On the Mend

Here I am, gallbladder-less and on the road to recovery. The surgery was not bad, although there were a few glitches before and after. I was able to have the laparoscopic surgery, which means four 2-inch incisions - one below the breast bone, 2 along the right ribcage, and one at the navel. The belly button one has been the most sore, but not truly painful. Of course, the pain meds helped a great deal.

I have my post-surgery follow-up on Thursday, and hopefully the surgeon will clear me to return to work on Monday 2/13. So far, the only clothes I'm wearing are muu-muus and some sweatpants that were too big for my husband - nothing tight around the middle, please! Although I've lost 5 pounds since last week, I am still bloated. Hopefully I'll fit into some decent clothes by the time I go back to work.

Katie and Beanie - sorry to disappoint, I did not see my gallbladder so I didn't get a photo or have it bronzed. I mentioned that gall bladder problems run in my family, right? Well, my grandmother had 2 gall bladder removal operations!

Yes, she had her gall bladder removed, it was probably in the mid-60s. Some years later, she and Grandpop were on vacation and she had terrible pains. She said, "If I didn't know I had my gall bladder out, I would say that it's a gall bladder attack. It feels exactly like it did before!" They returned home and she went to the doctor/hospital. It turned out that they had left a nub of the gall bladder in the first time - enough to allow another gall stone to form and get stuck! So she had another surgery to correct that problem. Yikes! I told my surgeron to make sure he got it all out. I don't want to do this again.

Speaking of Grandmom, she had the surgeon save her gall stones. She had them in a little glass bottle in her medicine cabinet. My boy cousins thought it was really cool to sneak in and swipe them and chase us girls around the house, shaking the bottle and telling us they were going to throw them at us. I was terrifed of them for some reason. The stones, not the cousins. Well, the cousins too but that's another story....