One less organ
18 Apr
I’m feeling much more alive tonight, so I thought I would write about my hospital adventure! I don’t know if anyone is interested… but I don’t have much else to write about at the moment :)
So, the saga started way back in November with my first ever ambulance ride. The doctors in the Emergency Department couldn’t see anything wrong so they sent me home with some pain killers. Over the next few months I had more painful episodes, more trips to the hospital and eventually my doctor was able to diagnose me with gall stones, which would mean that my gall bladder needed to be removed. In March we were able to meet with the specialist at the hospital and he agreed that it needed to come out so my name was added to the waiting list. We expected maybe 3 more months of waiting.
However on Monday night at 8pm I was hit with the worst pain I have ever experienced, way worse that giving birth (and I’m not joking). It was so bad that by 8:05pm we had called an ambulance! We knew this wasn’t a normal “attack”! Thankfully the ambulance arrived quickly and got some morphine into my system. It worked it’s magic pretty quickly. The doctor at the hospital decided that she was not willing to admit me and I need to wait for my surgery date (very frustrating and I actually ended up in tears!). They sent me home with so much morphine in my system that it was hard to walk! Unfortunately this time the pain did not go away. Over the next 3 days I was in constant pain, nothing like Monday, and I kept it masked with codeine.
By Thursday afternoon my body was not coping, my eyes had started turning yellow and I was showing a few other symptoms of my liver being in distress. So off I went to the doctor. Thankfully my parents were driving through on Thursday, so my Dad took me to see my GP while my Mum stayed home with Miss D. God was totally in control… without having an appointment I was able to see my doctor, not the walk-in doctor. He pretty much took one look at me and said “you are going to hospital now”. He wrote me a referral and called ahead to let them know I was coming. So at 6pm on Thursday night I said goodbye to Miss D, not knowing when I would see her next and Mr Wonderful and I drove to the hospital.
8 hours later the Emergency Department decided that I needed to be admitted and I was moved into a ward. (Miss D was able to head to Auckland with my parents for an awesome 6 days with her Grandparents!). The process moved slowly after that, blood tests and an ultra sound but not much else for the next 2 days. Finally on Sunday morning the nurse came in to inform me that at 10am they had me booked in for surgery. Mr W was on his way to visit me, but didn’t make it in time! I think around 11:30am I was given the anesthetic and the doctors removed my gall bladder (not that I remember any of it)… around 4pm I was moved back to my room, still rather sleepy! Poor Mr Wonderful had spent a nervous 6 hours not knowing what was happening to me! He was on his way to find a nurse when he walked passed my room and saw me back :) He hung around for a few hours, the nurses tried to encourage me to eat, all I got down was some green jelly. At 8pm Mr Wonderful headed home to get some sleep, and I drifted off… but by 9:30pm I was awake in agony! My whole stomach felt like it was going to explode, it felt like it was on fire and I couldn’t do anything except moan (again… still more painful than childbirth!). The Ward nurse had to call the House Doctor to come and give me some morphine which eventually helped, but my heart rate had sky rocketed and they had me on oxygen because I couldn’t breath. It was all rather scary! Thankfully, eventually, I fell asleep and didn’t experience any more pain!
Monday morning rolled around and the doctors decided it was not safe to send me home, the pain wasn’t a good thing.. although some pain post surgery is expected (just not that bad.. I said it was 20/10 on the pain scale!). And they wanted to do an MRI to check that they had successfully removed all the stones, some of the stones had moved into my bile duct which was causing my liver to go into distress! At 4pm I headed off to have the MRI and then we had to wait for the results. Thankfully Tuesday morning brought good news! I was in the clear, they managed to get it all in surgery which meant not only could I go home, but I also didn’t need any more surgery! Praise the Lord!
Mr Wonderful came to pick me up and we made the journey home. I am so incredibly glad to be home, the staff at the hospital were fantastic, they did everything they could to make my experience manageable and comfortable! But nothing beats my bed and my couch :) I had a relatively good sleep last night and woke up today feeling much better. Miss Delightful came home this afternoon, it was fantastic to see her! The next few days she will be heading off to friends houses so I can rest as I am not allowed to do any heavy lifting for 4-6 weeks and no driving for about 3 weeks. On Monday we are being blessed with a visit from my Mother-in-law. She has very kindly offered to stay for a week to help out while I recover. I’m not sure what we would do without her help, we are very grateful!
Looking back we can see how God had his hand in the whole process! There are so many things that just fell into place to make sure that everyone was looked after. We have been blessed with lots of prayer, encouraging e-mails and texts, and wonderful vistors at the hospital to keep me sane! And I have been told that there is a meal roster in place so that I don’t have to cook for a while! The only bummer is that my Triathlon is on Sunday… the one I have been training all year for! Unfortunately I will not be participating in it. But I am so very happy to have had my surgery done, and there will be more triathlon’s next year that I can train for!
For now, I am going to relax on the couch and read my book, with my one less organ! :)
