Goodbye Gallbladder

My gallbladder and I have officially separated. There will be no reunion tour. Surgery was okay. The medical team was really responsive and attentive which was such a nice surprise. I explained I'd had a lot of asthma with last year's anesthesia so the anesthesiologist arranged for a pre-op nebulizer treatment and a different mix of gases that were more asthma friendly. Their efforts worked well and asthma was great in recovery. Stress dose was no problem.

Pain control was bad though.

I don't think I have the best brain for opiates. I just never seem to do well with them.

The second I was conscious, I was in pain and complaining about it. They gave me four doses of dialuid (sp?) and nothing. In fact, I became a little paranoid that the nurse wasn't actually giving me the medicine. But it's also possible I was in and out of consciousness and really didn't know what the hell was going on.

After that, I had 2 percocets which seemed to help.

But then, when I went into the next recovery room (it's like musical rooms for recovery there), the pain escalated.

Basically, I was having a massive GI charley horse. I assume it was the bile duct that was spasming. Very very painful.

So the nurse is trying to tell me it's gas pain.

And I'm just holding my head in my hands and crying. Am I going to be discharged from a procedure for the third time in a row with excruciating pain? What is with this gas pain bullshit! Stop already!

Finally, I managed to explain the pain was worse in a way that the nurse really heard me. It was difficult to talk because my throat was so sore and I was pretty out of it still.

They administered Demerol (sp?)  and it took the edge off. So I pushed to go home before it wore off because I didn't want to be bouncing around in the car in that much pain.

And the rest of the night was misery to the point where I wondered if something had gone wrong. So much pain despite so much medication seemed really odd to me. The next day was better. Kind of. I added in Advil which is what really makes the difference for me. The next step is to ditch the Percocet and see if I can make do with just alternating Advil and Tylenol.

I have had no gas pain in my shoulders, which is, apparently, so common with gallbladder surgery. 


I'm following the Adrenal Laws of Energy Consumption which goes something like.. space out everything you have to do and rest a lot between tasks. I'm supposed to attend a family event tonight. So my hair gets washed about 8 hours before.Then I nap. Then go get the clothes together. Another nap. Then get dressed. Another nap. And so on.

Oh, the preliminary report on gallbladder is it was a strawberry. Cholesterolosis of the gallbladder, which, from what I can tell in my drug addled state, is an abnormal but asymptomatic condition sometimes associated with gallstones and occasionally has some minor relationship to pancreatitis. At least that's what I got out of my hepped up on drugs reading so far.

I hope ditching the gallbladder ends up being helpful, but I have the sneaking suspicion that this Sphincter of Oddi stuff is more far reaching. I've been having trouble digesting food the last few weeks. As in, I could rinse it off and eat it again. I think there's more going on than just a wonky gallbladder.