???????
Gall bladders already gone along with its varied attachments inside.
4 holes in my gut and waiting to get to swallow a couple of tubes and their varied risks as well as the risk of infection from the surgeries and the stone in my liver.
Hopefully the laproscopy will get the stone because getting opened up raises the risks and opens up a whole different ball of wax for risks and recovery. Leaves a nice big ugly scar as well.

Wow, Wolfman, you've had a rough week! Here's hoping the doctors snap to it and you get better fast! Then I hope your lawyer tears them a new one!!!

(I gotta get the net on my phone, I miss too much on my long work weeks!)

Doc, i can be mean at the best of times. When im in pain, all bets are off...lol What ive been through is a bunch of Bull.

Right now, unless something changes again, im supposed to go in fri at 1:30
If everything goes well i should be home by 6 or 7.
Possibility of another ERCP in a couple of weeks if they cant get the stone out. If not then, then id have to get cut open.
Ill be happy to Unbloat, feel like eatting something, not feel slightly sick 24 hours a day and get enough strength back to walk a bit and not spend 18 hours a day in the bed on pain meds.

Kim, its been a long ordeal. Started about 6 years or so ago. Its always been diagnosed as MASSIVE muscle spasams and/or an esophogeal ulcer. BAD acid reflux and you never knew when or what would set off a spell.
Mild ones ran about a 5 or 6 on a scale of 1-10. Rough ones ran around a 8-9 or so with a 10 being go to the hospital. And ive usualy been down the next two to three days recovering.
Well last fri would be described as a 10.5, hence the hospital run.
So yeah ive been dealing with a LOT of pain for some time now.
Haveing a messed up back in pain all the time then this causeing even more back pain has made it rough at times.
Keep in mind im an old farm boy used to sewing myself up, setting my own broken fingers ect. HIGH pain threshold. Id hate to think what it might of been like otherwise. He!! id rather of been shot again.
Hopefully this will alleviate all if not most of it.

Of course i got recovery to go through and then figureing out what i can and cant eat anymore. Most of my favorite foods like fried, bar-b-qed, icecream ect are what most have to avoid.
Greasy, spicey and fatty foods are the killers.
60% of folks never have a problem.
40% have increased acid reflux, nausea(sp), continued pain(some real some phantom) certain foods they cant eat, bad alcohol reactions, explosive diareah among other assorted problems.
Im hopeing for the 60%, ive done my hard time with this cr@p.

Be nice to feel like doing things again and not haveing to worry about evening spells after eatting. Especialy as my favorite foods are usualy what brings em on.

Id only known one or two people who had had their gall bladder out, includeing dad.
Seems like just about every nurse in that hospital and the nurses in the doctors offices have had one.
Most of them had went through nothing like ive been through pain wise ect. So i guess mine was pretty bad.
Dont know what condition the gall bladder was in itself or how many stones or how much sand was in it. Maybe find out friday.
And hopeing fri will be the last i have to deal with this besides the billing.

I want to get BACK ON THE BIKE!!!!

Sorry to hear about the hospital/surgery scheduling fiasco. Sounds like a royal PITA.

Hang in there! Hope it gets straightened out soon and that your recovery is quick.

Joe, basicly its like this.
You check in, they do x-rays and unltrasounds on you. Ask about any meds your takeing, pain level, symptoms,major surguries youve had, metal in your body ect.
Then the day before you get to go on a clear liquid diet, water. You get a nice IV in your arm as well. Make sure they have the one they want to leave it in or they will move it arm to arm like they did on me.
No smokeing at all, and nothing after midnight. Ask for an ice cup and sponges to suck on to keep your mouth moist.

They wheel you out the next day(mine was about 10 am so i went dry for 10 hours). Get you in the prep room then surgey and gas you to sleep(be glad).
They make four incisions. One for each hand of the doc, one for a light and one for tools. Their small, maybe an inch long for the laproscope and tools. They inject air inside you to swell your stomach to make it easier for the doc to see and work. They pull the gall bladder out of one of the incisions to excise it. Belly button, two below the ribs on the right side and one in the center right under your sternum.
The one under your sternum and top one under your ribs seems to be the sorest on me.

