I Had Emergency Gallbladder Surgery. This Is How I Knew Something Was Terribly Wrong

What are the signs and symptoms of a gallbladder attack? Let’s discuss, so YOU know what to look for…

Something felt very wrong when I woke up at 6 am on a Saturday morning in early October.

Off.

Not good.

Terrible pain in my upper right abdominal area, just under the ribs, accompanied by worse-than-pregnancy nausea. I had no fever, but I did have severe chills and clamminess.

Something was seriously not okay. 

Run through the mental checklist:

• Was I perhaps constipated? (Sorry, real talk today.) No.
• Had I eaten or drunk something that didn’t agree with me? Not that I could think of.

I popped a few Tylenol and went back to sleep.

When I woke a few hours later, the pain and nausea had lessened significantly, so I went on about my day: errands, lunch with my daughter, and a nail appointment. Typical Saturday.

When we got home from all that, the pain intensified quickly, and nausea became unbearable. After a few more hours of thinking I was just having some GI issue, my guy looked at me and said, “Baby. You’re whiter than a sheet. In our eight years together, I’ve never seen you like this. Let’s go to the ER.”

My wonderful man, who hates hospitals and anything medical, made the decision for me because I was completely incapable of rational thought. I became a quivering ball of pain. That’s it.

My 23-year-old daughter helped get me in my car and drove us all to the closest hospital ER (my guy doesn’t drive). Those five miles felt like the longest of my life as I felt every bump times one thousand.

I’m here. In the ER. Where’s the relief?

Emergency rooms are helpful for many things, but rapidity isn’t always one of them, depending on the issue at hand. After triage (first assessment), and tests (labs and ultrasound) which took several hours, they finally gave me one pain pill (hydrocodone) and one anti-nausea med (Zofran).

At this point, I’ve been in terrible, unrelenting pain for over 8 hours. Now listen: I get migraines. I’ve given birth twice. I’ve had kidney stones. None a walk in the park, but compared to what I was feeling, those were kiddie rides.

Liver enzymes = high. White blood cell count = high. Distress and pain level = high. This was not going to resolve on its own. They confirmed what I had feared — that I’d need emergency surgery. They admitted me to the ER at that point, placing me in a temporary room until they had an available patient room.

Talk with the surgeon. For two minutes. Decide.

My mom, a retired x-ray tech, has always reminded us that surgeons love to cut, so always get a second opinion. I would have handed the surgeon the scalpel right then and there at my pain level. Fortunately, they gave me a room and put me on Fentanyl via IV.

Finally…relief!

A few hours later, around 5 am, I’m abruptly woken by the morning lab tech. The surgeon entered no more than an hour later and said, “Let’s remove it. Your blood work shows severe distress, which will not go away by itself. And these painful attacks will just keep happening.”

I don’t get a second opinion. Any anxiety I had (which I did) is quickly remedied by the pain and nausea I was experiencing. The pain and nausea provide a quick answer.

“Get the f*cker out,” were, I believe, my exact words. The nurse smiled in agreement.

Surgery was not on my weekend activity schedule, but okay…

The surgery team prepped me and wheeled me into surgery at 7 am that Sunday morning, less than 24 hours since all this fun started. I’ve been a patient for maybe five hours at this point.

Opioid pain meds and Zofran had managed the horrific symptoms slightly, but I knew I had to put my faith in their capable hands and have them remove my gallbladder to avoid future issues.

When I awoke in recovery, I immediately recognized that I was dealing with a completely different kind of pain: surgical pain. Abdominal surgery is serious sh*t.

Breathing hurt. Moving hurt. Sleeping hurt.

They kept me for 2 more nights, managing my pain, checking my labs, and trying to get me to poop (sorry). If you’ve ever been in the hospital, you know of what I speak. All body systems must be a “go” before you leave.

How did I know what it was?

I didn’t. Had no clue. Came out of nowhere. Most people walk around for years, decades even, without a single gallbladder issue — even with gallstones — and have no idea. I certainly didn’t.

So here’s what to look for:

When gallstones get stuck while traveling through the duct (tube) to the stomach, they block the outflow of bile, which causes the gallbladder to spasm. This usually leads to sharp pain, like being cut by a knife, under the rib cage in the upper right side or center of the abdomen. The pain can be so severe that it takes your breath away. You might mistake it for a heart attack.

Other common symptoms of a gallbladder attack include:

• Pain that lasts several hours

• Abdominal pain after eating

• Nausea or vomiting

• Fever or chills

• Light-colored stool

• Brownish-colored urine

• Yellowing of skin or whites of eyes

Seek immediate medical care if you are having some of these symptoms (Johns Hopkins).

I know jack about gallbladders (though the Big Pharma company I worked for had a gallstone product, I never sold it), so I had no idea what it does or if I even needed it.

Oh, well. Gally (rhymes with Molly) had to go. Bye, now.

Gallbladder removal surgery (cholecystectomy) is frequently performed laparoscopically, as mine was.

During this minimally invasive procedure, a tiny camera is inserted into one of several keyhole-size incisions to guide the surgeon in the removal process. The benefits of laparoscopic surgery include less need for pain medication and a quicker recovery. (Johns Hopkins)

The surgeon explained that I was having what was basically colic. No wonder babies scream for hours with it, poor little things.

Am I okay without a gallbladder?

What does our gallbladder do exactly? Will I be able to live functionally without it? Why do we have it if it’s not necessary, Evolution?

Your gallbladder is a small, pear-shaped organ that stores and releases bile. Bile is the fluid your liver produces that helps digest fats in your food. (Cleveland Clinic)

It stores small amounts of bile that are released into the small intestine after eating to aid in the digestion of fats. However, it can also become the source of painful and troublesome symptoms should it become inflamed or develop gallstones.

