My Gallbladder

As most of you know, I've been having stomach pains for a while now. It's been pretty painful at times, but it's never really been that bad. A couple months ago while visiting my parents I had a little "episode" where it's was really bad and my dad finally gave me an oxicodine to numb the pain. The next morning he was talking to me about a couple things it might be and we (he and my mom) decided that it was probably GERD. (Yea, kirsta!!) That stands for Gastroesophogial Reflux Disease. I sort of always thought it was something more than that but wasn't sure what so I went along. At the doctor a couple weeks ago I mentioned the pain and my dad's diagnosis and he gave me some acid reflux pills. I've been taking those for about 10 days and I also started a food log to show a specialist that I had an appointment with on the 25th of this month. Then on Saturday night I went over to Jonathan's aunt's house for a get-together that she was having. We ate pizza and sat around and talked for a while but by the time Jonathan got there at about 9:30 I was in some pain. I drank a lot of water and took a couple Tylenol but by the time we left there about 45 minutes later I was hurting pretty bad. Around midnight that night I was begging Jonathan to call his mom and see if she would let me drink some of the prescription stuff she had for her Hiatal hernia ( a hernia that's in your abdomen.) He described my pain to her and as he was driving over there to pick up the stuff for me she called me and said I needed to go to the ER because she thought it was either my appendix or my gallbladder. We got to the ER and of course they had tons of questions to ask me, when all I wanted was some pain killers! Finally they hooked me up to morphine, which was a wonderful thing. The doctor came in a took and ultrasound and sure enough, there was my gallbladder, full of stones. They told me I could go home and have an appt. with the doctor on Mon, or I could admit myself right then and see if I could get them out sooner than later. Of course I didn't want to go home!! What if it happened again?! So I admitted myself and stayed the night in the ER. The next morning Jonathan's mom called her favorite surgeon to see what he could do. It's always a benefit to know someone who works at the hospital! He was in my room about 30 minutes later ready to get those suckers out! I'm home now, recovering for a couple days before going back to work, but lucky for all of you, we got pictures!! Turn your head if you get grossed out easily!

Here are the stones in proportion to my hand. The Doc told me they were as big as me!!

Here they are up close. They're freakin huge!! Thank goodness that's over.

Here's my belly. My belly button is in the middle, and that's where they take your gallbladder out. The 3 "button-hole" incisions on the side are where the surgeons put their tools and camera. I guess they blow your stomach up like a big balloon so they can see what's going on in there. Now it just feels like I have really bad gas! :( So, there you have it. My very first trip to the hospital!