You wake up feeling all bloated and sore, dont move if you dont have to! Ask for a pillow in case you need to cough, a small fairly hard foam one and hug that sucker. It helps.
Ask for a morphine pump if the pains real bad, most dont hurt near as bad as i did.
Dont expect to feel like eatting for several days and then youll just nibble. Feel slightly sick all the time, hurts to breathe let alone move in the bed. Keep the bed at about a 45 degree angle even when sleeping, it helps. Makes it easier to get up to pee and you WILL get up to pee a lot. Waters about all you can handle and they will have a saline IV in your arm as well as be pumping in antibiotics. First day or so all youll do is dribble an ounce or two every couple of hours. Feels good when you finaly get hydrated enough to half fill the jug.
Yes you got to go in a jug, they measure your output.
Dont wory about #2, i still havent went and its been 6 days. If you do though they want to see it...lol
Walking is good but you WONT feel like walking. All you want to do is sleep, your flat exhuasted.
Dont expect a good meal when they DO give you some food. Their idea of a liquid food diet shouldnt even be called food!
Sweet tea and Jello seems to set well and help your stomach when you can get them.
You WILL fart a lot. Its your body getting rid of all the gas blown into you. It dont smell, its just air.
Expect to feel a lil sick all the time as well. Lay as still as possible when you can, movement HURTS.
And all the tubes ect make sleeping/moveing in bed like sleeping in a snake pit.
Expect a stay of around 2-3 days with no problems.

I was still so out of it i turned down a sponge bath by a real cute lil 28 year old brunette nurse who seemed eager to give me one...lol
Be REAL nice to the PCAs(nurse assitants) and they will try to do about anything for you. I got a get well card from two of them today...rofl

They will tell you NO BIKE for at least a week to 10 days.(you WONT feel like rideing either.) Nothing lifted over 20lbs for 3-4 weeks. Believe me you wont want to lift 20 pounds. DONT STRETCH, DONT COUGH, DONT SNEEZE, DONT LAUGH, dont move if you dont have to!...lol
Get some GOOD meds for when you go home, youll want them. Youll want a pile of pillows on the bed so you can sleep sitting up as well.

60% supposedly have few if any problems, 40% have an assorted list of problems. Even haveing gall bladder attacks after their gall bladder is out.
I had a 5 on the scale of 10 tonight, mostly gas though i think(hope). But it still hurt and im about half sick now to as well as worn out.
Could be the stone moveing in my liver to i guess.

Ask lots of questions cause they wont volunteer anything. The docs arent as bad as neurosurgeons but their not as friendly as your family doctor either...lol


Justion, from what research ive done gall bladder flushes(when they work) just prolong the enevitable. They can even cause problems of their own down the road. The gall bladder can become infected and actualy start to rot inside you. Infection is one of the BIG worries with the gall bladder it seems.

Wolf -

Sorry to hear of your protracted recovery.  My wife's experience was quite different.

Shehad the laproscope surgery, as you described, on a Friday night.  The let her out of the hospital the next moring, after breakfast.

When I got there to pick her up, she was fully dressed, yapping with a friend of ours who is a urologist who himslef had his GB out years ago, and who had his own surgical garb on, ready to go to an OR to operate on a patient.

I took her home, she was a little groggy ( it takes about a week to fully get the anesthetic out of your system - that's why you are tired ).

Within 4 or 5 days, she was totally back to normal - working in her office, doing chores around our place, even on the tractor mowing a field.

She has had zero after effects in the past 5 or so years since the surgery.

Justin, where the problem lies with flushes is some of those stones can be as big as a chicken egg!
Flushing will get rid of the sand and smaller stones but wont do squat for the ones to big to travel down a duct. Eventualy you get so many bigger ones or one gets stuck in a duct and then you got problems.
My pain was more akin to a ball of red hot 4 point barbed wire the size of a softball being twisted around in my guts tearing everything up.
I WISH it had just felt like an icepick...lol

Yeah Jerry a lot of folks go back to work within a week. Then theres the ones who had real problems(more stones, larger stones ect) that it takes a lil longer to recover.
The anestheisa stays in you a few days, makes you groggy, sick n tired.
So i guess ill get to go through another week of this sick tired groggy crud after friday. They usualy just make you groggy so they can talk to you and get you to move a bit if needed. For some reason their going to put me completely out again. Oh Joy!
Course i wasnt looking foreward to being awake with them shoveing tubes down my throat through my stomach and into my small intestine then my liver.

Joe, i wish id done this years ago. Maybe i wouldnt of had so much pain and problems. Been in and out like Jerrys wife and so many others.
I just want it over with and to get back to feeling like doing something. Its all really wearing on me.