Should I get my gallbladder out today, or wait?

In My Humble Opinion
41

Hey all, bit of an update. Had breakfast and lunch, then throat started closing up and about 3pm asked for the attending doctor. Breathing got worse, felt like my airway was the size of a straw. Inspiration and expiration were both a lot of effort, and my oxygen saturation dropped to 90%. Got a steroid and a nebulizing treatment of something - epinephrine, then moved - fast - to ICU. Kinda scary, a nurse, three doctors, oxygen tank, and a tracheostomy tray, hustling down the hall and to another floor.

Got a second nebulizing epinephrine treatment an hour later, finally coughed up some phlegm, and airway cleared! My trachea is apparently so small, it doesn’t take much dried or thick mucous to block it.

So, ICU overnight, my blood pressure is a concern along with my breathing, and still hoping to go home tomorrow.

As far as my actual surgery, it couldn’t have gone better. Four tiny incisions, I pretty much feel like I overdid it on situps. I’ve just been getting IV Tylenol. I have a restriction on lifting for two weeks, but can go back to my desk job Monday. I was told to expect diarrhea the next 4 days, but no diet restrictions. I’m interested to find out whether those 4 days will really be it for the diarrhea!

42

That must have been frightening. At least now you know about your trachea and can tell your doctor or anesthesiologist about it if you ever need surgery again.

I hope you get to go home, and I hope four days is it for the diarrhea, if you get it at all.

You might want to rethink work Monday if you can. It sounds like you’ve been through the wringer.

43

I always preferred tea for a sore throat, I figured other than the warm it was the tannic acid and sugar or honey and lemon working to thin mucous and soothe the throat.

Historically tannic acid has been used for a bunch of stuff as it has astringent and antibiotic properties [digging back into my herbalism books memories] and if you can take the caffeine in tea, it is a fairly beneficial beverage hot or cold for sore throats. As it has been pointed out before here, most sore throat lozenges work by using citric acid and sugars to help clear mucous and soothe the sore throat. [if I have a sore throat and mrAru has a bag of sour gummy shapes, I will grab a gummy and tweak my insulin a smidge. I hate adding sugar alcohols - most of them give me the runs.]

44

bit scary, there!

hope you continue to get better and, at home? get some wet wipes. :slight_smile:

45

I did well in ICU and have moved again, to a private room on the 10th floor. I can take a shower! My surgeon wants to see me have one good day, being able to clear my airway on my own and being active. So as of now, I’m looking at Saturday morning discharge.

One additional thing that developed was by about 8pm last night I started feeling like I had been given the most rigorous workout by the most sadistic personal trainer who exists. I hurt in every muscle from my toes to my neck. When my attending doctor visited this morning, I asked her about it. They had to administer a strong paralytic during my intubation fiasco. One that most people don’t need. It works by making all the muscles so tired they just stop working. And so, the next day, the post workout feeling. I’m so stiff and sore!

Otherwise doing well, and expect to be bored today. Will have visitors later!

Thanks for all the advice. Tea is very nice on my throat, as is apple juice and room temperature water. There’s a lot of trauma in my mouth and throat, from them scoping and trying to tube me for two hours, so I’m also finding any citrus, acid, or even pound cake, are right out. Soft foods for now, that won’t scratch my throat. My voice is better, but vocal chords are traumatized too.

46

I’m so sorry you had those complications and am very glad things seem to being improving!

47

Next up, group input on DIY appendectomies.

I have seen ads from a local hospital advertising zero-scar gallbladder removal; they go through the navel laparoscopically. Sounds like a… Calvin and Hobbes punchline, though.

48

I wonder if this is an age thing, because yes consulting google/reputable info sources and “the hive mind” is absolutely the first thing I ever do before making medical decisions. I don’t base my entire decision on it, but I would feel uncomfortable without consulting. Do you know how many times google or THEHIVEMIND has saved my ass from a bad move or even fatal disaster in all manner of life decisions not only medical? Like I posted in this thread doctors lie and mislead.

If I could get an internet brain implant I would, so I could be online researching 24/7 in the ER or otherwise. Absolutely.

49

I don’t think it’s an age thing. It makes sense to get all the info you can. Of course, a lot of it could be wrong, but I’ve always used my internet research as the basis to start asking informed questions.

50

Wow, after reading about your complications, I’ve changed my mind. You should definitely wait before having it out :- )

51

Glad to know that the complications have been worked out. Sorry that you had to go through that. Good that they rushed you to the ICU, though.

