First let me start by saying THANK YOU to all of you for your prayers, thoughts and good wishes for my surgery and recovery, whether you expressed them in the comments box or not. It's sure nice to know so many people care about my well-being, and your messages of concern did made me feel a little bit better during a very difficult few weeks.
And difficult, this week has certainly been. [WARNING: THIS POST GETS A BIT GRAPHIC IN PLACES.] As I've mentioned before, I am a BFB (Big Fucking Baby) when it comes to facing any medical procedures more painful than getting a shot in the arm, a mammogram, or an annual OB/GYN exam; and here I had to deal with an actual SURGERY. But I knew I had no choice so I just made up my mind to suck it up and deal with it. I was prepared for the idea of the laproscopy and that there would be some pain and discomfort, but I wasn't too worried (other than the meltdown I had the night before I had to go to the hospital, but everyone's entitled to a little freak-out in circumstances like these).
I was fine when I checked into the clinique. I was fine when the first thing they did was draw blood for pre-op labwork (and getting bloodwork is usually my biggest phobia). I slept reasonably well that night in the hospital, considering there was NO FUCKING AIR CONDITIONING (yeah, I'm still pissed about THAT, and it will be duly noted on the patient satisfaction survey they asked me to complete). I did OK with the waiting around the next morning because they couldn't give me an exact time of surgery. I was fine when the gurney arrived and they wheeled me down to the O.R. I didn't freak out at all when the anesthesiologist showed up and hooked up the I.V. port, something that also usually makes me go into massive anxiety attacks. And I remember feeling the drugs kicking in and thinking, "Good, it will be over soon and everything will be better".
And then I woke up. Feeling HORRIBLE. In PAIN. Oh, so NAUSEOUS. Moaning and crying and begging for relief and something to vomit in, in case I needed it (sorry if this is too graphic but let's tell it like it is.) Getting angry when I felt they weren't responding quickly enough. My eyes couldn't focus properly and I could barely even keep them open, but I managed to hone in on a wall clock and realized it was 4pm.
They had taken me down for surgery at 10am. For what was supposed to be a 75-90 minute procedure.
I knew without anyone telling me that something had "gone wrong" and they had to do the more extensive type of surgery to get my gall bladder out. Ugh.
I found out later that my gall bladder had been INCREDIBLY infected, and even the surgeon seemed surprised by how bad it was. The concern was evident on his face as he explained that he'd had to do what was needed (he had pre-warned me about this possibility). Getting that damn gall bladder out of there without all the infected fluids leaking into my abdomen was apparently quite a challenge.
It took me a day or two to realize how serious this actually was. That had things gone really wrong, I could have been an extremely sick woman. And maybe could have died.
Wow. That is not a small thing to be aware of. Especially when the rest of my life is great and I have EVERY reason to want to live a long, healthy and happy life with my Georges.
Then there was the hospital stay. All things considered, other than the lack of A/C and a few other amenities, most of the staff was really super, a few of the nurses even spoke English, and I had the room to myself all the way up until the last night, and even then the woman they put in the other bed was very nice and not difficult to be around at all (plus, she had my same surgeon and she'd worked with him once before, so that was nice to hear). The food was above average for what you might expect in a hospital but then again, it's France, where food is like a religion. Even when I was limited to soft foods like soup, applesauce and yogurt, it was decent-tasting for the most part. The last day and a half, when I could eat "real" food, I had a baguette for breakfast that was SO good I wished I knew where that bakery was located.
Every day, they pumped me full of antibiotics and anti-coagulants. In the beginning I got the "good drugs" for pain management but quickly they switched me over to a Tylenol type of drug after I spent a night throwing up because I guess the codeine didn't agree with me (my mother is allergic to it so I guess I may have a similar sensitivity). I got sleeping pills every night, which sort of helped but I still kept waking up ever 2-3 hours because I'm not comfortable sleeping on my back, for one thing, and because I have had a painful spot under my lower right rib that has been KILLING me all week, causing more pain than the actual incisions. (More on that in a minute.)
My abdomen looks like I was the victim of a slasher in a lousy horror film. There are 3 little laproscopic scars (one near my left ovary, which has a cyst he wanted to take a look at and possibly remove, but when he saw the state of the gall bladder he decided the cyst was not so big or so serious, and it could wait... so some day I'll have to deal with THAT again; one on the upper left abdomen, and one in my nombril (belly-button) which is a super-sensitive zone for me, and not in good way. In fact, Georges and I have a running joke that it's the one place he CAN'T touch me. And here I was with stitches in there! Quel cauchemar!
