Hospital Part One

It's 3:30 am and I'm wide awake. The phlebotomist just came in to draw some blood, and now that I'm up I can feel the pain and nausea, again.

As you probably know, I had my gallbladder removed. The surgery was successful and uncomplicated, and for the first week, so was my recovery.

Then, in the wee morning hours of Wednesday, I was awakened with pain. Severe pain. The kind of pain that took your breath away and just hurt like crazy no matter what you did. After a couple of minutes it faded away and I fell back asleep. Maybe 30 minutes later, I was writhing again, only to have it fade away a few minutes later. This went on for a couple of hours.

I decided to get up and see if a hot bath would ease the pain. I also took  some pain medicine. After about 45 minutes in the tub, I found myself leaning over the edge to puke in the toilet.

I teetered into my bedroom to wake my husband just in time for our alarm clocks to go off. After I started vomiting, I decided to call in at work. I was pretty upset considering I just barely started the job and I was already calling in. Since I was supposed to be at work in an hour, I told my boss that I would come in until she could find sometime. So, I put on some deodorant, gagged and threw up in the sink trying to brush my teeth, did what I could with my dang hair, then hauled my sorry behind into work. I was only there for about an hour, but I was pretty miserable.

I called and left a message for my surgeon, took my last two Lortab and some phenergan, and fell asleep. I continued to have episodes of the pain, but the meds took the edge off. I had to get up on occasion to throw up, or more accurately, dry heave since I hadn't had anything to eat or drink.

At about 1:30, Eric called to check up on me. It was perfect timing because my meds had worn out. I still hadn't heard from my surgeon's office, so I decided to go to the clinic and get a shot or an IV. While I was waiting in the lobby (which, for the record, was weird), my surgeon office called me back. They wanted me to have some labs drawn and he wanted to see me.

Ariane and Dr. Walton got me shots - toradol and zofran - and since Eric needed to work and my sister needed to get out of the house, Sylvee and Ivory took me to see the surgeon.

I saw his PA. He and Dr. Watts decided to do another HIDA scan to check for a bile leak. They told me that if the HIDA showed a leak, that I would be admitted. The labs and the HIDA were both normal. I was sent home with pain meds and no answers.

We got home at about 7:00ish. I took two percocets at about 7:30. At about 8:30, the pain hit again. A complete 10. All my other attacks lasted 5 minutes tops. Five minutes passed, no relief. I ran another hot bath. Started dry heaving, which I had been doing all day. I called for Eric. 10 minutes passed. Started to panic. Eric was sitting on the bathroom floor watching me writhe in pain in the tub and dry heaving. 15 minutes. I tried deep breathing, different positions, focusing on other things. Nothing helped. I was praying. I started moaning, Lucius started crying, Eric was visibly upset. After 20 minutes, I told him: we need to go to the hospital. Now.</p>
<p>We arrive at the ER. It took an hour to get a room. The ER doc draws some labs and discusses possibly doing a CT scan. They get an IV in, and give me some dilauded and zofran. Finally, relief!</p>
<p>Wait, my pain isn't going away. And it wasn't going away. Time passes, no relief! So they give me another dose. And I was STILL writhing in pain! The ER doc comes back in and tells me that after consulting with the on call surgeon, they decided to admit me.

I had realized that this was a possibility, and I told Eric that, but I was surprised at how surprised I was. A lot of denial, I guess.

They gave me a third dose of dilauded because I was still in a lot of pain. They wheeled me into my room where the lovely nurse gave me phenergan and toradol and acetaminophen and I finally, finally had relief 4 hours later.

I'm exhausted now, but I will post more in a couple of hours. I appreciate all of the thoughts and prayers. Every time I am feeling depressed and discouraged, I get a little reminder that there are people out there who love me and who are rooting for me to get better. Also, my new employers have been unbelievably understanding and flexible with me, and I really appreciate it!