Can't Get Enough..: No excuses..

When I feel awful, I will see a doctor much sooner next time..

The night I posted my last blog, I had horrible stomach pains after Eric and I ate dinner. It was the same pain I have had off and on for about 3 months. It would happen once, then weeks later, happen again. Even though it was excruciating pain, I tried to brush it off. It always came at night. Very inconvenient! Brady's sleeping, Eric and I were usually headed to bed, and I'd buckle over in pain. It would last anywhere from 30 min to 12 hours! The week of Halloween, it came and didn't leave. So, Friday night I finally let Eric take me to the ER.

After waiting for 6 hours... I finally got in and got morphine. Holy Moly! I needed it, and it certainly relieved my pain, but it was so strange! I kept saying, “It feels heavy, I feel heavy”. The doctors did blood work, urine work, an ultrasound, and a CT scan. I had gallstones. Lots of them. Fortunately, no kidney stones to go with it. Because my gallbladder was not infected, they sent me home with meds and gave me a surgeon's number. I was annoyed, but relieved to know what was wrong.

I called Monday and was able to get an appointment with the doctor for Tuesday. I had to go back and forth many times with Tricare. This was probably my first issue with them and I had to remind myself I'm thankful to have free health insurance. They gave me a really hard time about approving the referral and kept blaming my primary doctor for their mistakes. Not exactly what I wanted to deal with at the time! It was all resolved though and I saw the Surgeon. He confirmed I needed surgery and scheduled it for the next day. Woohoo!!

We were supposed to leave his office and go to the hospital to register for surgery. However, I felt so nauseous and sick that we went home so I could rest. Eric called the doctor to find out if I could get to the hospital early the next day to register instead. The surgeon asked to speak with me, but I was in the middle of another gallbladder attack. He told Eric to bring me to the hospital right away and they'd have a room ready for me. Morphine again!

I didn't see my doctor until the next morning to talk briefly before the surgery. He told me I'd have 3 or 4 small incisions, 1 on my belly button, one above, and 1 or 2 on my right side. He also had noticed that my bilirubin level was high. It's determined by blood tests and measures bile and liver function. Normal is .1 up to 1 and I had a 2.9. This meant more than likely, that some of my gallstones had made their way to my liver and were getting stuck moving from the liver to intestines. Grrreat!! He was going to try and flush them out during surgery, but if he couldn't I would have to have surgery again the next day.

That's exactly what happened. I ended up with 4 incisions from the gallbladder surgery. It was painful every time I moved and you can't really move any way without using your stomach. I just had to lay there and take the pain meds. Which unfortunately, I don't react well to. I became very constipated and couldn't even pee on my own. Bring on the stool softener and catheter (which later caused infection) :/ They even brought a specialist in for this. Talk about embarrassing. I met with a gastro doctor that night, and the next day had surgery again to remove two stones stuck in my bile ducts. I was put under anesthesia, rolled onto my belly (awesome for my incisions), and for over 2 hours, a camera and tools were down my throat through my stomach, liver, etc to remove the stones. He told Eric after, that it was much more difficult than expected and took over an hour longer than planned.

I was in a lot more pain after this one. My stomach hurt worse and I had a very sore throat on top of it. I could barely drink water and eat Jello. The day after the 2^nd surgery, I finally started to feel a little better. I could actually get up out of bed with help. Only to try and use the bathroom then right back to bed, but hey it was something. I was missing Brady like crazy! I've never spent more than a few hours away from him, so 3 days was torture. I thought of him constantly. What was he eating? Was he sleeping? Did he miss me? :(

Friday night I got to go home. Every little bump in the car was so painful! I was so happy to get in my own bed and hear my precious boy laughing and playing in the other room. He didn't react like I hoped when he saw me. He starred at me very confused. I knew I looked like hell and that really proved it. I slept most of the time until Sunday. I knew I definitely needed a shower. My back was itching out of this world and my hair was a nest.

Eric had helped me out of bed before, and I could only go a few steps before I was begging to lay back down. I couldn't stand up straight and I was clinging to him. Sunday, I was able to make it to the shower and stay up for a few minutes before needing desperately to lay down. Eric said, “You look yellow.” I told him I felt faint so that's probably why. After getting me back in bed, he said “You're eyes are yellow.” Then I got concerned. Jaundice? Brady had that as a newborn, but it really wasn't a big deal. Was this?? I started googling. Yikes!

Jaundice after gallbladder surgery, NOT GOOD! Everything said my doctor may have cut, clipped, poked, a bile duct on my liver and bile could be leaking into my abdomen. Surgery to fix it. I didn't know at the time, but Eric was in the other room googling jaundice. Yellow skin, yellow eyes, ITCHY SKIN, uh oh! I asked him to call my doctor, and the on call doctor said take her to the ER right now (yellow eyes is the worst apparently). Fantastic! The thought of another surgery brought me to tears, which was painful! We loaded up and went back to the ER. It was very painful and difficult to even sit up in a wheel chair. I begged Eric to ask if there was ANYWHERE I could lay down. At least we didn't have another 6 hour wait, only about 30 minutes.

I spent the night in the hospital. More morphine! Had more urine and blood work, an MRI, and a HIDA scan (an hour long). They started talking 3^rd surgery, but I made sure they knew I wasn't jumping on that bandwagon so easily. I wanted to know they were positive I needed it first. I honestly thought another surgery was too much for me to handle. I then waited all day to find out the results. My billiribben was up to a 4! The tests showed there was no leak though! Thank GOD. They believed I was passing another stone or two, and had a bad reaction to the 2^nd surgery. One of the tools they used, cut through tissue and burned it to seal at the same time. Those things combined, caused a lot of swelling and the stones caused blockage which led to jaundice. My billiribben was on it's way down, so they kept me another day and night to run the test again... down to 2.9. I was healing on my own without surgery. Praise God!!

The number kept going down, and I kept feeling better! I got to come home a week ago (from when I wrote this :), and it is truly amazing how quickly I've been healing. I'm finally able to pick Brady up and take care of him by myself again. Eric's parents, cousin Casey and her daughter Morgan, and my Mom were SO helpful! Our friends and family sent sweet messages, cards, and prayers. Brady was safe and sound at home while I went through most of this, and that's all I could ask for! Our second time in the ER, we heard a little girl in the next room screaming and crying. I was so thankful to be there for myself and not my baby! Put things into perspective for sure. And hey I lost 8 lbs ;)