I know. I'm weird. If you haven't figured that out by now, you're a little slow on the uptake. But nevertheless . . .
Rex had his gall bladder out yesterday morning. We arrived at the surgery center at 6:00am (when God's not even awake) and I have to say that everyone there was disgustingly perky for that hideous hour of the morning. I guess if you have a job like that, it's a good thing to be a morning person, but good gracious! Anyway, they took Rex back into surgery right on time--at 7:30am. Two of our deacons came and sat with me during the procedure--very sweet ladies--and so it turned out that I didn't need to bring my 10 Parents magazines after all. I lugged that heavy bag all over the place for nothing ;)
The surgery lasted a little longer than expected due to a couple of snags--nothing serious, but the doctor told me that Rex made him work for his money ;) Evidently, the cystic bile duct was nearly closed up with scar tissue and so they couldn't get the catheter in there to do all the things they had planned to do. After quite a few tries, they ended up doing things a little differently, but it all worked out. Then, one of the incisions wouldn't stop bleeding, so they ended up putting a stitch in it. The gall bladder had some scar tissue on it, which indicated past inflammation, and then of course, the bile duct was in bad shape, probably due to some "grit" (as the doctor called it) passing through there from time to time. And then there were the polyps. So, it was a good thing that Rex went ahead with the surgery.
They gave him some extra meds for nausea that acted like a double-whammy with the anesthesia, so Rex was out cold for some time. When they invited me back to the recovery area, I couldn't even rouse him. They told me that he had been a "wild man" and right after surgery was rolling around a lot and even flipped over on all fours. Of course, he was out of it and didn't know about any of it. When he finally woke up and they told him about it, all he could think of was the open-backed gown he had on and he said, "Did I moon everybody?" The nurse and I were cracking up, and she said with a smile, "We didn't look. We're professionals." Anyway, we didn't get to leave until noon because Rex just couldn't stay awake. He crashed on the couch as soon as we got home and slept like a rock until about 2:30. He's got good drugs, although he's been taking Ibuprofen instead this afternoon. He's had a healthy appetite, which is good. The nurse said he couldn't pick Nathan up for a week, but I remember the doctor saying it wasn't that big of a deal. I think we'll ask him about it when we call to make the post-op appointment on Monday. It's killing him (and Nathan too) not to be able to pick him up, particularly when Nathan's always coming up to him and saying, "Pick up! Pick up!"
It's odd, but yet totally miraculous how the body works. They said that Rex wouldn't even miss his gall bladder because the liver takes over and compensates for the fact that it's gone. So he doesn't have to take any extra meds or anything, which is good. That's wild to me.
Well, that's about all I know about gall bladders--and just that my husband is now minus his. We're glad to have it over and done with and praying for speedy healing with no infections or complications. We're also praying that he will feel tons better after having this done. Judging by what his insides looked like before, he definitely should!
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