I have gone “under the knife” three times in my life. The first was to repair my torn ACL when I was 16. The second was when I had my wisdom teeth out. I’m not sure how much that one really counts but I was under and things were removed. My most recent surgical experience was last week with my gallbladder being removed.
It wasn’t a surprise procedure, I had actually had it planned for more than a month. For quite a few years, I had what I called gallbladder attacks, which consisted of an intense pain in the middle of my chest. I only got them, at most, once or twice a year, so I wasn’t too concerned.
Then, last fall, I started getting pain in my upper right chest after eating. I knew it wasn’t heart burn because I had experienced that when I was pregnant and this felt totally different. After a little internet research, which at times can be terrifying, I decided to head to the doctor to get some answers. One short ultrasound later and I was told my gallbladder was full of stones and it wasn’t getting better any time soon.
The only real course of action was removal and after talking with my surgeon a date was set. I didn’t think a whole lot about the surgery until the weekend before, when I proceeded to get very anxious and nervous. I am not one who likes to give up control and this surgery was doing that and removing an organ from my body.
The day of the surgery I had to arrive at 8:45 a.m. for prep. After sitting around for a bit, I headed back to get ready. Everyone there gave me all the confidence in the world that things would be fine and it was a common surgery done more than 600,000 times per year in the United States.
As I headed back to the operating room I was feeling OK, but that might have also been the fun meds they were putting in my IV, too. I remember moving from my comfy bed on wheels to the operating table, laying down and that was about it. I didn’t even get a chance to count down from 10.
I woke up some time later in the recovery room and was soon moved back to my room. To my surprise, when offered a choice of drinks my favorite Mt. Dew was an option. As soon as she said it all I could think about was tasting my favorite caffeinated drink.
My recover went pretty well. As soon as the fun meds from the hospital wore off it was a little rough but a day or two later I felt a lot better.
My girls did a good job avoiding mommy’s tummy, although we had one incident with my youngest putting her hand directly on my incision site, causing a lot of pain for me and tears for her when she realized what happened. After plenty of reassurance that I was OK, she calmed down we’ve done great ever since.
About a week later things are going well and hopefully in another week I will be completely back to normal. While having the surgery was necessary, I hope it is a long time, if ever, before I have to go “under the knife” again.
Contact Jamee A. Pierson at 641-792-3121 ext. 6534 or jpierson@newtondailynews.com