Gotta love the bad news

In my last post I rattled on about being "okay" and the pain being gone. I was far far away from being “okay”! On Friday afternoon I went and picked up the prescription of antibiotics the doctor gave me. I took some around 3pm and was feeling alright, around 5pm I was starting to get a little pain and to not feel so good. I ate a little around 7pm and took the rest of the antibiotics for the day. At 9pm I started throwing up and couldn’t stop, I couldn’t even keep down a little sip of water. This lasted the whole night, finally I got a little sleep only to wake up and run down stairs again, so Jeff moved the mattress down stairs for me to sleep on so I could be closer to the bathroom, and he slept on the couch. The pain was hurting so so so bad and the only thing that would stop it for a second was to hop in the shower and turn the water scolding hot and let it run on my back. I did this probably 50 times from Friday night to late Saturday night. Finally at 1:30 in the morning the pain was so horrible that I was crying and I looked at Jeff and said “honey what do I do?” he looked at me and said “we need to go to the hospital, I have been trying to tell you this for a whole day now” I was being stubborn and I told him we didn’t have money and he said he didn’t care and I got to the point that I didn’t either cause I was in so much pain. So we got in the car and went to the ER and by that time I was really really hurting. I was so uncomfortable so the guy hurried as fast as he could and got me to a room, where of course we waited and waited. Finally they put me on an IV drip to get fluid back in my system and then they gave me pain medicine and anti nausea medicine. I felt a little better but I was sad to be in the ER and I was so weak from throwing up all day and so tired from not sleeping. Once the doctor came in he felt my stomach and asked about my pain and he said he was going to do an ultrasound. Once he came back with the little ultrasound machine he was a little shocked at what he was seeing so he said he wanted to have a real ultrasound done with the big machine. I got wheeled off and had an ultrasound done on my tummy and what came back was kind of scary so they said I needed to have emergency surgery done to remove my gallbladder. I got admitted at around 6 or 7am and had surgery at noon. They ended up removing 27 stones from my gallbladder, which were about the size of a BB. But there were still 3 more stuck in my bile duct which they couldn’t get to because of my liver was so inflamed. It turns out that the one stuck at the bottom of my bile duct was three times the size of the ones in my gallbladder and it was blocking the hole at the end, which in turn was causing me tons of pain. So after I woke up from surgery the doctor explained to me that I was going to have to go down to St. George to have the surgeon there get the ones out of my bile duct. The only problem was they couldn’t get a hold of the surgeon. So I sat in Cedar hospital until Monday after afternoon-ish and finally I was able to go down to St. George. Once I got there and got settled we had some visitors, then they said around 5pm I could be going in for the surgery! I was excited because when we first got there they had said it was possible that I wouldn’t be able to get in till the next morning. At around 5:30pm they took we down and I had a scope put down my throat and he sliced a tiny slice in my bile duct so that the stone could pass through, it wasn’t to bad cause they knocked me out the only bad part was laying on my tummy which has scars on it. After the surgery they wheeled my back up to my room and I had to stay the night again but the doctor let me go home at around 8:30 the next morning, thank goodness because I was getting oh so sick of the hospitals and I missed my puppies. Tuesday it so crazy in St. George cause of all the rain and flooding so Jeff wanted to see the rivers, I let him go drive around for a bit, till the pain was getting bad so then we went home. Unfortunately I still had the JP drain stuck in my side and that thing caused a lot of pain because it was stitched to my side so every time I would move it would pull, AWFUL!! Most of you who know me know I can’t go a 24 hour period without showering and we were going on 72 hours with no shower. So I called the surgeon in Cedar to double check if I could shower and they said NO  No worries I did a half shower. I washed my hair in the kitchen sink with Jeff’s help, then I sat on the edge of the tub and shaved my hairy hairy legs and washed my lower half all without getting my tummy wet at all!! When I called I also scheduled an appointment to see if my drain could come out for Thursday. Thursday I went to the Doctor and he was so so so nice, he took the stupid drain out of me, it felt nasty like a worm crawling through your yummy or something. It was so great to be free, after he took it out and told me I was free to shower and how to take care of my slices he showed Jeff and I his collection of gall stones and things he has taken out of people. I can say mine was nothing compared to some of the stuff he had!!

So I am officially doing “okay,” I don’t want to speak to soon but most of the pain is gone except for when I yawn, take deep breaths, sneeze, cough, oh and move just right. I am back to eating normal food which is nice because I ended up cooking Christmas dinner for the family and it turned out AMAZING!!!!! There are so definite downsides to the whole situation, spending days in the hospital, the cost (which I am a little scared about), I had to miss our annual Vegas shopping trip, and everyone thinks it is necessary to baby me but I don’t let them cause you don’t get better by being a freaking baby! There are some super plus sides to I have lost…10.5 pounds in a week, I am now forced to eat a little better, and the horrible no good pain in gone!!



So now a little about Christmas! On Christmas Eve we went over to Jeff’s parents and had their traditional Christmas Eve lunch, which is sandwiches and snacks and dips and so on. We played games and Jeff and I took the 4-wheelers out for a mud boggin, which was a total blast and only hurt for a second ;)!!! Then we opened Christmas because Jeff’s brother wasn’t going to be there Christmas day!! I got a super sweet roaster oven that I wanted so badly and some baking pans which I desperately needed, Jeff got a fishing poll and some fishing stuff and well I can’t really remember what else!! Christmas morning we woke up early so I could start the Ham and stuff, then we went back to his parents to do our stockings!! Then we came home and it was a cooking frenzy all day, well kind of!! I am pretty good at managing my time so it really went smoothly and like I said everything turned out AMAZING!! We ate at about 6:30pm with my family (Mom, Dad, Tanya, Kids, and Willy) then we opened presents. It was tons of fun hanging out and laughing and opening presents. I got almost everything I wanted, a lamp for the living room, snow boots, beanies and gloves, panties, bras, a CD, and the list goes one of little odds and ends and the best gift was our recliners!! All in all I would say it has been a pretty good year, and I am excited for the next one!!!! I hope everyone had a very Merry Christmas and all hopes for a Happy New Year! Much Love!!!!!