I had my gallbladder out about 4 days ago and I'm so happy I did! I don't miss it one bit! In my case it probably definitely needed to come out because when I was 10 my appendix was infected and ruptured. So poison spewed all over my vital organs. I was in the hospital recovering for two weeks after that. It was pretty rough for sure.
Then about 6 months ago I started having severe pain in my stomach, a month after my second daughter was born, Joy. I talked to a few people who had the same thing happen, gallstone issues forming and clogging ducts after their second child was born.
The pain was so bad that it literally was super hard for me to just walk around. I would lay in bed thinking I was dying. I thought I was just getting food poisoning every couple of weeks.
There would be several flare ups. I would be fine for a week or two and then severe pain would hit. It usually was after I ate beef actually. Putting an ice pack on my stomach helped a lot for the pain. But I couldn't lay on either side at all. I had to lay flat on my back. It seems odd but I actually could feel the tiny stone that was blocking my bile duct. It was right between my rib cage. I would try massaging my stomach hoping I could push it out of there.
A number of times I drank olive oil, either mixed with juice or straight up. I saw this advised on YouTube videos as a solution for gallstones. This actually solved the problem 9 out of 10 times. I would drink it and then poop a lot, mostly diarrhea, for the next 12 hours about 6 hours after drinking it. It did really fix the problem. I could tell that the stone had dislodged and I was completely better. Hooray! But then a few weeks later another flare up would happen.
A gallstone getting stuck also seemed to be triggered if I ate to the point of being too full. Usually I just eat very small amounts at a time, like a cup of yogurt or a bagel etc. But if I ate a full normal meal, I had problems.
Then this Monday I went to Applebee's with my hubby and had a steak dinner around 2pm. I felt fine for a few hours. We rode bikes around. But that night the extreme stomach pain hit me again. I realized around midnight that if I was going to feel better I had to drink oil again, which I always dreaded cuz it's just disgusting to drink oil. Then the next morning I pooped a lot, and I felt totally back to normal again. Praise God. So around 2pm Tuesday, that next day, I thought I was fine and could eat some pizza. I had two slices but took most of the meat and cheese off. I was ok for a few hours. I felt a bit nauseous, but I seemed ok.
Oh also the night before I had taken a couple doses of Z Quil to help me sleep, which I think seriously dehydrated me. Drinking the olive oil probably also dehydrated me with all the diareaha I had after that. Then in the afternoon I had another dose of Z quilt to take a nap. I will never again take zquil. After that I instantly felt the urge to throw up. I vomited several times and started to sweat a lot. I layed on the bathroom floor wanting to die. I felt myself get really really hot and realized I had never been so sweaty in my life. My husband was in the living room watching our two girls. I didn't want to scare any of them so I kept my suffering to myself, as I always tend to do. I don't like to burden anyone generally.
I crawled back to my bed and tried to lay down but then went to throw up again. Laying on the cool bathroom floor felt nice. Then I realized I needed to call an ambulance. I knew I needed to go the ER but my husband couldn't drive me because he needed to watch our two girls. My mom had just gone out of town on a road trip and there was no one else I could think of. I probably need to join an actual nearby church and make some local friends so I have someone else to call besides my mom.
So I picked up my phone and called 911 for the first time in my life. I was having a hard time breathing and remembering my address to tell the lady. I told her I might have food poisoning and I was throwing up a lot. She figured out where my apartment was and said help is on the way! Literally only 3 minutes later about 5 paramedics came rushing in my room. Praise God! I was also thinking maybe I was about to have a heart attack so I said that and they took a picture of my heart. They said my heart looked ok. A few minutes later the ambulance people came. Someone said I was looking extremely pale. My husband explained to them how I had had stomach pain for the last 6 months or so but the doctors couldn't figure out what it was. They asked if I could walk down the steps with their help. I said yes and we went out to the ambulance. I was a bit worried that all that would freak out my two year old but hopefully she is ok regarding that. :)
In the ambulance they took my temp and it was only 90. I was like "Ah does that mean I'm dying?!" They were like "No! No. Don't worry." But I was shivering a lot and my teeth were chattering. They put a blanket on me and got my IV on and got pain meds in me. That made me feel a lot better. Then at the hospital they put me in a room that was like a shared space but had a curtain for privacy. They gave me morphine but that made me feel kinda hot at first so I asked for something less strong. They gave me more fluids and some ice chips. I was in that room for about the next 5 hours, from 5pm to 10. Then they rolled me upstairs to another room. The lady nurse that rolled me told me how she had her gallbladder out after her second kid and she was so glad she did! That helped me a lot cause I still wasn't sure if I wanted to have it out yet. When I started having the stomach issues a doctor recommended I have it out but I was a bit cautious about having an actual organ taken out of me. But I seem to be doing ok and better without it so that's great!
