Positive surgical experience
As many have mentioned, it’s typically to leave this sub right after you’ve had a good outcome because you don’t even think about it anymore. But I wanted to share my positive story if it helps people.
Background: April 1 I had my first gallstone attack (I think). It felt like something in my chest was going to explode. I called 911, but by the time they got there it had resolved. I thought I was a wimp and it was just bad gas pain, so I didn’t go to the hospital. 2 weeks later, it happened again. I took myself to the ER and was diagnosed with acute pancreatitis (lipase > 3,000) but with no gallstones in the CT. They kept me for pain management for 4 days, then sent me home. 2 weeks later, again in the middle of the night. Lipase elevated again, pancreatitis. I got admitted to the larger hospital who couldn’t believe I hadn’t been given an ultrasound yet. They found a bunch of small, mobile stones.
About 48 hours after being admitted to the hospital, I had the surgery to remove my gallbladder. They wanted to give it 2 days for some of the swelling in my pancreas to go down. My surgeon was awesome and so kind. I felt very confident in him going into the surgery (but still generally nervous).
When I woke up, my throat was sore from the intubation. I told my surgeon I was feeling a lot of pain, so he quickly had them give me dilauded and he rolled me onto my right side. The pain stopped almost immediately. He said it was a little bit of trapped CO2 and had me roll back and forth a few times. After that it was gone.
Unfortunately, the dilauded gave me a rash. My surgery ended at 3pm and they told me I could technically go home that evening, but I asked if I could stay overnight to make sure we had a pain management plan that wouldn’t give me an allergic reaction. They said absolutely and I stayed until the next day.
The next morning, the pain was pretty bad. My surgical residents came in and made sure I got started on pain meds that didn’t give me any reaction. Within a few hours they checked back in and said I was looking so much better.
It was about noon when I got discharged. I was able to walk around no problem, but it was a pretty big hospital and my body was getting tired easily, so I opted for a wheelchair to the exit. When I got home I felt surprisingly normal, just tired. I had a c-section about a year and a half ago, and it was a similar feeling, just slightly less intense.
If surgery was day 1 and my discharge was day 2, I was off of the opioids by day 3, and just doing Tylenol and Advil. The most important thing was to take them on a schedule and not just wait for the pain to come back. By the time the pain came back, it was much harder to get it under control (learned this with my c-section as well, but forgot) but as long as I took the meds on a schedule I had no real pain.
Another thing I learned from my c-section was the value of a medical belly binder. I had asked my surgeon if it was ok to use, and he said sure, just not too tight. When your abs feel kind of weak after surgery, it just gives you a tiny bit more support.
I started working from home on day 4. It was a little difficult, only because I was so tired. My body was clearly doing a lot of work inside, so I’d just get super drained and need a nap. By day 7 I was more back to normal energy levels.
By day 10, I really felt like I was totally fine. I saw my surgeon on day 14, and he said everything is healing very well. My pathology report came back and showed chronic damage to the gallbladder, and that the gallbladder was starting to die. My surgeon said about 24 hours later and the gallbladder would have been dead.
I took it very slow with eating, starting with bone broths, zero fat yogurts, toast, etc. I was aiming for small meals and less than 5g of fat per meal. Twice when I ate a bit bigger meals I would get cramping on my side, but it would eventually go away. My surgeon said that’s normal for this stage of healing but that if it doesn’t go away in a month or so that we should just get a scan. I’m 15 days out from surgery now and still aiming for more frequent, smaller meals, but up to like 12-15g of fat per meal with no issues. My surgeon told me I can start eating relatively normally now, just to avoid a cheeseburger and fries for a while.
Overall, I feel like recovery was similar to my c-section but much faster. I’m feeling really good right now. I have to keep reminding myself that I’m still healing internally so that I don’t overdo it!