Gallbladders are considered vestigial organs — not necessary for life. Fun fact: gallstones can still form without a gallbladder, so having surgery didn’t eradicate that possibility. Yay.

The presence of gallstones in the common bile duct is known as choledocholithiasis. They can also be found in the cystic duct and common hepatic duct. They are also known as bile duct stones or gallstones in the bile duct. Bile duct stones are made up of bile pigments or calcium or cholesterol salts (Disease Fix).

Friends and family are amazing. Nurses are angels here on earth. And you never know where you’ll meet a new friend.

They wheeled T into my semi-private room at about midday on Sunday. I was out of it from the anesthesia, so I didn’t even notice I had a roommate til much later that day.

We introduced ourselves and soon crashed.

When the lab tech came in at 5 am the next morning to take T.’s blood, I hear the agony in her voice as they keep poking at her. Her veins are so depleted, they can’t get a good draw. She was back in the hospital due to surgery complications and was clearly in enormous pain.

I called for the nurse, got up out of bed, walked over, and asked if I could hold her hand. “Please, sweetheart,” she replied. I sat and held her hand for just a few minutes, but that’s all it took to form a bond.

I scooched back to my bed, IV pole and all, when help came. Being there for someone else, even for only those few minutes amid my mess, helped me further understand the meaning of compassion.

T. is Christian. I was raised Jewish. She’s black. I’m white. Didn’t matter. We were both at our most vulnerable and alone. My heart grew even more. She says God brought us together. While not religious, I agree that a universal energy force brought us together.

Who knew that this dreadful experience would bring such light?

Okay, so I’m home.

Surgery is hard on the body. Even a relatively healthy body like mine. Even with “just” a laparoscopy. They sent me home with prescriptions for an opioid (one every six hours as needed for pain; no longer than a week), stool softeners, and an antibiotic, with recs for OTC meds once the surgical pain calmed down.

Sure, at 58, I’m not as fit as when I was younger, and an athlete, but ya know…life. Pandemic. Time. Weight loss can also trigger gallbladder issues.

Doctors learn about the 5 Fs for gallbladder disease in medical school:

• fair
• fat
• female
• fertile, and
• forty

Well, I’m fair, female, not fertile, well over 40…am I fat? I’m certainly not stick thin, and I have lost 25 pounds over the past few years. Thanks for sharing this with me, medical community. (And, not always true, considering my father had his removed a few years back, and except for ‘fair,’ he had none of the other issues.)

What about another F: family history? Is gallbladder disease hereditary? Each doctor told me something different. More here:

Validating the 5Fs mnemonic for cholelithiasis: time to include family history — PubMed https://buff.ly/3Dz9Z9m

Moving on…

Let’s discuss pain and pain meds.

It’s no secret that we have an opioid problem, pretty much wherever one lives in the world. Humans experience pain. We need pain relief. Opioids definitely have their place as they manage pain effectively (when not abused).

As a former rep, I saw first-hand the damage done by opioid addiction (I sold blood pressure meds — nothing exciting). With the advent of oxycontin, that increased a million-fold.

I’m grateful these meds are still used in a well-monitored hospital setting. It would be unimaginable otherwise. When I say the pain was awful, I mean on a scale of 1–10, I was at 100. Dilaudid was the primary IV pain med they used 24 hours post-surgery; switched to oral the next day.

There are downsides, of course. I have naturally very low blood pressure, and opioids can cause it to go down even more. Not great. They cause constipation, which is antithetical to being released. Tylenol alone can be effective post-op (there’s even an IV version); however, it can also cause an increase in liver enzymes. Not good when we’re already taking pain relief containing acetaminophen, which can be hard on the liver.

As of today, I’m only taking OTC Aleve, and that‘s pretty effective. Hope to be off that in another week.

Going forward…

I had already changed my eating habits after the first year of the pandemic and lost weight. Now, I have to be even more mindful of healthy eating.

Gallstones can still form even without a gallbladder. Who knew? 

Low-fat diets are crucial to maintain gut health without Gally. Smaller portions are also very helpful, as I’m still dealing with the carbon dioxide gas pumped into my tummy (which inflates the abdomen to make it easier for my surgeon to access my gallbladder). This should be gone completely 4–6 weeks, post-surgery.

Every nurse I met there, save one, had her gallbladder removed. Also, just being female puts us at higher risk:

According to the American College of Gastroenterology, women between the ages of 20 and 60 are three times more likely to develop gallstones than men (San Diego Tribune).

Lessons learned…

• Don’t wait to go to the ER because you feel like “it’s not that big a deal.” Most of us are not medical professionals. If it feels wrong, it is. Trust your gut.
• Listen to the nurses. The care I received was amazing, and I have an HMO, not some fancy insurance. Nurses don’t care. They want to help.
• Ask a lot of questions. Being our own advocate is crucial, even when incapacitated.
• Hospital food isn’t nearly as disgusting as I remembered; however, I still wouldn’t eat the meatloaf (loathe it). No, I won’t like your recipe, either.

• Don’t put sugar in your scrambled eggs. One would think I’d know this, but, pain meds. (What. They both start with an S, and I was loopy. The nurses said it happens all the time. That, or patients put salt in their coffee.🤮)

Soooo many people have asked me, ‘How did you know what it was?” and my answer is the same to everyone: I didn’t.

I trusted my gut, my guy, and the healthcare system. Being incapacitated is a fear I’ve carried around for decades, most particularly as a single mom of two and the family breadwinner. Fortunately, I have systems and tools in place for BadRedhead Media, so everything went smoothly, work-wise.

I’m still processing the entire experience, but I know this is true: I’m a survivor in every sense, and this proved that even further. For that, I’m truly grateful.

 

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