Yesterday was surgery day for my gallbladder removal.  My gallbladder has been bothering me for a few months if not longer.  I had lots of gallstones per the ultrasound.  On the ultrasound, it was also constricted like it does when you are eating when it wasn’t supposed to be because I hadn’t eaten for at least 8 hours.  Then was the hyda scan which  is where they inject a nuclear substance through IV and wait for it to get into your system so they can see the things they need to see.  The hyda scan took longer than it should have because my gallbladder was playing hide and seek, it wasn’t showing up within the hour like it should have.  I had to go back for more scans/pictures an hour later and if it hadn’t shown up so slightly at that point I would have had to wait 3 more hours!  Thankfully my gallbladder showed up ever so slightly but good enough to show that it wasn’t cooperating.  When I saw the surgeon 2 days later there was no debate, it was coming out.  

My surgery was scheduled for 1:30pm.  It didn’t get started until about 3:30pm.  I was very hungry by this point since I hadn’t eaten anything since 9:30pm the night before.  Surgery went well, no problems.  I did fine with the anesthesia and being intubated and the waking up part.  If I didn’t they were prepared to send me over to be admitted for a few days.  My CF doctor was in contact with my surgeon so everyone was on the same page.  My CF doc wanted labs to check my creatinine (kidney level) and all the other regular stuff prior to surgery and me starting the one IV antibiotic and one oral antibiotic.

I accessed my port before going to the hospital to make things easier considering how bad my veins are.  I didn’t want them digging around especially since I was continuing to use my port for my IVs anyway.  All of that went fine.  Now for the waiting game until surgery time.

Day one of recovery is going fine.  I’m just really sore and am having the pain in my shoulder from the gas they put in your belly to puff it out to make it easier to work in there.  When that gas is dissipating, it rises and causes sharp pain in your shoulders.  It is no fun what so ever!  If you have had any belly operations you know what I’m talking about.  I’ve done the whole walk around to help the gas get moving thing but it seems that I am better when I am propped up in bed.

Coughing is a whole other ballgame.  The pillow is my friend when coughing.  I can’t take a break from coughing until I am healed from the surgery, boy that would be nice though.  So until I am healed from the surgery I will use a pillow to brace myself, more like bear hugging it, when coughing.  I have to cough to keep the junk in there moving and getting it out.  I will be laid up for about a week or so.  I’m willing my body to be better in a week because I have things to do in 2 weeks.  My body doesn’t have the best timing. haha.  My recovery plan consists of laying in bed, using my oxygen, sleeping, watching shows, getting up to do breathing treatments and doing my IVs every 8 hours for 2 hours at a time.  Back to bed I go.

Until next time…