Then there's the big incision, and I kid you not -- it's about 7" long, on the diagonal, from right below and between my breasts (making it impossible to wear a bra for the moment, and when you're a double-D that's kind of a problem when you have to go out in public) down the right side. Just below THAT, I had a drain put in, which they took out yesterday but didn't stitch up; I guess it's supposed to just close up naturally on it's own or something. They took out most of the stitches before I left, except the belly-button and a few on the big scar, and the doctor is taking those out this week when I go back for follow-up.
It was so good to come home yesterday, and Georges has been amazing at taking care of me. Cooking meals, giving me back rubs to ease that painful spot on my right back rib area, keeping me company... no woman could ask for a more loving and attentive husband. He's thrilled I'm home and happy to have practical things he can to do help me now, and I'm lucky to have him.
But still... homecoming has not been without it's problems, most of which are that the full impact and trauma of what I've been through has caught up with me at last. I've been weeping off and on for the past 2 days. I had a horrible time sleeping last night, even being in my own bed with my husband beside me (and he's a peaceful sleeper so he wasn't disturbing me). This pain in my side has really had me worried; I thought it would start to ease up once they took that frigging drain out, but if anything it feels worse. I cannot yawn, cough, laugh, cry or even draw a full deep breath without feeling that stabbing pain back there. By this morning, I had myself really worked up, convinced something is really wrong there, and concerned that the doctor was maybe passing it off as "normal post-op" effects when maybe... it's not. (After all, I had 3 different doctors tell me, in the weeks leading up to the surgery, that according to my test results, it was not "so urgent" and there was really no infection, and look how wrong they all were! It WAS serious, it WAS urgent, and it SHOULD have been taken care of immediately... and I was just lucky it didn't end up any worse than it already was.)
So we decided to take the surgeon up on the offer he made to me yesterday, which is that I could come down to the clinique today (on a Sunday) to get my bandages changed there (since the home nurse can't come until Monday -- yes, in France, insurance covers a nurse to come to your house for post-op care!) and then that way I could also ask him about my fears and concerns about the pain. Because seriously? The big incision is what OUGHT to hurt the most, and for the most part it hasn't been so bad, certainly nothing I can't tolerate.
While he was changing my bandages this morning, he explained that when he did the surgery, he'd had to displace my lower left rib to make room for what he was doing, and that was most likely the source of the pain, and that the rib would eventually move back where it belongs. But he was going to order an x-ray tomorrow for me, and then he'll see me afterward to look at it and make sure all is well. He also ordered an anti-inflammatory drug and something to ease my anxiety and help me sleep the next few nights; clearly, he appreciates that this has been really traumatic for me, and it's nice that he's taking my concerns seriously and not just brushing me off like some doctors tend to do. Otherwise he thought the incisions looked good, took the bandages off 2 of the small ones altogether, and said he felt good about how it all seemed to be going and confident there was no more sign of infection. I felt a lot better after that and will follow up with the x-ray tomorrow and hopefully it's going to be what he said, a rib out of place that will work itself out soon. Then, I will REALLY be able to start feeling better.
Otherwise, my only job now is to rest and heal. I'm going to get this elastic support belt for around my abdomen tomorrow morning, and that should help with my comfort when I'm moving. I have to get up and walk around as much as I can, to avoid blood clots in the legs, but otherwise I can shower, go out for a walk if I'm up to it, and even swim in the ocean next week on our vacation in Saint Raphael at my sister-in-law's place (complete with the Little Guy), although I'm sure I will still be taking it easy at least the first week, and maybe we'll be driving more places than usual instead of walking, if I'm still not up to long walks by then. Life will go on -- thank you, God. Things will get easier. I will get healthier.
But oh, what a rocky road it's been. I guess I am glad this didn't all explode (literally) during my 2-week trip back to the U.S. (for one thing, a hospital stay there could have drained our savings completely since I have no health coverage) but I wish I'd been paying better attention sooner, when these occasional "attacks" of pain would happen over the past couple of years; I was just passing them off as gas or constipation, even when something whispered "gall bladder?" in the back of my mind. I just didn't bother to see a doctor because the attacks were infrequent and lasted only a night each time. This time -- it was different. Maybe the moral of the story is: never ignore your inklings, especially when it comes to your health. Even if the doctors are insisting it's pas si grave, if you feel it IS serious, keep after them. And don't ignore what your body is trying to tell you.
By the way, they gave me a lovely parting gift to take home from the hospital (cover your eyes if you're squeamish):
Yes... that HUGE 1" egg-shaped stone is what caused all the trouble. Something like that doesn't develop overnight, and most people have a bunch of smaller stones, and often have them without ever having pain or difficulty of any kind. But this sucker, right here? It meant business. It had a message to give me: stop treating your body like an amusement park already! So... I'm listening, message received. I sure don't want to go through anything like this (or worse) ever again.
OK, enough with the graphic medical stuff. Now, I want to have my lunch and then a long nap... my new drugs are finally kicking in.
