Is it possible to have this part of the procedure done independently? I have this new office mate, you see, and I’ve been trying to impress him…
I enjoy telling my horror story in all the gall bladder threads. I have a mean streak.
I went in for laporoscopy, woke up with the big cut and had to stay 4 days in a room with three confused old ladies. I don’t think anyone believed my attacks lasted from 2 to 5 hours and were at least weekly. I also waited too long because I thought the first that they were bad heartburn. By the week before my surgery I only dared eat popsicles and rice because, by then, all foods with fat were setting off an attack. They attemped the laporoscopy and I had the incision pain AND the pain from the pumped in air. Seven years later I still have flashbacks. And my sister is still mad at me for not giving her the gallbladder.
{{{Anastasaeon}}} I know you won’t read this until after the deed is done, but for what it’s worth, I’d have offered to come hold your hand and tell you funny stories to take your mind off it, but I just woke up.
I’m usually up with the insomniacs, but last night I slept. 
BTW, we won at trivia last night. We talked mercilessly about you. Everyone wants you to come back.
So, feel better. I won’t offer to bring you ice cream, since you can’t have it. (and it wasn’t your tonsils), but truely, if you need anything let me know. I’ll be gone most of today, (MIL is having colonoscopy), but tomorrow or the next few days, I’ll be around.
M
I’m a total wimp about surgery and anaethesia. I think it’s the loss of control that scares me-- I’m afraid I won’t wake up. Both times I’ve had to be put under for procedures, I’ve been a sobbing mess before it.
When I went in for my laproscopy, I started crying when they came in to give me the nebulizer (I’m a smoker, so they used one before the procedure to make sure my lungs were clear.) Hubby asked the nurse if they could give me anything to soothe my anxiety. The nurse gave me a shot in my IV-- and that’s the last thing I remember clearly.
Hubby says I was grinning from ear to ear, and even cheerfully assisted in the shaving of my pubic hair (something that probably would have caused me dire embarassment if I’d been sober.)
When I woke up after the procedure, I felt an uncomfortable ache-- I’m a real wuss when it comes to pain, so I asked for a painkiller. They gave me one, and after that, I was fine.
They sent me home, and all I wanted to do was sleep. It wasn’t until the next day that I was fully alert.
The pain really wasn’t that bad. I describe it as a headache in my innards, and there was some discomfort when rising from a chair or lifting anything, but the pain meds they gave me took care of it. Within two days, I felt perfectly fine.
:smack:
Dude… take an Intro to Humour course.
He was talking about getting some on the side
That joke having been made - I had mine out In January. Needles and whatnot don’t scrae me, so YMMV on that front - but I really didn’t have a bad experiance pre-op. The nurse had to put in 3 different IV lines cause the first two kinked up every time I moved my arm - other than that no big whoop.
Recovery no so bad either - except when I came out of the anasthesia I guess my breathing was really shallow and my oxygen level kept setting off the alarm. Basically - as long as I forced myself to take a deep breath it was fine, but if I just sat there and breathed like 1/minute the nurses got mad.
One even yelled at me and made me upset - she threatened to tube me :rolleyes: :mad: :mad: :rolleyes:
But after like 15 mins I was fine - I think I just react a little funny to anasthesia - a friend of mine sings when he’s under.
I had mine late in the day so I stayed overnight - hard to sleep comfortably for the first day or so - except when you take the drugs 
Also - I woke up with my stomach shaved - watching the hair grow back was a little weird.
And they didn’t really stitch me as much as the taped me - with the stuture tape stuff or whatever it’s called.
Fine now - happy like a clam. And my gallbladder was jacked up - my doc gave me pics
Z
It’s okay to feel freaked out; I was when I had it done in the early 90’s. But, truly, it was an easy thing. I was only in the hospital overnight (I had it done at 7:30 at night), then back home to relax and watch rented movies and eat yogurt and pudding for a couple of days. I was back at work full-time in about 1.5 weeks. The pain was minimal. I don’t recall even getting a prescription for any serious pain-relief drugs. I think I took Tylenol and that was sufficient during at-home recovery.
My advice: have a couple of big raggy t-shirts ready for when you’re recovering at home. You might get a couple of blood spots on them and it’s easier to throw away an old t-shirt than to worry about getting blood out of a good nightgown when you should be relaxing.
:: keeps fingers crossed for Anastasaeon::
I had minor surgery two years ago, and like everybody says: one moment you’re babbling nervously to the nurses, the next moment you wake up druggedly on a bed somewhere.
If I can give you any advice, it would be this:
-
Blankets.
Hospitals are airconditioned, and when you’ve lain still for a long time, not being able to move around and bundle up or stretch out like you do in your own bed to regulate temperature, you might feel unpleasantly cold waking up. They only give you the thinnest hospital blanket, and I darkly suspect those blankets are designed for men anyway, as most men will rather complain about blankets being too hot rather then too cold, like women. So have your husband bring you your favourite blanket to put over you if you wake up feeling too cold. -
Books.
Go to the library this week and get yourself some comfort books. Anything you like. Romance, comics, childhood favourites, games… the hours after surgery aren’t the time to catch up with the latest intellectual must-read. -
Shoes.
Make sure you remove your shoes before you go in surgery. If you don’t , your feet will be oddly bent in a 90 degree angle while you’re asleep and that just feels weird. -
Drugs.
Just try to enjoy that weird, dreamy, surreal, helpless state. Don’t be shy to say to the nurses whne you enter the hospital that you feel very nervous and would like something to calm you down. No use building up a high stresslevel in the wait before (and there will be *lotsa *waiting) Just ask for drugs, bring the comfort book, bring some nice foods if you’re allowed to eat or drink beforehand.
