Notes from a Gallbladder Removal Part 2

My incisions are healing beautifully. Barely perceptible, bordering on invisible. If I was one to wear a bikini, I could prance off into the summer with no one the wiser. It is amazing how tiny the incisions are.

By comparison, it looks like a butcher operated on my wrist. Those scars make doctors ask me if I was bit by a rabid dog. I don't know why the default is rabid dog. Do not ask me things I do not understand. All I can tell you , is I'm happy to have ugly scars if it means getting back the full use of my hand. No complaints from me, but the contrast between the abdominal incisions and my hand is interesting. Closing up incisions has come a long way in the last 14 years.

I still have a lot of abdominal muscle pain/weakness. I have NO idea when that will resolve. Neither does the surgeon.

I feel like I am slow to recover and that I had more pain than most people experience. I do not know why that is and it frustrates me. I want to fix it.

I'm tireder than I thought I would be as well. It's not horrible, but I sure do tucker out. I'm not quite up to a full day of mommying, working and exercising yet. I get overwhelmed quickly especially on the days when digestion isn't working like it should.

It will improve with time, right? I'll just be over here tapping my toe and looking at my watch. Don't mind me!

The surgeon suggested I try life without the cholestryamine in a few weeks and I'm eager to do that.

The most interesting thing about life without a gallbladder is I can now tell how active the biliary duct is. It spasms constantly and in patterns that feel a lot like gallbladder pain. Sometimes it spasms high up in my chest at what I assume is the juncture with the pancreas. I get that sword-through-my-shoulder-blade feeling along with the pulsing of what I assume is the sphincter.

Also the duct and sphincters feel huge, like a fist or a thick python squeezing me from the inside. I know this must be a tiny piece of anatomy, but when everything is spasming size is magnified.

So now I guess we wait and see what the duct and sphincters do. Will it give me pancreatitis again?

Sphincter of Oddi Dysfunction is no joke. The gallbladder removal addressed part of the problem, but it's not the whole solution.

Quick writing update:

1. I will never share any of my pseudonyms here. Thank you for asking, but no. For one, I have too many anonymous hate comments to take that risk. Two, my readers don't need to read this blog, it's not part of my brand. Three, if I tell  you who I am then I can't tell you any of the behind-the-scenes. So enjoy the gossip and peek into the inner workings of a writer's life.

2. I'm making like, zero money this month. Sigh. I have to get back into the trenches. Time to crank out the next book and hope it's a hit. I have some cool projects lined up for fall, but summer has been an unintentional dead zone and my income now reflects that. Yikes!  Time to hustle.

So I will try to be scarce on here.