A very unmerry birthday
This is almost verbatim at Operation::Goddess, too.
Prompted by a couple of, "Hey, what's going on?" messages from my dear friends, my readers, here's a quickie update.
Wednesday the 20th 3:00 pm - leaving work, enthusiasm, looking forward to camping on Friday, not looking forward to all the stuff I had to get done in preparation for camping. Plus, hey! It's my birthday! Woo!
Wednesday the 20th 6:00 pm - Calvin and I have finished dinner, headed back home to prep for camping. I get a decent amount of stuff done.
Wednesday the 20th 9:00 pm - I start feeling some discomfort coming from the area of my solar plexus. I deal for about an hour, then go to bed.
Wednesday the 20th 11:30 pm - I'm now crying. The pain is unbearable. I wake Calvin up so he can take me to the ER. We go. He pulls over so I can barf along the way. We continue on. I register into the ER. I'm given a bed in the ER after about 45 minutes.
Thursday the 21st 1:00 am - I am in AGONY. Bawling my head off. Blood has been taken. Nasty stuff has been drunk to see if it's just an upper G.I. integestion sort of thing. I barf that up, so nope, it isn't. I get wheeled away for an ultrasound of my midsection. Still in AGONY. Still bawling like a baby.
Thursday the 21st 1:30 am (time and details approximate as things get blurry) - An IV is attempted. And attempted again. Much rooting around is going on in my right arm. I'm hollering and kicking my legs. The tech finally listens to Calvin and starts the IV in my hand. The doctor comes in and tells us that my gallbladder has to be removed because it's full of stones and has been "compromised", and that I have pancreatitus.
Thursday the 21st 1:45 am - More crying. Until they give me some Morphine, which is good, good stuff. I'm given a hospital room. It's very nice - more like a hotel than a hospital. Calvin sleeps on the window seat in the room.
Thursday the 21st - daytime. A lady comes in and gives me a facial and massages my hands. Another lady comes in and asks if she can add me to her prayers. THEN I'm prepped for surgery. By 1:30 my gallbladder is gone.
The rest of the day is full of pain management (me) and marvelling at the effects of morphine on the brain (Calvin) as I babble complete nonsense. Night nurses were paged when I needed help getting to the bathroom (hello, helpless humiliation!), and they kept waking me up to take blood, check my blood pressure, and take my temperature. I'm given much sympathy because of the timing of all of this drama with my birthday.
That whole night was pretty surreal.
Calvin arrived at 10:00 the next morning, and by 11:30 I was checked out and headed home with some Vicodin.
So! Since then I've been splitting my time between the couch and the bed, having fantastically bizarre drug-induced dreams, and being waited on very lovingly by Calvin.
No camping for us. It's amazing what can happen in the course of 36 hours. At least we weren't in the middle of the woods when my gallbladder went south on me.
I'm getting better by degrees - I have an interesting pattern of incisions on my midsection which I'm hoping won't scar too much. I can't go back to work until I get a form from the doctor, who I'm not seeing until next Tuesday, so it looks like I'll be working from home until then.
Never a dull moment around here, huh? I feel worst about Calvin - he so needed the weekend away and instead he got saddled with even more stress. It's times like these, though, that are proof of whether or not you've got the right spouse. And I most certainly have got the PERFECT husband. He's taking such good care of me.
I finished the new Harry Potter book. If anybody cares to chat with me about it, e-mail me. I liked it, and yet I didn't. I didn't see any other direction that could have been taken, though. It's sort of an inevitable kind of book.
Oh! And to top it all off? We got the news today that Lilly is pregnant! Here comes grandbaby number three, before 32!
Yep. Never a dull moment. Ever.
Prompted by a couple of, "Hey, what's going on?" messages from my dear friends, my readers, here's a quickie update.
Wednesday the 20th 3:00 pm - leaving work, enthusiasm, looking forward to camping on Friday, not looking forward to all the stuff I had to get done in preparation for camping. Plus, hey! It's my birthday! Woo!
Wednesday the 20th 6:00 pm - Calvin and I have finished dinner, headed back home to prep for camping. I get a decent amount of stuff done.
Wednesday the 20th 9:00 pm - I start feeling some discomfort coming from the area of my solar plexus. I deal for about an hour, then go to bed.
