End of year complications

Back in October, I developed the most severe stomach and back pain I have ever experienced. It started around 7pm as a slight ache and was an annoying pain by 10pm. I took Tylenol and tried to go to bed but after another hour of increasing pain I took ibuprofen. At around 1am, I felt like I was going to die with the amount of pain I was in. This night happened to be on the weekend Steve was out of town on his boys fall trip so I was home alone with Emma. I had to call my sister in law Stephanie and brother in law Nich to see if they could come over. They came over around 1:30am and Steph stayed with Emma while Nich took me to the ED at the University of Utah Hospital. 

Being a nurse, I self diagnosed myself with problems with my gallbladder. I was checked in, given an IV with some fluids and waited. Of course, by the time I got situated in the room, my pain was half as bad as it was before. I have had these weird pains for as long as 3 years, they always came at night. It would wake me up around 1 or 2 am, I would take ibuprofen or tylenol and go back to sleep. It would usually take my pain away within an hour. I never had any of these pains during my pregnancy but probably because I had terrible heart burn and avoided a lot of foods. As I told my story to the doctor of the pain and thinking back to what I ate that day, it did all correlate to the pain I was having with my gallbladder. They did a bedside ultrasound of my gallbladder which showed "sludge". I was told to followup with a full ultrasound and my primary care doctor. I put it off and told myself that I would just not eat super fatty foods. It seemed easy at first and I was able to figure out that not all fatty items bothered me. Pastries, cheese and greasy foods were the ultimate culprits to my pain. I was able to eat my greek yogurt which has a lot of fat but is good for you. 

As the past few months progressed these episodes of pain began to become more frequent and more severe. I finally scheduled myself for an ultrasound on December 10th. The ultrasound tech normally doesn't tell you what they see since they are not physicians but she told me she saw a 2 cm stone. As I waited that week to get my results back, the episodes were terrible. The following Monday we were flying to California for Disneyland and my doctor hadn't seen the results yet. I visited an urgent care clinic on Sunday before California. I had printed my ultrasound report out and brought it in to the clinic. The doctor took one look at it and told me I needed to get my gallbladder out sooner than later. She told me the episodes would only continue to get worse and more frequent and that there was no chance of saving my gallbladder. That was sort of bummer to me. I was hoping I could keep my gallbladder and just adopt a healthier diet. It sort of freaked me out to have surgery and to take out an organ. 

Disneyland came, I had one terrible afternoon but otherwise did pretty good at eating good there. However, while I was there I made appointments with surgeons for a consultation. I was able to get in to one on Monday December 23. I had to sneak away from work and be seen but it was super fast. I was seen by Dr. Nirula and he said it needed to come out. He didn't make it seem like it was urgent but my family practice doctor, urgent care doctor and Dr. Nirula all said if I waited too long, it could become infected and then the surgery would become emergent versus scheduled. I opted to have surgery on Thursday December 26th. 

I spoke with my manager and told him what I was having done. He seemed a little more concerned that I may be gone for New Years Eve and Day. I however was confident that having surgery the 26th of December and having 5 days off to recover would be sufficient for me. All the stories and people I have talked to recovered fairly fast and were back on their feet. I worked Christmas night and checked in for surgery right after my shift. Steve and my mom met me at the front of the hospital and we went up to Short Stay Surgery to be admitted. 

Oh and we waited and waited and waited to be taken in to surgery. I was supposed to go in at 8:30 but didn't go in until 11:30. I was so exhausted by the time I was taken in. I was also nervous about surgery. Having knowledge about what goes on in the medical field is a blessing but can also be a bad thing. This surgery was done under general anesthesia which requires me to be intubated. It really just freaked me out. The anesthesiologist came in and placed my iv and got some fluids hanging. Then he rolled me back to the operating room. I scooted myself over to the table and rested back. They gave me something through my iv to make me sleepy and then I was out.

I woke up around 4 pm in short stay surgery. They brought Steve in to keep me company. I couldn't take a deep breath without severe pain in my right side and I was so nauseated. Phenergan was amazing! Before I could go home, a list on the wall said I had to have pain under control, eat something and be able to pee. I had it in my head that I didn't want to stay so I took pain pills and then an hour later got up to the bathroom. Just getting up, the pain was so severe. I felt as though my abdomen was going to split open. I sucked it up and got discharged. The ride home was miserable, getting in and out of the truck was torture. Steve had to help me get in bed and lay down. At 5 am, I woke up and needed to pee. I physically could not sit myself up because of all the pain. Poor Steve had to lift me up and help me in the bathroom. Steve became my knight in shining armor nurse. It still felt as though my abdomen was going to rip apart. I became dizzy, sweaty and nauseated in the bathroom and ended up puking. Let's just say that was horrendous. 

Recovery from this surgery has not been easy. I felt like the biggest baby in the world. I just had laproscopic surgery to remove my gallbladder and I couldn't even get myself out of bed. I couldn't even move without my whole right side hurting. How in the world do the patients that just had open heart surgery with their sternums split open and chest tubes coming out of their abdomens, get up and walk one day after their surgery??? I had to be the biggest boob in the world. I slept sitting upright on our couch day and night. I developed a fever on Friday. We called the oncall MD but there wasn't much they could do over the phone. If I wanted a different pain medication, I had to go to the ED to be evaluated. There was no way I was getting into a car. It hurt so incredibly bad to even move. But they gave me the okay to take ibuprofen. That helped me out so much. I felt a lot better but I still could not get up or down without Steve lifting me. On Saturday, I was still nauseated and the Percocets were not taking care of my pain. I was getting sick and dizzy so I stopped taking the percocets and went to only tylenol and ibuprofen. Those two drugs didn't take away all my pain but at least I wasn't nauseated and dizzy anymore. I spoke with the oncall doctor again on Sunday because the pain wasn't really getting any better. I decided that I would be seen at the clinic on Monday. That night, I took a muscle relaxant and seemed to do much better. Maybe the reason I couldn't lay down on my own was all muscle related. I figured they could change my pain medication and give me a muscle relaxant. 