Then I was in that room for the next 14 hours. They told me no water or even ice chips after midnight. That was very hard for me cause I am like addicted to water lol. I actually tried cheating about 3am and took a tiny sip of water but instantly felt nauseous from it. The next day at noon I had my surgery to have my gallbladder out and I was never so excited about anything in my life! lol Except marrying my sweetie of course. :) I could not wait to feel better and get that thing taken out that had caused me tons of pain over the past 6 months. The lady gave me my sedative in my IV, told me to take 5 deep breaths and think of a happy dream. I thought that was a nice way to ease into the surgery. :)
I woke up about 4 hours later. The surgery I think was only about a half hour. A nurse upon my awaking said she would try to find my mom or husband, but I was thinking no I just want to go to a room and sleep for 10 hours lol. They rolled me to my room and I started crying because my neck was in serious pain, probably the most pain it's ever been in, in my life. Someone said maybe the way they laid me put a strain on my neck. Also I was crying because I didn't want to do another procedure right in a row. The doctors had told me the night before they might do the gall bladder surgery and if there were a lot of stones then later that day do another procedure of sticking something down my throat and getting all the other gallstones out. But I was crying and said "Please I don't want to do that today too. That would just be too much." They honored my wishes on that, Thank God! :) lol
I was in that same room till about 10pm. Then they rolled me up to the top floor. That room was hot when I got in so I was pretty uncomfortable. My new nurse wasn't very attentive so that sucked. They strapped both my legs to odd bouy looking things which pissed me off cause I couldn't get up to go to the bathroom. My neck was still killing me and the pain meds were wearing off. So I started crying again. lol Crying always gets people to act quicker on things which is nice. Not that I was trying to manipulate things but they needed to know how much pain I was in, mainly from my neck. That was not a time for me to try to be tough at all, like I normally try to be. They gave me more pain meds and an ice pack for my neck and that helped a lot.
Then around midnight I got a different nurse. She also didn't seem to care about me much which sucked. I said I needed to pee but wanted a bed pan cause I didn't want to get up. She literally said ok and didn't come back for about 45 minutes, so I finally got up myself to go pee. She came in when I was getting back in bed and passively said sorry.
The process of getting up to pee after surgery was the hardest part of the whole thing. I was huffing and puffing every time for the first 5 or 6 times. They cut between my lungs so it hurt to breath past half a breath. They let me have some apple juice though so that was really nice. I love apple juice!
The next day I had a very small amount of jello and more apple juice. The next day I had a bit of eggs for breakfast and more apple juice. So altogether I stayed in the hospital three nights. I would have been fine staying another night but I knew my daughters were missing me so I needed to get home. I walked out of the hospital the slowest I've ever walked in my life lol. But at least my neck finally felt better so that was nice.
I got home and showered, and it was nice to finally shower. The nurse warned me before I left about getting pneumonia. She said it was common for people to develop it after a surgery from lying around too much. Also the morning before I left at about 6am I had a fever of 100.3, which is kind of an early sign that pneumonia might happen. She said I needed to walk around as much as possible. So I did lots of laundry when I got home but then had a good nap. And being home is so nice! I love not having my sleep interrupted by strangers anymore. And being with my two sunshine girls is great!
My mom is here to help too so that is so, so nice. Thank you Mom!
And I might write more about how my recovery is going. Hope that story was interesting and maybe some of you can relate. May God bless you all!
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