Hospital vacation!

Here is a rundown of the events of the last week and a half. Like I said before, I was in the hospital Monday night with pains in my side and back. I had already diagnosed myself with gallstones in November of 2009. The doctors told me it was panic attacks and I have been on zoloft for the past two years. I am quite pissed about that. So last week, I had a gallstone attack every single night. That never happens! On Thursday night I ate baked chicken and brown rice. Thirty minutes later I was in pain so bad I could not move.I took some pain meds and tried to go to sleep. at three in the morning the pain was still throbbing. I decided I would wait until 7 and then get mike to take me to the ER, and I would not be waking anyone up. At 5 am I started feeling sharp pains, and I called my mom to come watch the kids so Mike could take me to the hospital. When I got up, I told mike to get up (he is a VERY heavy sleeper and it takes a while to get him up). When he did not immediatly get up I knew I could not keep tying, so I stood out by our gate for my mom to get to my house. When she drove up, I was having a hard time breathing, so I told her to speed to the hospital.

When we got to the hospital the loaded me up on STRONG pain meds, and ran a bunch of blood tests. At 10 the blood tests came back saying that my liver enzymes were very high, and my biliruben count was high too. They told me I needed to go to Albuquerque ASAP. I did not want to go in an ambulance, so they said if we hurried that would allow me to go in our car.

We got to the hospital in Albuquerque at 3:30pm, and a nurse got me to my room, and then nothing happened. I had been off my IV since 11 and I had had nothing to eat or drink since the night before. At 9pm, a hospitalist came in to see me. I was pretty furious at that point, and he basically said I had been lost in the system, and the doctors did not know I was there. WHAT!!! He said I would not be having surgery that night, but I could not eat or drink anything because I would be having surgery 1st thing in the morning. I told him I did not like morphine, and he said okay and left. A few minutes later a nurse came in with morphine and said I am here to give you your morphine and hook you up to your IV. Then she told me that the doctor had told her to put in a catheter (spelling?). I told her I was not in pain and I did not want the morphine, and I asked why I needed a catheter. She said she was just following orders. I finally fell asleep and felt relief knowing that I would be going in to surgery 1st thing in the morning.

At 12am a doctor came in to check on me. I said, "I can not believe how long it has taken to see a doctor!" "Either get things going, and quit forgetting I am here, or I will get up out of this bed and go to another hospital!" He apologized for the way things were going, and asked me why I had a catheter. I thought, you tell me! He said he would have a nurse come in and remove it.

2 hours later I was being prepped for my first surgery. The surgery where they had to scrape the bile duct to get the stones that had fallen in there. That was the thing that was causing all of the problems. I had to lie face down on a bed and they sprayed some nasty banana flavored numbing stuff in my mouth. Then they put a plastic thing in my mouth and said are you asleep? I could not do anything, but I knew I was still awake! I guess I really was out because the next thing I remember was them saying "its okay we are giving you more medication!" and I could feel tubes and pain all down my throat! When I finally woke up, I was in my room and really drowsy. I guess I slept through the rest of the day.

When I woke up on Sunday morning, they told me that I was about to have the gall bladder removal surgery. I was so bummed out that I was missing easter with my kids, but I was relieved that people were taking care of my situation. I remember being wheeled into a bright room and then the next thing I remember was waking up to a lady telling me to sit up. I said,"no please!Don't make me sit up!" She jolted my chair up and said, "you don't have a choice" Again I slept through most of the day. Some doctors came in later that night and informed me that when they took out the gall bladder, they found another stone in the bile duct. They said I was going to have to have another surgery!

Monday morning they did the last surgery and two hours after the procedure I got to eat my first meal. A turkey sandwich! I was so happy! I am now home, and trying to recover. I am so sore! But I am home!