Hammer Time

My day started off with Eva saying to me, “You do not put the hammer down!  When you are that close to the crazy, you do NOT put the hammer down!” These bits of wisdom come from the most unexpected places. I mean, we were talking about Whatever Happened To Baby Jane, but we could have been discussing anything, really.  You do not put the hammer down.

The Gall of It All

So that happened…

I had my gallbladder taken out a couple weeks ago.

My surgeon was great and everything, but like all doctors, he was busy and therefore didn’t really have time to hold my hand and walk me through the entire process. So I talked to a few friends who had the procedure done, collected all the firsthand anecdotal evidence I could, and then hit up the internet for the rest. 

Thing is, people who have average experiences don’t often post about them, and those who have exceptionally good experiences post about them so hyperbolically that it seems they are lying. They have to be!  Nobody goes in to get a gallbladder removed and comes out with a handful of Spanish doubloons.  Nobody!

So I’ll do the dirty work that nobody else is willing to – I’ll post about my (from as far as I can tell) average, no frills gallbladder removal experience. 

I started feeling sick on a Wednesday afternoon. It was a very stressful day, on top of a very stressful week, that was a part of a very stressful month, which was rounding out a very stressful year. So when my stomach started churning and clenching, I thought it was just some more stress running around all up in there.  But when the Mister picked me up from work, I could tell something was really wrong – I was crying from the pain.  Which is something that I never do. Crying is for 3^rd graders.

I made dinner – that very day I had gotten my long-coveted corndog maker and I was bound and determined to use it, come hell or high water! So I made the most basic of vegetarian corndogs - it hurt too much to be creative - and had a small glass of red wine and went to bed.  At 2 am, I woke up in pain and moved to the couch and proceeded to not be comfortable for the rest of the night. Morning. Whatever.  At 7 am, we went to the emergency room.

The e.r. doc gave me a momentary hepatitis scare, but after 2 CAT scans he figured out that I had gallstones. They recommended immediate removal, but scheduling and life and stuff made it so that I’d have to wait 10 days. Those were really long, annoying, and unbearably uncomfortable days.  But I’m kind of glad I had the time; I was able to do a bunch of research and order up a good supply of nutritional supplements and get people to pitch in and help me out.  See, the Mister wasn’t going to be around when I had my surgery, he was moving to Vegas earlier that week and was unable and unwilling to change his schedule. He was also the Ex-Mister at this point. So on top of dealing with the breakup of a 10+ year relationship, I had to find a driver and some additional caretakers to help me through the first couple of days. Doing it alone would have been completely impossible. Oh, did I bury that lede? Apologies.

The big day came and my fridge was stocked with non-dairy protein shakes, applesauce, and mashed potatoes. I’d put fresh sheets on the bed and assembled an easily reachable collection of yoga pants and baggy t-shirts.  I’d gotten some craft supplies together and picked up some dumb-but-entertaining TV series to watch (Supernatural and Grimm were perfect – interesting enough to hold my attention through a Vicodin haze but not really demanding much effort to follow).

I had 48 gallstones. Nasty little jerks.

The first 3 days of healing were excruciating. I couldn’t get comfortable, I couldn’t sit down or recline or lie down or stand up. Once, I got stuck in bed – I was alone in the apartment and I had accidentally rolled off my tower of pillows and couldn’t get up. Just try transitioning from laying down to sitting up without using your abdominals.  It does not work. And of course, my phone was downstairs and my door was locked so even if I could have called anybody to come over and help, they’d not have been able to get in. things got better on day 4. I had a breakthrough – not really sure what it was, but things just got a little bit easier.  I was itching to get out of the house by day 6 – I’d had one excursion to a coffee shop, but that was it.  On day 7, I walked about a mile and thought I’d die, but it was a good thinking I’d die; it was a thinking I’d die as an accomplishment.

Even though nearly everybody’s personal accounts were different, there was one thing that all did agree on – probiotic supplements. So I got the best that I could afford – fos-free, human-derived strains, blah blah blah – and I take it every day. I also take an essential fatty acid supplement, and a extra doses of calcium/magnesium/vitamin d. It’s a shitton of pills.  My acupuncturist gave me a recipe for a congee that is all kinds of high fiber and ubernutritious and has superhealthful herbs in there, too.  It tastes like chunky bathwater, but I eat a serving of it every day.

Food is weird. Everyone I’ve spoken with has had a different experience, some can eat anything and everything, others can’t tolerate diary.  Some stick to a very low-fat regimen and others have developed food allergies.  “Say goodbye to broccoli,” one friend told me, and he was right. I seem to be doing ok so far with low-fat, high-fiber healthy things, but I really and truly want a plate of Irish nachos more than anything right now. Oh my god – excess cheese, you have no idea how much I need you! 

That brings us up to now.  It’s been 3 weeks, and I’m slowly getting back to normal.  My abdomen is still swollen, and I still eat gingerly.  I got drunk off 1.5 beers the other night. And I found out the hard way that I’m allergic to surgical adhesive. But I can do almost everything and I really do feel a huge sense of accomplishment in knowing that I did it on my own. I had friends nearby if I wanted them, and I had friends right there when I needed them, but the day-to-day stuff, I did that all by myself -- and it sucked, and I was in a quagmire of self-pity because I should not have been alone, but as it turns out, I ended up ok.  Just some little pink scars on the outside and a few gnarly ones on the inside.