Quick Update - Again....

I feel like I'm writing as many "quick updates" about how life goes crazy around here as I am doing anything else!

For those who are following the pink eye saga, my husband and son had the bacterial version; I had a viral version.  The fact that mine was viral became very clear last Friday when I returned to the doctor with swollen glands in my neck.  Apparently, most people catch this between 5-15 years old.   I stopped using the antibiotics, switched over to warm compresses and gentle washing of my eyelashes to get rid of gunk and felt much better by Sunday morning.

By Sunday evening, I was having severe upper right side abdominal pain with vomiting and diarrhea all of which came on suddenly.   I went to the ER and was diagnosed with gallstones.  The one lingering concern for me was that the staff kept saying that the pain should be done in a few hours, but it never really stopped.

Monday afternoon, I go to the local urgent care and get a shot of toradol which takes the pain down from a 4-5 out of 10 to a 2-3.   Since I have to throw-up every 15 minutes I was in a car, my parents offer to have me stay at their house until I'm back on my feet.   They live 7 minutes away from the hospitals, doctor's offices and urgent care centers instead of 45 minutes away like we do.

I call the surgeon that I received a referral for a consultation about removing my gallbladder.  His next appointment is three weeks out.  My personal doctor wants to see me on Tuesday.

By Tuesday afternoon, I'm still in pain and have barely eaten or drank anything since Sunday night.  My doctor realizes that my temperature has crept up to 100.5 degrees.  That means that my gallbladder is either infected or a stone has blocked the duct where bile leaves - but either way the gallbladder has to be removed soon.   She got me admitted within a few hours.

The medical staff spends Tuesday night getting me rehydrated.   I had to take potassium pills.  The pills are not as bad as magnesium sulfate - but the side-effects of being hot, nauseous and everything tasting like salt are similar.   It was doubly annoying since I was on strict no food or liquid by mouth orders.

Wednesday morning, the surgeon decides to put me first in the queue for surgery.   That turned out to be an amazingly good decision because when I was operated on the surgeon found that my gallbladder was gangrenous.  Apparently, I had had an infection in the gallbladder on Sunday, but it hadn't caused my body temp to rise or my white blood cell count to go up as much as expected.  In the intervening days, the swelling from the infection cut off the blood supply to the gallbladder and it died.   Thankfully, they were able to finish the surgery by instrumentation and didn't need to open me up to clean out the area where the gallbladder had been.

If anyone brings up the complexity of organs as a proof of intelligent design, feel free to throw "the anatomy of the human gallbladder is a fucking timebomb" back at them.

I spent Wednesday night in the hospital, Thursday night at my parents and am now back home.  My parents pretty much cared for Spawn from Monday through Thursday night - and I'm so grateful they live nearby.

I feel much better than I did before the surgery, but I'll need to be taking things easy for a while. 

Ironically, the part of me that will likely take the longest to heal are my conjunctiva because the vomiting on Sunday and Monday blew a ton irritated blood vessels in my eyes and I now look like my son did after he had eye surgery - but my eyes still look better than they did before we stopped treating them for bacterial conjunctivitis.