Oh the gall of it all...

I realize I failed to mention that I had a problem with pesky gall stones. I was diagnosed last November to have several small stones in my gall bladder. My physician at the time informed me that my gall bladder likely sprung into action making these little suckers in response to the floods of hormones my pregnancy and post-partum time produced. Strange I cannot recall ever reading about that "side effect" of pregnancy in any of the literature...I think an addendum might be in order for the "What to Expect When You're Expecting Book".

Anyway, for those of you who have not experienced a gall stone or gall bladder "attack", I congratulate you. Imagine cramping, burning pain under your right rib cage and radiating across your upper abdomen, coupled with nausea . In my case, the discomfort would last from 30 minutes to several hours. Some the pain was comparable to the intensity of labor pain. For those of you who have not experienced that, I also congratulate you.

The single most effective treatment for gall stones is to remove the entire gall bladder. Apparently it's one of the body parts one can live without like the tonsils, the appendix, or even a kidney. Thanks God for all the spare parts!

I put off having surgery as I was in the middle of changing to a better insurance plan...and I also wasn't exactly eager to go under the knife. At that time, I had only had about three gall bladder episodes, two of them not being very intense.

However this past May my little gall bladder started throwing regular gall stone parties without the decency of any forewarning. So on a weekly basis, or more often, I found myself huddled in pain or sprawled out on the couch for a while until the brunt of the whole thing...er...passed. At that point surgery began to really gain some luster.

This past Thursday I got the gall bladder removed. There was a friendly nurse who shared some interesting stories about the different body piercings she has encountered in her line of work, and the anesthesiologist who seemed to lose his focus once in a while when explaining about the drugs they planned to give me. He however didn't forget to mention the fact that he was a student. Great. Oh, oh, the best part had to be the crazy set of stockings I had to put on to help with circulation. Over the stockings came a set of leggings that velcroed around my legs...sort of like a knee brace. These leggings however got hooked up to a machine that pumped air through them and massaged my legs, again for circulation. I'm kind of bummed I wasn't awake for the massaging part.

Despite his status as a student, and apparent distraction, the anesthesiologist seemed to have done a good job. I knocked out quickly in one room, and woke up in another one. I was told to expect to be nauseous for a full 24 hrs. later, but did not have any trouble with that at all. Thanks God! Now I'm pretty much all back to normal except for the four small incisions still healing on my belly...one of them being in my belly button. I'm thankful to be rid of the thing and glad that surgery wasn't all too much of a big deal. It's funny how having a baby can really put things in perspective...it sort of sets the bar of comparison for all other bodily trauma...at least it does for me. So now my life can continue as normal again, and I've got one less spare part to show for it.