Have you hugged your Gallbladder today?

I have to tell you about the last week or so.  It is already like a dream to me, the way painful experiences are.  A bad dream, but a dream nevertheless, fading from my memory day by day by day.

Sooooo, Sunday night we watched a slideshow of Lee's recent trip to Thailand to visit his friend, Pete.  I had a bit of a stomachache after partaking of the amazing dinner:  Navajo tacos.  I didn't think much about it until the next afternoon, when I felt like I really needed to lie down for a bit because the stomachache was worse.  At 5:00 it was time to take Bennett to piano lessons.  By the time we made it to his teacher's house, I was in intense pain.  On the way home, I had to pull over and get out of the car, thinking I was going to throw up or die or something.  I was literally kneeling in the gravel for what seemed like an eternity.  The kids were screaming in the car, and I couldn't even get words out to comfort them.  I couldn't breathe, and could only say one syllable at a time.  "O- help- Har-per-"  pant, pant, moan, moan.  I finally had a little break in the pain, enough to get home, pull in the driveway, and crawl up the stairs to the bathroom.  Fortunately, Jason's Mom, Linda, had just arrived at our house.  I had to ask Owen to have her get the kids out of their carseats, hold screaming Harper, and basically keep the peace while I writhed in pain on the bathroom floor.  I moved from room to room, changing positions, finding no relief, for an hour and a half or so, until I had the presence of mind to take some Lortab.  

In hindsight, I should have gone to the ER.  But at the time, I had no idea what was happening to me.  I thought perhaps the kidneystone I have lingering in my kidneys was trying to pass.  I had never thought about my gall bladder in my entire life, I don't think.  But when I called Dr. Isaacson the next morning, he was pretty sure that's what it was.


So Tuesday afternoon brought blood work, and scheduling an ultrasound.  After my ultrasound, which showed a bunch of stones in my gall bladder, kind of like little gravel, Dr. Isaacson called me.  He sounded calm, but with an edge to his voice.  He had made me an appointment with the surgeon and was very worried about my liver.  I went over and met with the surgeon right away.  He was perplexed by my case and shocked by my liver functions.  Or malfunctions, I guess I should say.  We looked at the ultrasound together, and he realized the ultrasound tech had not picked up on the fact that I had a stone blocking the common bile duct.  So that's why my liver function numbers were sky high.


He admitted me to the hospital because at that point, I was seriously jaundiced.  Yellow eyes and all.  He considered sending me by ambulance to SLC for a procedure to remove the stone, but ended up letting us drive down instead.  Phew.  So I met with the doctor at LDS hospital who is an expert at this procedure, which involves sending a scope down your esophagus, into your stomach, up into the common bile duct to make a tiny incision which would allow the stone to come through, past the stone, and then uses a balloon to gently pull the stone on outta there.


The procedure went great.  I felt fantastic for about 10 minutes afterwards.  They took out my IV, I got dressed, Jason went to get the car, and suddenly I started to have some abdominal pain.  Within minutes I was once again writhing in pain.  The doctor came in, and from the look on his face I knew he was very worried.  He knew immediately that I had pancreatitis.  I had heard about pancreatitis from well-meaning nurses at Logan Regional who had told me that it's what you DON'T want to get.  It can cause extended hospital stays, excruciating pain, and even death.  Sweet.


So I was admitted to LDS hospital, and put on pain meds right away.  The first round didn't even touch the pain, so they increased it the next go-round, and I was able to relax a little.  Every hour through the night I was given doses of whatever it was to take the edge off the pain and help me sleep.  Eventually I could go 3 hours in between doses, which is when they sent me home with a new bottle of Lortab.


The worry was now to rid my body of pancreatitis, and get that gall bladder out asap.  It didn't work out quite as fast as I had hoped.  We checked into the ER at Logan Regional on Labor Day for more bloodwork, and hoping to have the surgery.  Unfortunately, I had a temperature, and all my pancreas numbers were still high.  So once again I was admitted to the hospital for fluids and antibiotics.  At this point, I hadn't eaten anything for a full week, and I was really hungry.  Hungry to the point of depression.  I was allowed ice chips that day, but nothing else. It really was the worst day for me.


The next morning brought good news.  My bloodwork looked good, and I was put on the schedule for surgery.  Yay!  Who knew I would ever be excited about surgery?  But I was.  So that afternoon at 2:30 my gall bladder and I were separated from each other.  All went well with the surgery, and by the next morning I felt pretty darn good.  I ate a wee little bowl of cream o' wheat to celebrate.  It was probably the best thing I've ever eaten.


(Worth noting:  I have discovered that pain is relative, and that there is always such thing as more pain than you can imagine.  Since April I have had natural childbirth, kidney stones, gall stones and pancreatitis.  I will tell you that natural childbirth is not the most painful thing our bodies can experience, and at least you get a good prize at the end of your sufferings.  I have a pretty different scale for pain now.  A scale of 1- 10 just doesn't seem broad enough.  My pain last week definitely went to 11.  Name that movie for bonus points.  But as I was leaving the hospital with pancreatitis, feeling very damaged and fragile, I waited for Jason next to a paper-thin, very frail-looking cancer patient who appeared so old and tired I couldn't believe it when his wife came to pick him up.  She couldn't have been much older than me.  I know that there is pain, physical and emotional that I haven't even scratched the surface of.)

NOW- that was the chronological run-down for you.  Here is the emotional side of it:

I am the luckiest girl alive to have a mom who will do anything for her kids.  Anything.  She is an angel, and anyone who knows her will tell you this is true.  She left work and drove up the minute I called when I was first admitted to the hospital.  She took more than a week out of her regularly scheduled life to be with us.


Harper had never had a bottle before this time.  My Mom worked wonders with her, and now Harper chugs formula like a champ!  My Mom cooked, cleaned, made lunches, took kids to school, got up with Harper at night, and a million other things that I would have done but couldn't.  Imagine the relief it gave me to know everyone was being cared for every moment I was away.  There is no way to say in words the deep gratitude I feel for her, my mom.  My hero!


Jason was by my side through most of the hospital crap.  He kept me laughing the entire time, even when I just wanted to slide into a despairing funk.  He is the best husband and Daddy.


As you might imagine, I had some time for deep introspection and analysis of what I'm doing with my precious time as a mother, wife, daughter, friend in this world while I was stuck in bed with IV fluids dripping away.  I had moments of clarity, and moments of real, intense fear.  But mostly I was struck by the beauty and fragility of life.  All I wanted was to go home to the chaos.  To hold my babies, cuddle with them in bed.  Eat a big bowl of ice cream.  Never worry about my weight again.  Sing more songs.  Read more scriptures, gain more knowledge, pass more knowledge along.  Ride my bike more.  Write more letters.  Be nicer to mean people.  Everything.  I want to do everything!  

So there you have it.  My life goal:  to do everything.  Who's with me?