How Tayo Came to Part With Her Gallbladder, Part 1

Posted on June 26, 2008

Hey blogging fam. It’s been a long time.

I’ve been referencing one of the main causes for my absence from blogging for the last month or so: my gallbladder removal surgery.

I had my surgery on June 5 and I remember in the weeks leading up to the surgery, I scoured the web looking for someone to tell me about his or her experiences before and after the surgery. What foods would I be able to eat after? What won’t I be able to do? What should I do to prepare myself for the surgery? As I remember, I wasn’t able to find many people chronicling their own experiences.

Now I know that each experience is different and some (actually most) of the things I read up on and worried about did not affect me. But this is my experience with gall bladder removal surgery. Pull up a chair, grab some snacks and let’s get to it.

First things first. Why did I have gall bladder removal surgery? My first attack was in early February. I was at work and all of a sudden I started feeling heartburn-y (I know it’s not a word!) But it was a pretty strong heartburn. For a second, the thought that maybe I’m having a heart attack flashed though my mind. But I decided to crawl underneath my desk, lie down and wait it out. Ten minutes later, I was okay. Weird, I thought. But I put it out of my mind.

The next attack I had was on February 12 or 13 (I remember this because it messed up something I was planning to do for Valentine’s Day). That severe heartburn-y feeling again. Only this time it was stronger. After about an hour, I thought, this isn’t normal. I went online (yay Internet!) to find heartburn cures. I found a site that suggested everything from apples and apple cider vinegar to milk to antacid pills. And trust. I tried every single one of them. The “heartburn” went away after about one and a half more hours. I’m not sure if anything I ate helped.

After about 3 more of these attacks, in varying degrees, I decided to go to the doctor’s office. Actually I decided to go during one of these attacks. I remember sitting on the floor of the examination room in the doctor’s office resting my head on the chair because that was the only position that I got any semblance of relief from the pain.

Let me give you a better description of the pain. As I mentioned before, it felt like severe heartburn. In addition to this, I had pain in my stomach area, my upper chest and upper back. I eventually learned a pain-coping mechanism (take some pain-killers, use a heat pad on my front and back, sit propped up on my couch and try to fall asleep til it went away). But back to the real story at hand.

At the doctor’s office, they gave me a Maalox cocktail (Maalox, some medicine whose name I don’t remember and another numbing medicine whose name I don’t remember) and told me that if the pain went away then it was GERD and if not, they would need to give me an ultrasound to test for gall stones. The pain went away; I got a prescription for Zantac and was sent on my way. Two weeks later, I had another attack. Then another. And then another. So I went back and scheduled an ultrasound. And it showed that I had gallstones.

Crap.

The next step was to go to the surgery center where my surgeon told me that I could either have the surgery or not (duh) but that if I didn’t, I was likely to continue to have the attacks. He also told me that since I was young I should bounce back from the surgery relatively easily (apparently the typical gallbladder removal candidate is older – thirties and forties – and female). Okay. So I scheduled the surgery for during the week of May 19th. However, by May 8th I chickened out a bit. I asked the scheduling nurse to move it back a couple of weeks. My excuse? My cousin was graduating and I didn’t want to have it before then. Ha ha ha, yeah.

Time crept on and I keep looking for morsels of information online (stupid Internet!). And what I read got me scared. Tales of loose bowels and leaking bile and infections got into my head and I really started to get cold feet. You know, maybe I don’t really need this surgery. I mean, I hadn’t had an attack in a few weeks (I really hadn’t). I’ll just cancel it and deal with living with any future attacks. It’s not that serious. Unfortunately (fortunately?), I shared these thoughts with my mother and she persuaded me to talk to my doctor before rashly canceling the surgery. I did and she told me of a patient like me who had decided to wait and ended up with a ruptured gallbladder and emergency surgery. Thinking back on it now, it’s a very real possibility that this might have been a “fictional case” meant to convince me to do the surgery, but hell, it worked!

Crap.

A few days before, I kept speaking with my parents and would get things along the lines of “don’t worry about the surgery”. And I’d reply with a dismissive wave that I wasn’t worried about the surgery, I was just worried about the aftereffects. Blah blah blah. I’ll be okay.

And then all of a sudden, it was June 4. I went in for my pre-op consultation. They got my medical history, got my payment for the surgery (never had I been so relieved to have insurance!) and the nurse handed me a flurry of forms to fill out. The form that got me, that made me stop in my tracks and actually realize I was having surgery the next day was the form stating that I understood that there were possibilities of complications, including the possibility of death. The nurse asked me if I had a living will. Living will? I’m 25! Twenty-somethings don’t often think of these types of things. And then it hit me.

I could die from this surgery.

Now I was scared.

Come back tomorrow for part 2 of the saga.

Comments

4 Responses to “How Tayo Came to Part With Her Gallbladder, Part 1”

  1. Jay Midnyte on June 27th, 2008 5:40 am

    Oh my! The suspense is killing me!

  2. Tayo on June 27th, 2008 12:17 pm

    LOL! Jay, I got you, won’t keep you in suspense too long.

  3. ICELAND on August 3rd, 2008 12:01 am

    HI I HAD MY GALLBLADDER REMOVED IN NOV. OF 07 OH THE DRAMA THAT LED TO THAT WAS CRAZY FRIDAY I WAS IN EXTREME PAIN THROWING UP MON. WENT TO THE HOSPIATL CUZ PAIN CAME BACK THEY SAID I WAS FINE WED. EVEN MORE EXTREME PAIN STONES SHOOTING THROUGH MY THROAT HAD TO HAVE GI TO STOP IT WHICH LED THEM TO DISCOVER I HAD STONES AND NEEDED TO HAVE MY GALLB. REMOVED CRAZY AFTER SUGERY WHEN I WOE UP THE PAIN HIT ME STAYED IN HOSPITAL FOR 2 DAYS SATYED HOME FROM WORK ONE WEEK OVERALL IT WASNT A BAD SURGERY THE SICKNESS I EXPERIENCED WAS THE WORST FOR ME HOPE U FEEL WELL AND U WENT OUT UR CRAZY LOL

  4. Tayo on August 4th, 2008 7:54 am

    Wow, that’s crazy, Iceland! I’m glad all is okay with you now, though. Thanks for stopping by.

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