On Monday December 30, my dad picked me for my appointment and we swung by my brothers to pick up my niece. Steve had taken Emma to his mom that morning since I can't lift greater than 10 pounds for awhile. They evaluated me in the back room and decided to another ultrasound to look for any free fluid. I had the ultrasound done and they did find free fluid. The next step was to determine what type of fluid was hanging out in my abdominal cavity. I had to have a drain placed in my abdomen. We waited all afternoon to get in for the procedure. Steve left work early and came up to hang out with me. We finally got in around 4 pm. They place the drain using a CT scan so they can put it right where the fluid is. They put the drain in and suddenly I had all this excruciating pain in my right shoulder and side. I felt like I was going to die from the pain. I couldn't move because they had strapped my arms in so they wouldn't fall off the table or get in the way. It turns out that they had placed the drain to suction and that had caused all the pain. They took it off suction and placed it to a gravity drain which was much better. The fluid in the tube was bile. Somewhere in my abdomen one of the ducts didn't get clamped off and was now leaking bile. The bile was causing all of my pain. The doctors were quite surprised it wasn't infected since it had been leaking for 4 days. I was taken to short stay surgery to recover again and to get 2 antibiotics through my IV. I couldn't believe all this was happening to me. This was supposed to be a simple routine surgery. I was supposed to go back to work on December 31. I had cried all afternoon about what was going on. It really upset me. I wasn't upset at the doctors but just upset that I didn't recover fast. 

Steve left at 7 pm to go pick Emma up and take her home. He sent me a bunch of pictures since I hadn't seen her all day and wouldn't see her when I got home. My parents picked me up when my antibiotics were finished and took me home. I still couldn't lay down on my back without help but my pain was much better. I slept sitting upright in the bed which is really quite hard to do. It's hard on my neck and my rear end.

The next day December 31, Steve dropped his girls off at his in-laws for the day while he went to work. My mom took care of us while my dad ran errands and took my 93 almost 94 year grandma to renew her drivers license. I decided that I wouldn't eat just in case they could get me in for the next operation that day. I now needed to have a procedure called an ERCP to place a stent between the leaking bile duct and my intestine/stomach. The hospital finally called around 11 and the procedure wouldn't be until Friday. I was quite disappointed to not get things done yet. I actually felt the best I had since before surgery. My pain was very minimal as long as I took my pills, I was able to move, crouch down, lean back on the couch, and eat real food! It was amazing. I finally got to cuddle with Emma too. I hadn't been able to cuddle with her since Christmas because it hurt too much. That was the best part of the day!

I had the ERCP on January 3, 2014. We arrived to the Huntsman Cancer Hospital at 6 am to be checked in and prepped for the procedure. I went in around 7:30 am and was done by 9 am. Dr. Adler told us everything went well and that they put a stent in my pancreatic duct to prevent pancreatitis and one in my common bile duct. I could go home when I was fully awake. Unfortunately for me, I just don't do great with any sort of anesthesia, I get extremely nauseated. I was sick all morning and couldn't move because I felt so awful. They finally had to give me phenergan and that helped tremendously but made me very tired. I became indecisive on whether I should stay the night or go home. I felt I had made the wrong decision the day of gallbladder surgery and I didn't want to do that again. In the end, I felt that nausea wasn't a reason to stay in the hospital and that I would feel better once I was home. The drive home took forever! I was still nauseated but also so tired. I tried so hard to keep my eyes focused on something a head of us so I wouldn't get car sick. It was awful. But once I got home and settled in to the couch, I felt better. Almost instantly, my drain stopped putting out so much bile. Every day it decreased which was great.

I saw Dr. Nirula on January 8th. My drain had pretty much stopped draining. It even stopped draining what I was flushing into it. And that morning before the appointment when I flushed the drain, all the fluid leaked around the site and onto the bandage. With all that being said and done, we decided to pull the drain out. I was so happy to get it out!!! That hurt pretty bad when he pulled it out. It felt so weird but also so painful at the same time. It gave me back pain right after and I couldn't sit up on my own. After about 10 minutes of relaxing I was able to get up and move around. Then I told Dr. Nirula that my throat hurt and that the medication seems to be coating my tongue and throat. I had a feeling that I had thrush and as he looked into my mouth, he confirmed it. What else could go wrong on my road to recovery???

Nystatin is actually not terribly tasting in the beginning. It is quite sweet and sort of hurts my teeth like they have cavities all over. It gives all the sores in my mouth a stinging sensation and then later on my whole mouth has this terrible taste to it. One of the antibiotics I am on already makes my mouth taste terrible and now I have another one to make it even worse. Couldn't drink water since I started the antibiotics and now even more things taste awful. 10 days of this new medication and maybe I will be good from there.

On Monday January 13, Steve and I dropped Emma off with his mom and made another trek up to Huntsman Cancer Hospital. This time I was having a routine EGD to have the pancreatic stent removed. Just in case I got sick, they gave me a dose of Zofran first before the sedation began. This time was much faster and easier. I woke up without any nausea. We walked out of there and had lunch at The Point then picked Emma up. Steve took us home and he went to work for the rest of the day.

The last thing I have to have done is another ERCP in February to remove the bile duct stent and make sure the leaking duct is completely healed. I am back to work now and I getting more energy the longer I work. No more midday naps for me.