As promised, I did say I had a very good reason for the lack of posts since my last hospital stay.
You are looking at a fluoroscope image taken during my ERCP procedure.
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| One has to make the pain faces a little more interesting |
After having my gallbladder removed, I thought I was in the clear in any further pain dept.
Imagine my surprise when I had an episode of pain that felt like another attack! Another visit to the ER left me with not a whole lot of answers and no sleep that night, after having a CT scan and the doc saying it must have been some trapped gas from the surgery a week prior.
Fastforward a week later to having another episode of sudden pain while at a birthday party with the kids. I was determined to try and wait out the pain in the car so the kids and I could enjoy being out at the lake. The pain did die down, but I was left with a nagging low ache. Matt was gone for the weekend with a ministry commitment and I didn't feel like I was in enough pain to require him to return early.
This dull ache continued into church the next day, but I thought I wasn't watching my fats close enough.
***TMI ALERT***
At the end of the night, it was discovered after very bad abdominal pain that your poop can turn an off white color.
Matt....could you please go Google "White poop"
Another trip to the ER was in order. They did an ultrasound of my liver and a blood panel. Tests came back fine except for some elevated liver levels, which they prescribed an antibiotic with Zofran and more pain killers.
At this point, I thought I was finally on the road to healing and wasn't going to bother with making a follow up appointment with my surgeon. Matt gave me the stink eye and said yes you are.
That morning I loaded up the kids and was planning my day for after the appointment with a trip to the mall to return some clothing, a meal at Panera and maybe even a stop at Joann Fabric.
Boy, did my afternoon quickly change when the doctor didn't like my elevated levels and was wanting to admit me for further testing.
Another CT scan with barium found that my common bile duct which is normally 2 mm wide was now 8 mm. A gastroenterologist me with me and said that there must be a gallstone stuck and causing me all this pain and needed to be removed before more serious complications ensued.
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| Top left is my odee. Bottom L is the stone in my small intestine. R is the scope |
I was put under general anesthesia so they could put a scope down into my small intestine and shove a stent up the opening of the "odee" (shunt that lets the bile out for digestion) up into the bile duct and blow a small balloon to squeegee any stones lurking. There was NO WAY I would have passed the stone on my own as I guess I had the tiniest odee in his experience to deliver the stone though. Before going under, I insisted in them saving the stone for curiosity, but they just let it drop and let it pass through. So pictures were the next best thing to understand all that went on.
After getting out of recovery, I was starving as I had been under "nothing by mouth" orders for most of the time with a few clear liquids from time to time. I was pissed to find that I still had to wait another 6 hours until I could eat anything again. Thanks to my roommates daughter, who snuck me in some McDonalds contraband....it tasted heavenly!
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| Eliza's picture taking skills |
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| Bedtime visits with story time |
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| Nolan was ALL OVER my hospital room |
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| This is the sorry looking plate of hospital food after they gave me a regular diet. |
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