Posted: 6/25/2009 4:00:28 PM EDT
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Wow... what a week.
I posted last week about having my gallbladder removed. Well the surgery was on Monday and I felt great for the rest of the week. I was recovering very quickly. On Friday, I was hit with the worst pain I've ever felt. I tried to ride it out for a day and a half, thinking it was simply a CO2 buildup from surgery. Finally called my mom to come get me and take me to the hospital. Got to the hospital on Sunday night around 4 PM. CT scan revealed that one of the ducts involved in my surgery was leaking bile into my abdomen. The doctor decided to have a stint put in, along with a drain bag to remove the fluids. The stint failed. They weren't able to put it in. The drain bag, on the other hand, pulled out 3 sack-fulls of bile over the next day and a half. Yesterday I had another CT scan that showed that the fluid was gone so finally I was discharged today with the drain bag still in place. I have to deal with this thing for another week until my followup visit on next Thursday. My birthday is on this Sunday, the 28th. 
The doc said it's extremely rare that one of the clips falls off after gallbladder removal. I'm so happy that my talent for being a rare medical case continues to make my life interesting. |
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Last night was the worst of all.
My IV was getting inflamed and they left it off too long so I was dehydrated too badly when they tried to start another one and they couldn't get a new one in, after poking me 3 times. So last night they decided to just give me my pain meds orally, and they tried Lorcet Plus which made my heart race, I was sweating, and it was fucking my mind up... I was having all these crazy thoughts like imagining myself burning to death and laid there in complete mysery until the meds wore off a few hours later and I was finally able to sleep, despite the pain. The meds they were giving me intravaneously were pretty good, but also wore off after only a couple of hours. For some reason I have a very high tolerance to meds. When I first got there, they gave me 2 shots of Morphine and a big shot of Demerol before my pain finally subsided. I hate hospitals. I was finally able to bathe and shave a few minutes ago and I feel like a normal person again. |
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How are you doing? I'm doing better. I've been going without the drain bag, and just wearing it at night but it's really not collecting anything. I'm slowly getting back to normal. I still have pain where the tube is going through my ribs, but other than that I feel ok. Still just weak and have a low tolerance to heat which is great since it's been around 100 degrees for the past 2 weeks. |
| Good to see your getting back to normal. I just had mine taken out as well a little over a week ago and my job is unloading trucks so it sucked working for the first few days back and I had severe intestinal pain and still have stomach pains almost daily but hopefully after awhile it goes away. The Co2 isn't fun either, for about 4 or 5 days every time I stood up I could feel the gas move from my intestines up to my shoulder, neck, and collarbone and it put me in a lot of pain. |
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Good to see your getting back to normal. I just had mine taken out as well a little over a week ago and my job is unloading trucks so it sucked working for the first few days back and I had severe intestinal pain and still have stomach pains almost daily but hopefully after awhile it goes away. The Co2 isn't fun either, for about 4 or 5 days every time I stood up I could feel the gas move from my intestines up to my shoulder, neck, and collarbone and it put me in a lot of pain. Didn't the diaphragm get in the way? 
Cypher214, glad you're going in the right direction. 
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I had a drain poking outside of my liver for over a month when my bile duct was blocked.
My "Borg" tube made some of the gals at work a little faint when I showed them. 
By the time I was back at work, my liver was draining through the stint, but I had the outside drain in case things backed up. I carried the bag in my briefcase, just in case. Too much fun. |
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Good to see your getting back to normal. I just had mine taken out as well a little over a week ago and my job is unloading trucks so it sucked working for the first few days back and I had severe intestinal pain and still have stomach pains almost daily but hopefully after awhile it goes away. The Co2 isn't fun either, for about 4 or 5 days every time I stood up I could feel the gas move from my intestines up to my shoulder, neck, and collarbone and it put me in a lot of pain. Didn't the diaphragm get in the way?
Cypher214, glad you're going in the right direction. Ahhh... the phenomenon of referred pain. Google "Kehr's sign" for an example. It's exactly what you were having... diaphragmatic irritation produces pain in the shoulders. ETA: that wasn't directed at you, C-4... I know you know what it is. |
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Bile leaks are a well-recognized complication of Gall Bladder surgery. They're uncommon, but happen regularly enough that I order a HIDA scan on all "post-op GB pain" patients who show up in the ER. I pick up more bile leaks that way... They did a HIDA scan right after the CT scan so they could figure out exactly what was going on. That one was no fun. I've never been claustrophobic but after 45 minutes of being in pain, with my arms bound to my sides, and laying in that machine with about 2 inches of clearance on all sides of me, I started to have a panic attack. Luckily the scan ended right about the time I was breaking out into a cold sweat. |