Surgery #4...Check!

One more organ down!

Yesterday I had my gallbladder removed, so that brings me to a total of three organs I no longer possess. Thank goodness they were able to do the surgery laproscopically. My surgeon was not very optimistic about it beforehand, but I guess it worked out, because I woke up with five small incisions vs one big one.
Here's the long story of my last moments with the 'ol Gallbladder. I shall not miss him. (Yes, my gallbladder was male. He was very annoying, just like men are.)
Anyhow, I woke up yesterday, and, appropriately enough, was having some minor gallbladder pain. I thought, good riddance to bad rubbish, and took my pre surgery shower. After four surgeries, I've learned to give myself a good skin-reddening scrub the day of. You're not allowed to use any soaps or lotions or deodorant, and you never know when your next shower will be, so I try to start out with as clean a slate as possible. I emerged from the shower minus a few layers of epidermis, and dressed in my cozy surgery outfit - Yoga pants, t-shirt, and over sized sweatshirt. I donned my glasses that my husband lovingly refers to as my "Lisa Loeb" glasses, and then sulked around the kitchen, whining about not being able to eat until Josh was ready to go.
We arrived at Kaiser promptly at my allotted time - 10:15 AM. I checked in with the volunteer nurse on duty. She wrote my name down and told us to sit. We sat. And sat. And sat. Over an hour later, after watching other patients come and go, I finally grabbed hold of a passing nurse, and asked him if I was supposed to have given my card to someone, or if anyone was ever going to admit me. He looked a bit perplexed, and said, "You haven't been helped?"

"No." I said.

He frowned. "Oh"

Meanwhile, my cell phone goes off. I answer. "Hello?"

"Hi, this is the surgery department at Kaiser, we were wondering if you are planning on keeping your appointment for surgery today."

"Um, yes."

"Well, where are you?"

"I'm here."

"Here?"

"Yes, here. At Kaiser. In the Surgery waiting room."

"When did you get here?"

"At 10:15, when I was supposed to."

"Oh."

At which point, another nurse came out and admitted me, and then brought me back to the pre-op area. She instructed Josh to "Go sit over there." And then told me, "You - go use the restroom." I didn't have to pee, but she said it with such authority I was afraid to tell her that. So I went and washed my hands and pretended to pee.

My surgeon sees me wandering around and does some kind of funky chicken, arm waving dance to mime taking off your clothes really fast. "Quick Quick zip zip and we go!", he says. Alrighty.

Then as the nurse was inserting my IV, she said, "Well, you're lucky we found you when we did. We already had the next patient in preop, getting prepped."

"I was here the whole time, I even saw that guy come back here before me."

She shrugged "Yeah, we found you, so we sent him back."

"You sent him back?"

"Yeah, we capped his IV and sent him back to the waiting room."

"Oh."

So now I'm feeling bad for the poor old guy who got "sent back" and now has to wait even longer. They didn't even let him stay in the comfy chairs, they just sent him back to the hard chairs in the waiting room.

Then a dude in a leopard print skull cap comes in to tell me he's "transport", and will wheel me into the operating room. Yet another nurse comes over to give me the good stuff, as he puts it, and I'm off.

Next thing I know I'm waking up and it's done! I cautiously felt for incisions, and was elated to find I did not have yet another big cut. However, I was in some considerable pain.

"Pain on a scale of one to ten?", asks the nurse.

"8"

She gives me a shot of something through the IV. About twenty minutes later, "Now how's your pain?"

"6"

Another shot. I float around happily in the clouds for the next hour.

I'm finally trying to come back out of the General Anesthesia fog, but Kaiser was already jonesing for my bed, and they move me to a chair, and into "Stage 2." My clothes appear, and before I know it, I being wheeled downstairs and out into Josh's truck.

Now, you always hear people, myself included, complain about spending the night in the Hospital. The typical complaints about nurses poking and prodding you at all hours is true. It is true that they often burst into your dark hospital room at 3 AM, turn on a light, poke you with a needle, and have the nerve to be cheerful and peppy and ask you how you are. Usually "how you are" is half asleep, and none to happy. HOWEVER, I now know the real truth. You wouldn't be sleeping anyway. At least when the nurses wake you up, you have somewhere to place the blame. When it's three o'clock in the morning and you are at home and not sleeping, you're all alone. And it's annoying. Your stupid husband is there, snoring it up and having a good snooze. You can moan and groan and try to wake him up so he can feel sorry for you, but all it does is make him roll over and steal the covers from you.

Also, in the hospital, they give you the good drugs. At home you're stuck with Vicodin. Although I hear it goes for 5 bucks a pill on the black market, it's no morphine, and it's certainly no dilaudid.

Lastly, in the hospital you get a call button. One press of a button conveniently attached to your bed, and you get your own personal servant. "I'd like some ice chips please" or "I need a sponge bath", and poof! It happens. I tried it home, and made beeping sounds at Josh followed by a request such as "I'd like a strawberry Popsicle". He said "Well go get it."

Being at home is not at ALL like being in the hospital.

That's the story of how I lost my gallbladder.