We're Home

Everything Going Well.

Daughter is making her recovery from her surgery. We spent 2 nights in the hospital, and they released her this morning. What a whirlwind of emotions this whole thing has been. First and foremost she's doing very well. She still has quite a bit of pain, but every day she improves a little more.

She asked the surgeon if he would save her gall bladder for her so she could show her friends, which he found amusing, but he said he could not do that because OSHA does not allow it, but that he would see what he could do about her getting the actual stones that were in her gall bladder, he also agreed to take some pictures of it so she could show her friends.

She's had many gall bladder attacks over the last several months that have been quite painful for her, the doctors explained to us, that when the stones move from the gall bladder into the bile duct it can cause horrible pain for the person, and if they were too large to pass through, then emergency surgery would likely be the only remedy in that case. Despite the awful attacks she's had, she made it to the point we could have the thing removed.

After he finished the surgery the doctor came and told us all was well, and gave us the pictures he took of her gall bladder and the stones, when he showed us the pictures we all gasped. It's hard to imagine the pain those things were causing her. We knew she'd had a tough time of it, and had been anxious for her to have the gall bladder out. After seeing the pictures, I can see why she had such terrible stomach aches.

I asked him how her spleen was, if it was very big. He said, yes, in fact, it was about 5 times enlarged, and that if it had been much bigger they would have had to open her up to remove it. For me it really validated the decision to remove the spleen.

The first night and day after the surgery were really tough on her. She was in a lot of pain with 6 incision sights on her little belly. She didn't want to do any of the things the nurses asked her to do. Being the stress monkey that I am, I had to worry a lot, I really could make a career of worrying, but the second night was much better and I quit worrying so much. She started getting up on her own, and even laughed at me trying to sleep in the stupid stupid stupid chair.

Anyway, all is going well, and we're taking it day by day. I just must post a picture of her gall bladder and the stones, hope that doesn't gross anyone out too bad, but we've all found it quite interesting. Probably won't have much time to post until after new years with all the stuff going on, plus I've got a few things I've just got to get a handle on, like Christmas shopping, since it is in 3 days and I haven't bought not a single gift. Goodness me!