Wednesday the 20th 11:30 pm - I'm now crying. The pain is unbearable. I wake Calvin up so he can take me to the ER. We go. He pulls over so I can barf along the way. We continue on. I register into the ER. I'm given a bed in the ER after about 45 minutes.
Thursday the 21st 1:00 am - I am in AGONY. Bawling my head off. Blood has been taken. Nasty stuff has been drunk to see if it's just an upper G.I. integestion sort of thing. I barf that up, so nope, it isn't. I get wheeled away for an ultrasound of my midsection. Still in AGONY. Still bawling like a baby.
Thursday the 21st 1:30 am (time and details approximate as things get blurry) - An IV is attempted. And attempted again. Much rooting around is going on in my right arm. I'm hollering and kicking my legs. The tech finally listens to Calvin and starts the IV in my hand. The doctor comes in and tells us that my gallbladder has to be removed because it's full of stones and has been "compromised", and that I have pancreatitus.
Thursday the 21st 1:45 am - More crying. Until they give me some Morphine, which is good, good stuff. I'm given a hospital room. It's very nice - more like a hotel than a hospital. Calvin sleeps on the window seat in the room.
Thursday the 21st - daytime. A lady comes in and gives me a facial and massages my hands. Another lady comes in and asks if she can add me to her prayers. THEN I'm prepped for surgery. By 1:30 my gallbladder is gone.
The rest of the day is full of pain management (me) and marvelling at the effects of morphine on the brain (Calvin) as I babble complete nonsense. Night nurses were paged when I needed help getting to the bathroom (hello, helpless humiliation!), and they kept waking me up to take blood, check my blood pressure, and take my temperature. I'm given much sympathy because of the timing of all of this drama with my birthday.
That whole night was pretty surreal.
Calvin arrived at 10:00 the next morning, and by 11:30 I was checked out and headed home with some Vicodin.
So! Since then I've been splitting my time between the couch and the bed, having fantastically bizarre drug-induced dreams, and being waited on very lovingly by Calvin.
No camping for us. It's amazing what can happen in the course of 36 hours. At least we weren't in the middle of the woods when my gallbladder went south on me.
I'm getting better by degrees - I have an interesting pattern of incisions on my midsection which I'm hoping won't scar too much. I can't go back to work until I get a form from the doctor, who I'm not seeing until next Tuesday, so it looks like I'll be working from home until then.
Never a dull moment around here, huh? I feel worst about Calvin - he so needed the weekend away and instead he got saddled with even more stress. It's times like these, though, that are proof of whether or not you've got the right spouse. And I most certainly have got the PERFECT husband. He's taking such good care of me.
I finished the new Harry Potter book. If anybody cares to chat with me about it, e-mail me. I liked it, and yet I didn't. I didn't see any other direction that could have been taken, though. It's sort of an inevitable kind of book.
Oh! And to top it all off? We got the news today that Lilly is pregnant! Here comes grandbaby number three, before 32!
Yep. Never a dull moment. Ever.
Oh ye gods! I hope you recover all quickly and well. I've had a morphine drip, and it is indeed fun. I remember none of what happened though. I'm sorry you had such a traumatic birthday.
Congratulations on the impending new grandchild!
Posted by
FishD |
11:40 PM
Oh Laura! That's nuts! I just assumed you'd gone on vacation. And it's definitely a good thing it happened when it did. I'd hate to think what you and Calvin would've done had you been camping by then.
I hope you feel better really soon!
Posted by
Amanda |
6:51 AM
How awful for you! I hope you heal up quickly.
Congrats on the new grandbaby. Three already! I admire their energy.
Posted by
Lana |
8:02 AM
An obvious question: was it your recent detox that caused the loss of your gallbladder?
Posted by
Anonymous |
11:19 AM
Ouch!!! Not a fun way to spend your birthday!!! :(((
I have four (?) scars from my gallbladder removal. They faded very well - I used Vitamin E oil. "They" say it works pretty well and I have to agree - I also used it on my nephew when he was a very accident prone toddler and his scars are so faint you have to really try to see them. I hope you recover quickly!!!!!!
Posted by
Elissa |
11:08 AM
My colleague at work has just had the exact same thing - it is supposed to be the worst pain a person can experience (even worse than childbirth!) He's made a full recovery as I'm sure you will too.
Posted by
Shannan |
4:21 PM