I am going to have my gall bladder sucked out my bellybotton on Monday :eek:
Wow. How much do you have to pay a hooker to get that done?
No fun. But of all the (too) many operations I’ve had, this one was one of the easiest. I was up and around the next day and on my way home.
Good luck!
Good luck! At least they are able to suck it out through your belly button. I saw my grandpa with his shirt off once, and he had a GIANT scar that seemed to wrap around one entire side of his body…he said it was from having his gallbladder removed!
Best wishes, I’m sure you’ll be fine.
I’ve had this surgery. The weirdest part is that your abdomen is all puffed up for a day or two afterwards (they have to “inflate” you to do the surgery). Overall, the recovery is very easy - I actually walked home from the hospital after this surgery.
Better this than the alternative - the big incision. Jim had that last March, and he still hasn’t fully recovered from it. He’ll probably be by soon to tell you how lucky you are. 
I had this done about seven or eight years ago. The pain was pretty minimal. Don’t let that stop you from having friends and family fawn over you and wait on you afterwards.
Just curious, but what were the symptoms that led up to this? The reason I ask is the my wife was in the ER yesterday with symptoms that the resident and other Dr. on staff thought were gall bladder related, but bloodwork and ultrasound results didn’t show anything.
For me, it was severe pain in my side - so severe that I couldn’t take a good breath. Apparently, this is a “gall bladder attack”. I had one or two of those before I actually became jaundiced - yellow eyeballs and all. When I went to the doctor, they did an ultrasound and very clearly saw all the gall stones. This all happened in the course of about three weeks. I think for some people, like my father and brother, they could have sporadic attacks for years and not have anything done about it.
I had mine extracted about 10 years ago. It was a day surgery, and the worst part for me was that I couldn’t lie flat comfortably. So I slept in a recliner for 2 or 3 days. It was certainly easier than giving birth was. I’m sure you’ll be fine.
As I was being prepped for surgery, they explained that in about 5% of all cases, they discover once they start poking around in there that the laparoscopic procedure isn’t doable and they have to opt for the big, nasty hacking-you-wide-open procedure. This was the case for me; they put in the lap probes, inflated me, and then realized that what they were faced with was the biggest gallstone my surgeon had seen in 10+ years of doing these. So, after five extra days in recovery, I’m now the proud owner of a seven-inch scar and a black-olive sized gallstone as a souvenir (I wasn’t letting them just throw somethig that impressive away – I made it, after all).
Anyway, don’t mean to scare you or anything – you will almost certainly go throw a nice, simple procedure and be home in time for supper. But do be aware that sometimes these things don’t go quite as planned. Good luck!
For me, it was the sudden onset of a sharp, persistent stomach pain, accompanied with lots of dry heaving. Well, vomiting first, followed by lots of dry heaving. The fun bit was when I first puked, and saw that the bowl was filled with bright red liquid, with dark clots floating in it. Scared the piss out of me for a minute, before I remembered that the last thing I’d eaten was a slice of blackberry pie. That was the third gall bladder attack I’d had: the first two I’d chalked up to gas pains when they stopped on their own after twenty minutes or so. The third one went on much longer, so I drove myself to the ER. I left three days later short an internal organ.
So, since I hijacked your thread without even wising you well through surgery, I’m bumping this back to wish you a speedy recovery!
Good thoughts coming your way…
Good luck! I was out of the hospital no later than 2PM when I had mine done.
My GB issues were diagnosed when I had stabby pains in my right side after eating Tex-Mex (i.e. greasy). They were confirmed with an ultrasound. However, after I had my GB out and had plenty of time to recover, I was still having pain in the same area. Another round of tests showed some irritation in my duodenem, so they put me on stomach acid blockers. That worked grandly. It also got rid of the (sometimes extremely) painful gas I was getting.