the great gallbladder escape

As the title indicates, I no longer have a gallbladder. I had surgery a week ago today to have it removed due to gall stones. I have found out about a lot of people lately that have also had the surgery done and, from what I hear, I have recovered rather well from it so far.

My doctor had me go in for an ultrasound prior to scheduling the surgery to see what was going on with my stomach and the ultrasound showed a 2cm gall stone in the neck of my gallbladder. The gastro doctor recommended that I have it removed within the month due to pancreatitis or other more severe problems that it could cause. I scheduled the surgery for May 6th because our schedules were busy and I needed my mom to have time to plan to be with us as well.

Just a side note: the following is a picture of the gastro doctors exam room. I took a photo while I was waiting (I'm sure he won't mind). My next question was, "Am I here for an oil change or a check up?"

Following the surgery, the nurses had a little bit of a difficult time getting me to breath like I needed to. I think I probably was just a little bit too relaxed. Eventually I moved from recovery to a room and slept off and on throughout the afternoon. The doctor came in that evening and said that, once he got into the surgery, he saw that the gallstone had grown to be between 4-5 cm since the initial ultrasound. He said that it was about the size of an egg and he had to shatter it in order to get it out. All of the events following the surgery, not waking up quickly and that he had to shatter the stone, were unfortunate for me because I wanted to see the gallbladder and stone before they were taken away. Oh well, at least they aren't causing me harm any longer.

And my mom and dad came up to babysit me while Alex had the kids. I am SO glad that I had my family here to be with me. It sure made me wish they would move on up  to the Bauxite area.

I had a follow up appointment today and he said I'm healing well. He also had paperwork from where the gallbladder was sent off for testing to make sure there wasn't anything cancerous involved and it all looked good.

On another topic, I wanted to share this picture of Alex's grandma, Lovena aka "Big Granny", and the girls from around Easter time.

I don't know why blogger is uploading the picture sideways, but turn your head and imagine how sweet it is.
We love our Big Granny.