stay overnight so I'd be ready for an ERCP (stone removal) first thing in the morning. My poor boys were exhausted since it was almost midnight. When they were getting ready to head home, my sweetheart Troy gave me a big hug and started crying because he was so worried about leaving me at the hospital, he already asked 100 questions that night. He was embarrassed to be seen crying and quickly wiped his tears away when my nurse came in. Broke my heart.
Friday morning I woke up feeling much better. I had an MRI (I refused to open my eyes until the last two seconds in there, I was worried about being claustrophobic) and it showed two stones were causing blockage. That day they did the ERCP (tube down the throat procedure) and cut out the two stones. They used sedation on me for this procedure and the next thing I remember was waking up to Jer asking me how I was feeling, back in my hospital room. I vaguely remember Cael being there, no details though. The next day I asked Jer about it and apparently, in Jer's words, I was "snowed" and he has never had a patient as out of it as I was. He said I was holding Cael and playing with him enough that Jer had to take him away from me since I was getting a little too rambunctious after just having my insides worked on, I was giving the boys strange looks, saying hi to Jer's coworkers; and I don't remember any of this! It almost bothers me that I can't remember.
Saturday I had my gallbladder removed since my pancreas wasn't affected by the ERCP. I was so ready for this. I couldn't eat the day before because of the procedures and had barely eaten anything for the past five days anyways, plus my tank was on empty since I had been so sick. Even though I had the IV I really wanted a drink of water and I was craving a saltine cracker (or 20 or 30). After the surgery, while in recovery, I only woke up for a few minutes because my shoulders were killing me! I think they said this residual pain is from the CO2 they had pumped into my stomach. I woke up back in my room and my shoulders were still the biggest pain. Jeremy's coworkers were awesome though. In all of my hospital stays, that was the best care from nurses I've had. It pays off being married to a nurse and to be a patient on his hospital floor :)
Sunday I was finally released. Laugh attack #3 happened when Jer was driving me home. He had his pandora station on a kids-singing pop/rock station. I knew it wasn't that funny but it made me laugh so hard and it hurt so bad because of my incisions! I was hysterically telling him to change the station, he didn't know what was going on but I couldn't explain it or I'd just laugh even more.
I was SO excited to get home to my boys...and my Mom! Now this is cool: Earlier in the month my Mom said she wanted to come and visit for a few weeks. We had been planning our spring/summer travels and I let my mom know that the kids and I would more than likely be in Idaho for spring break and if the weather didn't cooperate or if she didn't want to drive up then we'd see her soon. She told me that she felt like she needed to come. I had been feeling like things had been going too good for us and had that constant and slight uneasy feeling that some type of a "glitch" was going to happen. So when she said this to me my stomach sunk a little but I was excited that she still wanted to come and visit us. I am SO glad that this minor surgery was all that happened (knock on wood) and that my mom payed attention to this prompting and has been here to help out with the kids.
Laugh attack #4 happened when I had been home for a few hours and Brock had seriously farted at least 40 times. He was ripping them every 20 seconds which made my mom laugh and I can't not laugh when I shouldn't. I thought I gave myself a hernia.
I got a little bored. Here's to the four days in the hospital:
All the saltines and water I could eat...post surgery
The IV. I've never liked them, never will.
Don't let the food fool you. Blah. The potatoes tasted like water.
Beautiful "Get Well Soon" bouquet. Love you Jer.
Cake. Jer's coworkers are awesome.
One of four incisions, my new gnarly belly button. All puffy and fluffy from surgery.
The window view
Art from my boys. A hawk, bat, dog, and snowflake.
The Pick-Me-Up Pics Jeremy sent while holding down the fort:
Pancakes!
A Bath at 1:30 a.m?!? The baby missed his mom and kept dad busy at all hours.
"Good morning Mom!" (note his lazy eye?)
Bed time stories from Troy
Jer let the big boys sleep in our bed. Do you think Jer slept much? Poor Troy was up until 1:30 one night worrying about me. Sweet boy.
My stomach looks like a recovering war zone but I'm feeling great and I'm glad that's over with! I guess now I can say the final score is: Lacy-1 Gallbladder-0
1 comment:
Glad you are doing better Lacy. Sounds like you were pretty sick!
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