You’ll be fine. Just one more of life’s experiences. “Surgery? Check. Been there, done that.”
Hey, below the waist is below the waist.
So, how big is the gallbladder they pull out; how does it fit through the little hole they make? Is it deflated somehow?
I heard it’s like mice being able to squeeze through tiny cracks.
Well, Dr. Garnett told me that the incision they make to pull the gall bladder out is about an inch and a half. I have a two inch stone. (or was it centimetres? I’m sleepy!) Anyway, as he pointed out, my stone is bigger than the incision. What they do is crush the stone up before pulling the gallbladder out through the incision. It’s pretty neat, if a little disturbing.
picunurse, thank you, thank you for your kind words and offer! I’m fine right now, but we’ll see as the week goes on! 
I wanted to go to Trivia Night last night, but I was all nerved up about today. Now that it’s over with, I wonder what the heck I was so worried about: there was a lot of song and dance with signing some papers, answering questions, filling out forms… waiting… waiting… waiting… and they they drew two vials of blood. It didn’t hurt. The nurse was kind and cheerful. She told me I had nice veins. She liked my shirt. Then she unwrapped the elastic and said I was done, have a nice day. I looked at her, confused. “That’s it?”
“That’s it.”
I’m a tad weak, but that’s a combination of things: three hours sleep, nothing to eat yet, stress, and some blood drawn. Mostly, I’m hungry. I’m making me a hamburger. Then I’m going to sleep.
Oh, and Caricci - nice try. I know I asked for horror stories, but after reading yours, I realised: nothing, nothing can top my poor father’s horror story. His gallstones went undiagnosed for over five years - they thought he had ulcers, or acid reflux, or anything but gallstones. He and my mother were on vacation one year, and my mother noticed something wrong: he was yellow. The whites of his eyes were yellow, his skin, everything. Jaundice. He looked in the mirror and was frightened - and my father is not easily frightened. They came home early and went to the hospital.
My father was in the hospital for three months. They had to transfer him to Halifax. His gallbladder was overflowing, the stones were in his liver, he had pancreatis, the stones were trapped in ducts - filling them with stones. And everywhere else they could lodge themselves into, they lodged. They couldn’t simply remove the gallbladder; they had to clean up that huge mess. They went in there manually, he had several surgeries, they tried zapping them with some kind of lasers, they had to stick some instrument down his throat and required him to be fully conscious while they did so - he kept gagging and throwing up throughout the procedure, but it had to be done. He was miserable and depressed, and says to this day that it was the most demeaning and undignified experience he has ever gone through. He’s got scars. Big ones. He came close to death several times. We’re lucky to still have him.
Which is why I found his simple email so encouraging. “Small potatoes.” That’s right, Dad. Small potatoes, indeed.
Except I did write him back, and corrected him: “Small potato. I only have one stone.” 
Crap. :smack:
Told you I was sleepy. Dropped my surgeon’s name. If that’s a board violation, I humbly apologise and ask if it could be removed from my above post. If it’s not, I don’t mind adding he’s a great doctor.
Well, I’m happy to hear I wasn’t as bad as your dad, Anastasaeon but sorry he suffered for so long. What a scary story!
I’m told I had thousands of stones, but nobody said anything about overflow, thank goodness. And I, of course, was diagnosed right away once I bothered to get care. Well, if it helps add to the horror, it was brought on by pregnancy. I had an attack when I was 4 mos. pregnant but the brunt of it started when the baby was 3 weeks old. Oh! and my husband was relatively useless during the whole thing.
Good luck with everything!
I haven’t had any surgeries, but I can still send you good wishes for an uneventful surgery and a speedy recovery. We loves ya, kid!
Next time you come to trivia night, remind me and I’ll tell you about how one of my lungs collapsed five times in two years, eventually resulting in an ambulance ride and a partial removal. Best part of the story involves a catheter.
First ever surgery is always a worrying thing. But you will be amazed at how simple and quick and painless the procedure will be. Later you will be able to laughth with the surgery veterans next time you meet someone worried about a minor surgery. It will also give you a feeling of how wonderful modern medical advancement really is.
Unfortunately you might be shitting funny for a long time into the future, that is runny colourful stools are a common effect of gall bladder removal. But that isn’t a big problem and far less trouble than the pain of a gall stone attack, or the potential pancreatitis caused by a lodged gall stone in the pancreatic duct.
Ugh. I’ve read about developing them during pregnancy. I’d have been a wreck if I were pregnant and got them!
Also, just wanted to add: my post above sounded a tad rude; I didn’t mean to come across as sounding as though I had a story that “trumped” yours - I tend to type out my stream of conciousness revelations, and it just sunk in to me that damn, my dad’s was so horrible, and* he’s * alive and encouraging me. I asked for horror stories out of an urge to understand that even in the worst case scenario, most people are fine. Well, worst case scenario would mean you weren’t here to post it, but how often does that actually happen? So your story, though pretty scary, goes toward my cache of “even at the worst, you’ll still be fine” knowledge. So thank you.
counts on her fingers
runs out of fingers and calls up her toes
22 years ago, when my Grandpa was 70, he had colon surgery. One day, with Grandma right there, he slapped the nurse’s ass. Being the owner of Very Good Reflexes, the nurse backhanded him so hard his head banged against the headboard, before the news had been able to reach her brain. Realizing that she’d just hit a patient, she looked at Grandma with this terrified look.
Grandma said “next time he does it, slap the bastard twice. You’ve got my permission.”
Nyah, nyah, I did get ice cream! And custard!
Mind you, after one week of ice cream and custard, I was ready to kill for a steak. A cow, preferably, I’m not sure how to cook person-steaks.