Oh, if you’re worried, a temporary drop to 90% isn’t likely to have any lasting effect. It was the trouble breathing and the fact that it was some sort of reaction that got everyone hustling.

Hope the muscle aches pass soon.

52

That’s what I had. Never saw an ad for it though. My surgeons have been great. I have three tiny one-stitch dots on my abdomen, and maybe a 2 centimeter incision in my belly button. That’s it.

I’m doing so much better today. The breathing thingy I’m supposed to be using to keep my lungs working correctly post-op, I can’t remember the name of it, I’ve been able to hit the goal mark all day so far. Yesterday and last night, not so much.

53

Final update for anyone following along! The post above was Friday afternoon. Had a restful day, was doing well and had my own room and a shower and the nurses left me alone as much as possible. Got some good sleep, with them interrupting me for vitals just every 4 hours. By 5am Saturday morning, I was up and doing laps with my running shoes on around the floor. It was awkward, but I felt I needed it, and with the pedometer on my phone, did a mile before stopping.

Boy, was that a good idea! I loosened up some stuff from deep in my trachea and brought up chunks of gooey bloody mucous, doctors sounded satisfied I was bringing it up and it’s part of the trauma from them working on my airway for so long. I’ve also been blowing lots of bloody stuff from my nose, apparently part of the fiber optic scoping they did was through my nose. That’s getting better now, and so is my voice.

So, I was discharged Saturday about 1pm, did some walking outside in the 20F weather with no problems (panoramic views of the lake from the hospital, nice area to walk around), felt pretty good to do it, then took a cab home. Been just around the house since, doing some light cleaning that was needed before I got sick. Today, Sunday, walked to the pharmacy to get my Rx, got a delicious tuna panini from a shop down the street, and then to the little organic grocer nearby to get some food for the next few days.

Following up with my GP tomorrow, and thinking I really will be ready to go back to the desk portion of my job on Tuesday! The laparoscopic surgery portion of my ordeal seems to have gone great, my muscle soreness and stiffness from the paralytic is subsiding, so what I have going on now is the normal abdominal soreness from surgery (not much - just using Tylenol!), some throat clearing/coughing that’s very light and easy to clear, and my GP needs to follow up on my blood pressure - it was fine in July, so we will find out tomorrow, out of the hospital and on no meds, whether it’s a new issue.

Also, since it’s mentioned a bit in the thread, no digestive issues so far - but I plan to avoid fried things for a few weeks!

54

All good to hear! Thanks for the update.

55

Glad you’re doing well! :slight_smile:

56

When you’re ready, it’s worth an experiment. Get a bucket of fried chicken or fish and chips or something similar on a day when you know you’ll be home and have a good lunch of it. If you don’t have problems within about half an hour of either that meal or the next one, you’re probably fine.

If you do get the urgent diarrhea thing – tell your doctor. I did for a while after my surgery, and three separate doctors I’ve talked to since say that it’s both unusual and pretty easy to treat, and that I shouldn’t have just lived with it. (It went away on it’s own after a while, anyway, so I didn’t try whatever the treatment was.)

57

I diagnosed my own bouts of pancreatitis from what I read about abdominal pain on the internet. I told the doctor that a description I read was exactly what it felt like, and he had my blood checked and found the elevated enzymes. Of course it still took a lot of testing to figure out why it was happening because I never drank much alcohol and the condition I have is apparently pretty rare. If I hadn’t been looking around on the internet it might have taken a lot longer to track down, though, because I was only getting these attacks maybe once a month and they only lasted about a day and a half when they occurred, so I usually didn’t get to the doctor before they were already passing.

58

Glad to hear you’re doing better. The breathing thing sounds scary. I guess if you ever have to have something like this in the future they could use a child-size trach tube?

Don’t worry too much about the diarrhea. Just make sure you have a bathroom nearby if you’re going to eat something fatty for a while after you get back on a normal diet.

59

Yes, that’s what they ended up using, a size 6 ET tube, it’s the same size I would use on a 10lb chihuahua as a vet tech. The additional problem is apparently how my airway is positioned once you look past the vocal chords, there’s a bend that shouldn’t be there, so the small tube is needed in order to make the bend which is normally a straight shot. I may also have to be awake for intubation in the future, for elective procedures and such, with different meds to make it easier on all of us. I have to consider wearing a medical alert. If I ever need to be intubated in an emergency, going straight to a tracheostomy may be the better bet. It’s kind of terrifying. I’ll never forget being woken up for it this time around. Really awful.