Stuck in the Middle or On the Road Again?

Some of my gallstones. My pinky finger
is in the shot for size comparison.

Well, my surgery went well. Since then I'm not sure if I am stuck in the middle of recovery or if I am on the road to recovery in the slow lane. 9 gall stones were retrieved from my gall bladder last Tuesday & my gall bladder was removed. The surgeon mentioned that my gall bladder was also filled with more of a mucous substance instead of the normal bile which means it wasn't really functioning anymore. Are you grossed out yet? If not, here are the photos to make some of you excited and others turn away in disgust!

 

And this is what my insides look like!

The laproscopic surgery was pretty cool, but in order to do the surgery they filled my abdomen up with CO2 gas. It was pretty painful waiting for those gases to move out the first couple days. Recovery for the first six days was pretty much on schedule.  Starting Monday, I've kindof fallen off the recovery scale a bit as most foods beyond rice & yoghurt seems to give fantom gall bladder attack pain. This morning's attack seemed to be brought on by a handful of saltine crackers. I think what brought on the downslide was a chicken soup which was the non-low fat kind. (Apparently chicken soup & saltines are not the cure-all for everything!) At my recheck on Tuesday, the surgeon was hoping I'd had a little better progress.

I am still trying to keep an extremely bland and fat-free diet and supplemented with regular tylenol or ibuprofen doses. This seems to keep the pain mostly under control, and hopefully will give my digestive system the chance to recoup. In the meantime, I am craving cheese & pizza...can't wait until I can have such goodies again! It was so bad that today I looked at the nutrition label of a frozen pizza in the health food section made with tofurkey (tofu & turkey?). That's got to be healthy right? It's fat content was 8 g -- a level which would likely have me calling the emergency room & double dosing on the oxycodone for sure. Don't worry I quickly left that section!

Meanwhile, I am still hoping to get out of Seattle next weekend to begin my cross-country trek to Greenville, NC. Thanks to my friends Fred & Vicki I am staying in their home, most of my worldly possessions are living in their garage and Mia is tied in the back yard. I am sure glad that all 4 of their kids are out of the house so that I could move in! I do have a home that I signed a lease on in Greenville, so I am happy to not have to pay rent on two houses this month. 

My pile of STUFF

Well that's it for tonight. I just wanted to give an update & let you know that I appreciate your prayers!